Publications by xi'an
a typo that went under the radar
A chance occurrence on X validated: a question on an incomprehensible formula for Bayesian model choice: which, most unfortunately!, appeared in Bayesian Essentials with R! Eeech! It looks like one line in our LATEX file got erased and the likelihood part in the denominator altogether vanished. Apologies to all readers confused by this nonsensica...
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a well-hidden E step
A recent question on X validated ended up being quite interesting! The model under consideration is made of parallel Markov chains on a finite state space, all with the same Markov transition matrix, M, which turns into a hidden Markov model when the only summary available is the number of chains in a given state at a given time. When writing dow...
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an accurate variance approximation
In answering a simple question on X validated about producing Monte Carlo estimates of the variance of estimators of exp(-θ) in a Poisson model, I wanted to illustrate the accuracy of these estimates against the theoretical values. While one case was easy, since the estimator was a Binomial B(n,exp(-θ)) variate [in yellow on the graph], the oth...
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a knapsack riddle?
The [then current now past] riddle of the week is a sort of multiarmed bandits optimisation. Of sorts. Or rather a generalised knapsack problem. The question is about optimising the allocation of 100 undistinguishable units to 10 distinct boxes against a similarly endowed adversary, when the loss function is and the distribution q of the adversa...
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A knapsack riddle [#2]?
Still about this allocation riddle of the past week, and still with my confusion about the phrasing of the puzzle, when looking at a probabilistic interpretation of the game, rather than for a given adversary’s y, the problem turns out to search for the maximum of where the Y’s are Binomial B(100,p). Given those p’s, this function of x is a...
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coauthorship and citation networks
As I discovered (!) the Annals of Applied Statistics in my mailbox just prior to taking the local train to Dauphine for the first time in 2017 (!), I started reading it on the way, but did not get any further than the first discussion paper by Pengsheng Ji and Jiashun Jin on coauthorship and citation networks for statisticians. I found the whole ...
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a riddle at the end of its tether
A simply worded riddle this week on The Riddler, about four ropes having non-uniform and unknown burning rates, the only constraint being they all burn completely in one hour. With the help of a lighter (or even a single match), what are the possible units of time one can measure by burning them? While I had worked out a range of possible times f...
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testing R code [book review]
When I saw this title among the CRC Press novelties, I immediately ordered it as I though it fairly exciting. Now that I have gone through the book, the excitement has died. Maybe faster than need be as I read it while being stuck in a soulless Schipol airport and missing the only ice-climbing opportunity of the year! Testing R Code was written b...
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Peter Lee (1940?-2017)
Just heard the sad news that Peter Lee, British Bayesian and author of Bayesian Statistics: An Introduction, has passed away yesterday night. While I did not know him, I remember meeting him at a few conferences in the UK and spending an hilarious evening at the pub. When the book came out, I thought it was quite fine an introduction to Bayesian ...
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what does more efficient Monte Carlo mean?
“I was just thinking that there might be a magic trick to simulate directly from this distribution without having to go for less efficient methods.” In a simple question on X validated a few days ago [about simulating from x²φ(x)] popped up the remark that the person asking the question wanted a direct simulation method for higher efficien...
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