IASC-LARS Webinar Courses on Computational Statistics and Data Science

Geostatistical Functional Data Analysis

23–25 February 2021

The Latin American Regional Section of the IASC, the IASC-LARS School on Computational Statistics and Data Science, the IASC and the ISI held a second and successful IASC-LARS Webinar on Computational Statistics and Data Science. The webinar course “Geostatistical Functional Data Analysis” was team-taught by Professors Martha Bohorquez and Rubén Guevara from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia, from February 23-25, 2021. The course had one collaborator, Juan Guevara from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

One hundred and eighty-five students completed their registration form on the IASC webpage. Of these 185 students, 71 attended the course. One hundred and thirty-eight students pre-registered for the course on the GTW platform. From now on, we will centralize student enrollment and data collection on the GTW platform. The course was attended by 84 students, 71 students submitted their registration forms, 53 (63%) students attended on 2 or 3 days. Participants came from 23 countries, from Latin America –Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, México, and Uruguay and from countries as far as away as Algeria, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey, and the USA. Most of the students were undergraduate, master and PhD students (38%), also attending academics and researchers (38%), and professionals coming from government institutions and private industry, 18% of the students were female.

The International Organizing Committee consisted of Alba Martínez-Ruiz IASC-LARS Scientific Secretary (Chile), David Muñoz-Negron IASC-LARS Chairperson (Mexico), and Luis Firinguetti-Limone IASC Webinar Coordinator & Webinar Host (Chile). Katie Junasova, Junior Webmaster at the International Statistical Institute, provided support with the organization and the GoToWebinar platform.

The webinar course was supported by the Latin American Regional Section of the International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC-LARS), the International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC), the International Statistical Institute (ISI), and the Statistical Capacity Building Program.

Objectives of the IASC-LARS School on Computational Statistics and Data Science

1. To spread the knowledge base and advances in Statistical Computing in Latin America and the world,
2. To provide an overview of the state-of-the-art of the ongoing research in computational statistics,
3. To provide an overall perspective of the application of computational statistics in data science problems,
4. To present applications where computational statistics have been crucial to solve problems in real-life applications, and
5. To increase the number of researchers and practitioners in computational statistics and data science.

Agenda and course program

• Tuesday, February 23, 9.00 am.
  • Background
    • Spatial and spatio-temporal scalar random fields
    • Kriging
    • Cokriging
    • Examples
• Wednesday, February 24, 9.00 am
  • Multivariate spatial functional random field
    • Introduction to functional data analysis
    • Recent advances in spatial functional data
    • Functional principal components
    • Examples
• Thursday, February 25, 9.00 am
  • Spatial prediction of functional random fields
    • Functional kriging
    • Functional cokriging
    • Basic network design and redesign concepts for functional data
    • Examples

Number of students by day

Not all the students attended the first day.

Number of students with registration form (country, gender, and occupation): 71.

Number of students attending 1, 2 or 3 days

53 students attended on 2 or more days.

Number of students by gender

Number of students by occupation

Number of students by country

29 (34.52%) students are from Latin America, 29 (34.52%) from Africa, 7 (8.33%) from Asia, 5 (5.95%) from Europe, 1 (1.19%) from the USA, no information for 13 (15.48%) students.

19 March 2021
Alba Martinez-Ruiz
IASC-LARS Scientific Secretary

Statistical Inference in Markov Processes

23–26 November 2020

The Latin American Regional Section of the IASC, the IASC-LARS School on Computational Statistics and Data Science, the IASC and the ISI held a first and successful IASC-LARS Webinar on Computational Statistics and Data Science. The webinar course “Statistical Inference in Markov Processes” was team-taught by Professors Verónica González-López and Jesús E. García from University of Campinas, Brazil, from November 23-26, 2020. The course had two collaborators, Mariela Fernández at B3 and Márcio Lanfredi Viola at Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil.

The course was attended by 71 students, 50 students attended on 2 or more days, 56 students submitted their registration forms. Participants came from 24 countries, from Latin America –Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay and from countries as far as away as Algeria, Austria, Bangladesh, Benin, Ethiopia, Germany, Ghana, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Malaysia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and the USA. Most of the students were undergraduate, master and PhD students (52%), also attending academics and researchers (20%), and professionals coming from government institutions and private industry, 24% of the students were female.

The International Organizing Committee consisted of Luis Firinguetti-Limone IASC Webinar Coordinator & Webinar Host (Chile), David Muñoz-Negron IASC-LARS Chairperson (Mexico), and Alba Martínez-Ruiz IASC-LARS Scientific Secretary (Chile). Katie Junasova, Junior Webmaster at the International Statistical Institute, provided support with the organization and the GoToWebinar platform.

The webinar course was supported by the Latin American Regional Section of the International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC-LARS), the International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC), the International Statistical Institute (ISI), the World Bank, and the Statistical Capacity Building Program.

Objectives of the IASC-LARS School on Computational Statistics and Data Science

1. To spread the knowledge base and advances in Statistical Computing in Latin America and the world,
2. To provide an overview of the state-of-the-art of the ongoing research in computational statistics,
3. To provide an overall perspective of the application of computational statistics in data science problems,
4. To present applications where computational statistics have been crucial to solve problems in real-life applications, and
5. To increase the number of researchers and practitioners in computational statistics and data science.

Agenda and course program

• Monday, November 23, 9.00 am.
  • Markov processes in finite alphabets with finite memory ([1], [2], [3])
    • Markov chains with fixed order
    • Variable length Markov chains
    • Partition Markov models
    • Examples from real data
• Tuesday, November 24, 9.00 am
  • Estimation of structures of Markov processes in finite alphabets with finite memory ([4], [2], [3], [5], [6])
    • Consistent criteria
    • Procedures and algorithms
    • Examples from real data
• Wednesday, November 25, 9.00 am
  • Structures in multiple Markov processes in finite alphabets with finite memory ([7], [8])
    • Insufficient memory to estimate a multivariate Markov process. Estimation through the empirical copula
    • Partition Markov model for multiple processes
    • Examples from real data
• Thursday, November 26, 9.00 am
  • Metrics in Markov processes on finite alphabets with finite memory ([3], [9], [10], [11], [12])
    • How to find parts of a partition
    • How to establish the discrepancy between processes
    • How to classify samples
    • Properties and statistical consistency
    • Examples from real data

Number of students by day

Number of students with registration form (country, gender, and occupation): 56.

Number of students attending 1, 2, 3 or 4 days

50 students attended on 2 or more days.

Number of students by gender

Number of students by occupation

Number of students by country

11 December 2020
Alba Martinez-Ruiz
IASC-LARS Scientific Secretary