Calanques, calanques [aka 40/40]

Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2019 by xi'an

instituts interdisciplinaires d’intelligence artificielle

Posted in pictures, University life with tags , , , , , , , on April 26, 2019 by xi'an

Four French institutes have just been selected by [the jury mandated by] the French Government to become interdisciplinary institutes for artificial intelligence (3IA):

•    ANITI (Toulouse), centred at l’Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées
•    MIAI @ Grenoble Alpes (Grenoble), centred at l’Université Grenoble Alpes
•    PRAIRIE (Paris), centred à Inria
•    3IA Côte d’Azur (Nice), centred at l’Université Côte d’Azur

with Paris Dauphine, PSL Research University, a component of the third institute. (Where Prairie stands for PaRis Artificial Intelligence Research InstitutE.) This follows the “plan Villani“, launched by Cédric Villani to boost research in artificial intelligence in France and [possibly] slow down the brain drain of French IA researchers. With individual chairs attribued to each project, soon to be announced.

absint[he] post-doc on approximate Bayesian inference in Paris, Montpellier and Oxford

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2019 by xi'an

As a consequence of its funding by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) in 2018, the ABSint research conglomerate is now actively recruiting a post-doctoral collaborator for up to 24 months. The accronym ABSint stands for Approximate Bayesian solutions for inference on large datasets and complex models. The ABSint conglomerate involves researchers located in Paris, Saclay, Montpelliers, as well as Lyon, Marseille, Nice. This call seeks candidates with an excellent research record and who are interested to collaborate with local researchers on approximate Bayesian techniques like ABC, variational Bayes, PAC-Bayes, Bayesian non-parametrics, scalable MCMC, and related topics. A potential direction of research would be the derivation of new Bayesian tools for model checking in such complex environments. The post-doctoral collaborator will be primarily located in Université Paris-Dauphine, with supported periods in Oxford and visits to Montpellier. No teaching duty is attached to this research position.

Applications can be submitted in either English or French. Sufficient working fluency in English is required. While mastering some French does help with daily life in France (!), it is not a prerequisite. The candidate must hold a PhD degree by the date of application (not the date of employment). Position opens on July 01, with possible accommodation for a later start in September or October.

Deadline for application is April 30 or until position filled. Estimated gross salary is around 2500 EUR, depending on experience (years) since PhD. Candidates should contact Christian Robert (gmail address: bayesianstatistics) with a detailed vita (CV) and a motivation letter including a research plan. Letters of recommendation may also be emailed to the same address.

50/50 photography competition [another public image]

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , on February 17, 2019 by xi'an

estimation exam [best of]

Posted in Books, Kids, Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2019 by xi'an

Yesterday, I received a few copies of our CRC Press Handbook of Mixture Analysis, while grading my mathematical statistics exam 160 copies. Among the few goodies, I noticed the always popular magical equality

E[1/T]=1/E[T]

that must have been used in so many homeworks and exam handouts by now that it should become a folk theorem. More innovative is the argument that E[1/min{X¹,X²,…}] does not exist for iid U(0,θ) because it is the minimum and thus is the only one among the order statistics with the ability to touch zero. Another universal shortcut was the completeness conclusion that when the integral

$\int_0^\theta \varphi(x) x^k \text{d}x$

was zero for all θ’s then φ had to be equal to zero with no further argument (only one student thought to take the derivative). Plus a growing inability in the cohort to differentiate even simple functions… (At least, most students got the bootstrap right, as exemplified by their R code.) And three stars to the student who thought of completely gluing his anonymisation tag, on every one of his five sheets!, making identification indeed impossible, except by elimination of the 159 other names.

MASH in Le Monde

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2019 by xi'an

p-value graffiti in the lift [jatp]

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2019 by xi'an