Archive for ENSAE
pace makers
Posted in pictures, Running, University life with tags Boulogne-Billancourt, Brooks, ENSAE, half-marathon, hare, Hauts de Seine, M6M, pacers, Paris, race, Seine, semi de Boulogne on November 15, 2025 by xi'an
le beurre et l’argent du beurre (have your cake and eat it too)[nicht den Fünfer und das Weggli]
Posted in Books, Kids, University life with tags École Polytechnique, beurre, bug, cake, Centrale Supélec, classes préparatoires, Engineering, ENSAE, enterprises, French education ministry, French politics, grandes écoles, have your cake and eat it too, Le Monde, Mines de Paris, sponsorship, Telecom ParisTech on October 21, 2025 by xi'an
A puzzling trend in French engineer school students is to contest the role of companies in their training or even the very training towards an engineering job, as illustrated by the above Le Monde article of last weekend. A former Polytechnique student has even published a book entitled Désertons, calling for deserting the job market. (Paradoxically on sale on Amazon!) These schools are indeed a French peculiarity in that they were initially created to train civil servants for the French State and later expanded to larger cohorts free to join public or private companies. They are radically distinct (and independent) from universities, in their entry mechanism (with a specific competition exam, requiring its own specific preparation public programme), in their training, and in their funding (three times higher per student and mostly issued from other ministries than the Ministry of Education, with minute fees if any). The State support extend to paying a salary to Polytechnique students during their studies, which should on principle be reimbursed when the students do not join a civil service or a public company although it is unclear if anyone has yet been asked to since 2000. (Not due to the 2000 bug!) I thus fail to get the logic of this contestation when the professional purpose of these schools is clear to everyone, when there exist alternatives in the (public) university system, and when the French State is supporting much more intensively this branch of the education system…
Congrats, Dr. Andral!
Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, University life with tags adaptive Monte Carlo algorithm, ENSAE, history of Monte Carlo, importance MCMC, importance sampling, jury, normalizing flow, Paris, PDMP, PhD thesis, PSL Research University, quasi-Monte Carlo methods, thesis defence, Université Paris Dauphine on November 27, 2024 by xi'an
approximate inference in theory & practice, IHP, Paris, 10-11 June 2024
Posted in Statistics, University life with tags approximate inference, conference, ENSAE, ESSEC, IHP, Institut Henri Poincaré, Panthéon, simulation-based methods, variational inference, workshop on March 6, 2024 by xi'an
Researchers from ESSEC and ENSAE are organising a workshop at Institut Henri Poincaré, next June. This workshop will focus on exploring the latest advancements in Approximate Inference methods, with an emphasis on techniques such as Variational Inference and its related approaches. We aim to explore recent breakthroughs in computer science and statistics that enable inference across large-scale models and big datasets, surpassing conventional simulation-based methods. The workshop will bring together researchers from statistics, computer science, and econometrics to exchange ideas on cutting-edge methodological advances and their practical applications. Registration is open and program is available.
sequential meetings in Edinburgh
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Arthur's Seat, Bayes Centre, COVID, CREST, Edinburgh, ENSAE, Holyrood Park, ICMS, international centre for mathematical sciences, Mike Titterington, pandemic, Scotland, sequential Monte Carlo, SMC, summer school, welcome to Scotland on October 24, 2023 by xi'an
There will be not one but two consecutive events in Edinburgh next May²⁴ on sequential Monte Carlo methods! Both hosted by the fantastic International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS) in Edinburgh Olde Town. Within the Bayes Centre. And running distance to Arthur’s Seat. (Reminding me of my first ICMS workshop in 2001 run with Mike Titterington. May have been my first week long visit to Edinburgh as well…)
First, a Summer School on Bayesian filtering: fundamental theory and numerical methods (SSBF 2024), Edinburgh (UK), May 6-10, 2024. This summer (in the Scottish sense!) school will cover topics related to fundamental theory, state-of-the-art methodologies, and real-world applications.
Second, a Sequential Monte Carlo workshop (SMC 2024), the week later, on May 13-17, 2024. The workshop will cover topics related to sequential Monte Carlo and nearby fields, from theory to applications, following earlier workshops in the series. Including the one at CREST in 2015.
Thanks to Víctor Elvira, Jana de Wiljes, and Dan Crisan for this double deal (and the opportunity to return to Scotland for the first time since the pandemic).
Xi'an's Og 