[Statlist] ETH student wins the WCCI 2006 performace prediction challenge

[Christina Kuenzli]

              ETH and University of Zurich 

                           Proff. 
         A.D. Barbour - P. Buehlmann - F. Hampel 
              H.R. Kuensch - S. van de Geer

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  We are pleased to announce the following special talk
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           Friday, April 7, 2006, 15.15  LEO C 15

   ETH student wins the WCCI 2006 performace prediction challenge
 
        moderated by Isabelle Guyon (Clopinet, Berkeley)
       
A central problem in predictive modeling is to select the best model for 
a given task. Several models have proven to perform well in various 
contexts, including kernel methods, neural networks, and decision trees. 
Yet, none of them outperforms consistently the others across 
applications. Additionally, the selection of hyperparameters also 
appears to be critical. To benchmark solutions to those problems a 
challenge in "performance prediction" was organized for the WCCI 2006 
conference. Of 145 participants, three ETH students of the
Seminar für Statistik ranked 1,4, and 6.
The overall results of the challenge will be presented and the students 
will describe their methods.
________________________________________________________
Christina Kuenzli            <kuenzli at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Seminar fuer Statistik      
Leonhardstr. 27,  LEO D11      phone: +41 (0)44 632 3438         
ETH-Zentrum,                   fax  : +41 (0)44 632 1228 
CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland        http://stat.ethz.ch/~