[Statlist] seminar on statistics

[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 talks
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April 20, Thursday, 15.00-15.45h, LEO C 15

On Universal Prediction and Bayesian Confirmation
Marcus Hutter, IDSIA, Manno (Lugano)

Solomonoff completed the Bayesian framework by providing a
rigorous, unique, formal, and universal choice for the model class
and the prior. I will discuss in breadth how and in which sense
universal (non-i.i.d.) sequence prediction solves various
(philosophical) problems of traditional Bayesian sequence
prediction. I show that Solomonoff's model possesses many
desirable properties: Fast convergence and strong bounds, and in
contrast to most classical continuous prior densities has no zero
p(oste)rior problem, i.e. can confirm universal hypotheses, is
reparametrization and regrouping invariant, and avoids the
old-evidence and updating problem. It even performs well (actually
better) in non-computable environments.

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April 20, Thursday,  16.15 h,  LEO C 15

Introduction to the modern Minimum Description Length Principle
Peter Grünwald,  CWI, Amsterdam/EURANDOM, Eindhoven  

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April 21, Friday, 15.15 h,   LEO C 15
    
Inconsistency of Bayes and MDL under Misspecification        
Peter Grünwald,  CWI, Amsterdam/EURANDOM, Eindhoven  

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________________________________________________________
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/~