The SAMBa conference is an opportunity for students to showcase their work to members of the department, outside the department and at other Universities in a supportive environment.
The SAMBa conference is an opportunity for students to showcase their work to members of the department, outside the department and at other Universities in a supportive environment. The work of SAMBa students covers the entire spectrum of statistical applied mathematics: including projects in statistics, probability, analysis, numerical analysis, mathematical biology, fluid dynamics, machine learning and high-performance computing. The conference is organised by students and contains talks by SAMBa students, external speakers, and students from other departments of the University of Bath.
Random intersection graphs at criticality
Dr Katerina Kaouri, Cardiff University
Prof Martin Benning, University College London
Beyond backpropagation – a lifted Bregman framework for training and inversion of neural networks
In this talk, we present a novel framework for the training and regularised inversion of deep neural networks with proximal activation functions. The framework lifts the network parameter space into a higher dimensional space by introducing auxiliary variables and penalises these variables with tailored Bregman distances. Instead of estimating the network parameters with a combination of first-order optimisation method and backpropagation (as is state-of-the-art), we propose the use of non-smooth first-order optimisation methods that do not require backpropagation and are flexible enough to allow for distributed optimisation approaches. We present theoretical and computational findings for both training and inversion of neural networks. This is joint work with Xiaoyu Wang (Heriot-Watt), Audrey Repetti (Heriot-Watt) and Alexandra Valavanis (QMUL).
Prof Rebecca Killick, Lancaster University
Research Collaborations – why and are they worth it?
This talk is a reflection on the myriad of collaborations across my career thus far. I will attempt to give an honest reflection on the highs and lows of statistical, cross-disciplinary, and industrial collaborations I have experienced both locally and internationally. The talk will consist of several anecdotes along the way that have shaped my approaches to collaboration. I will conclude with a look at the future of research collaborations in the advent of virtual assistants (including AI-powered research tools) and the fast-evolving nature of academic research.
Best presentation – Beth Stokes Best poster – Sinyoung Park
Conference organising committee: Chiara Boetti, Diana De Armas Bellon, Henry Writer, Patrick Fahy and Veronika Chronholm
Conference sponsors: Wessex Water and CameraForensics
On Thursday 11 December 2014, the University of Bath hosted the official launch of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Statistical Applied Mathematics.
48 PhD students, academics and industrialists gathered at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution for the first SAMBa Integrative Think Tank.
SAMBa visited Mexico as part of a University delegation from 18-26 April.
For our second Integrative Think Tank (ITT) at the beginning of June, over 60 academics, students and industrialists came together for a week of collaboration.
The National University of Mongolia in Ulan Bator hosted the two week event on stochastic processes and applications.
Dr Alexandre Stauffer has been awarded an Early Career fellowship to develop mathematical tools to analyse random interacting systems.
Following a successful trip to Mexico in April, SAMBa staff have been awarded two grants to continue to build research links.
The first event in the BUC (Bath-UNAM-CIMAT) series took place in Guanajuato, Mexico during November and was a great success.
Lizabeth Peñaloza Velasco is joining the Department as a master’s student. She is the first Mexican exchange student to join the Department.
We hosted our biggest Integrative Think Tank (ITT3) yet in January with almost 90 people taking part.