François Caron (Oxford)
Bayesian nonparametric models for bipartite graphs

In this talk I will present a novel Bayesian nonparametric model for bipartite graphs, based on the theory of completely random measures. The model is able to handle a potentially infinite number of nodes and has appealing properties; in particular, it may exhibit a power-law behavior for some values of the parameters. I derive a posterior characterization, a generative process for network growth, and a simple Gibbs sampler for posterior simulation. Finally, the model is shown to provide a good fit to several large real-world bipartite social networks.

Davide Pigoli (Warwick)
Statistical methods for phonetic covariance operators in comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics is concerned with the exploration of languages evolution. The traditional way of exploring relationships across languages consists of examining textual similarity. However, this neglects the phonetic characteristics of the languages. Here a novel approach is proposed to incorporate phonetic information, based on the comparison of frequency covariance structures in spoken languages. In particular, the aim is to explore the relationships among Romance languages and how they have developed from their common Latin root. The covariance operator being the statistical unit, a framework is illustrated for inference concerning the covariance operator of a functional random process. First, the problem of the definition of possible metrics for covariance operators is considered. In particular, an infinite dimensional analogue of the Procrustes reflection size and shape distance is developed. Then, distance-based inferential procedures are proposed for estimation and hypothesis testing. Finally, it is shown that the analysis of pairwise distances between phonetic covariance structures can provide insight into the relationships among Romance languages. Some languages also present features that are not completely expected from linguistics theory, indicatingnew directions for investigations.