Archive for PSL

ERC Starting Grants 2025

Posted in Kids, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 13, 2025 by xi'an

Last week, the ERC announced the winners of the Starting Grant campaign for 2025.  Congrats to all recipients!

I am no longer a member of the PE1 (maths & data sciences) panel, hence did not contribute in the least to this selection. I noticed very few statistics and data science in the list (albeit obviously not hinting at any correlation with the previous sentence!), except for a project on computational stats. There is neither no one from my departments, even tough Warwick received one grant, nor from my research circles. The re-emergence of the UK as a strong proponent among the nations submitting projects is clear, while Italian candidates remain highly successful (incl. Bocconi!).

Since the EU States did not manage to unanimously agree on suspending the Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement last summer, despite Israel’s breach of human rights on the Gaza strip, there are also ten Israeli projects supported by EU on this round. (Unless the latest announcement of further sanctions by President Ursula von der Leyen suspending bilateral support to Israel does cover this financing.)

(almost) everything you need understand about AI [book review]

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Statistics, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 3, 2025 by xi'an

15 AI positions at Paris School of AI (PR[AI]RIE)

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2025 by xi'an

mostly [14] M[ar]C[h] seminar

Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2025 by xi'an

Monte Carlo [exam]

Posted in Kids, pictures, R, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2025 by xi'an

My final exam for the Monte Carlo course I taught last semester proved too much of a challenge for my fourth year students, despite being rather elementary and centred on accept-reject algorithms and importance/bridge sampling. One of the problems was a decomposition of the truncated Normal simulation method proposed by Marsaglia in 1963, found on X Validated!, which I had posted on the course Teams forum (and discussed on the ‘Og!). Obviously overlooked by the students as hardly anyone solved the central question… Quite a disappointment (and more exams to grade for the resit exam in June!)