Renato Paes Leme, Google Research New York

Thursday 4th May 2023 - MS.01 Zeeman building, at 18:15

As the famous Graham-Buffet quote says “price is what you pay; value is what you get" and every business success or failure is driven by the match or mismatch of the two. We will discuss a simple question in pricing algorithms: how to adjust prices over time to learn a buyer's valuation while minimizing revenue loss. This is a nice puzzle with a surprising solution. We will discuss the Kleinberg-Leighton algorithm and how to generalize it to multi-dimensional settings. There, we will do a detour to convex geometry and the theory of intrinsic volumes. We will also discuss how to measure the length of a potato.

Free attendance

There will be a reception after the lecture

Main contact point: K.G.Latuszynski@warwick.ac.uk

Warwick researchers in Statistics build DiAGRAM to help archivists ensure that the 1921 census and other archives remain digitally available as technologies become obsolete and carriers deteriorate.

Ian says: "The essay was based on the question "'What did the perfect day look like in the different stages of the pandemic? What does it mean for future productivity at work?" My response discussed the interconnectedness of work productivity with other productivities in our lives, both our own and of those around us." The essay can be viewed here.

Martine Barons, Director of the Applied Statistics & Risk Unit, together with
colleagues from the AU4DM network have produced a toolkit for communicating
climate risk which is set be presented at COP26 in the UN-managed space (Blue
Zone) which hosts the negotiations.
Martine worked with colleagues from the Analysis under Uncertainty for
Decision Makers (AU4DM) to win one of just seven mini-fellowships in Climate
Risk from the COP26 Universities Network. The team, consisting of Martine
Barons, Polina Levontin & Mark Workman (Imperial) and Jo Walton (Sussex),
put together an interactive climate risk communication workshop in
collaboration with another fellow, Freya Roberts (UCL). The workshop was held
on Friday 01 October as the final day of the COP26 Universities Network Climate
Risk Summit. The workshop was opened by Liz Bentley of the Royal
Meteorological Society and covered the myriad consideration that need to be
made when communicating between different domains of expertise, especially
when there are uncertainties, some of them deep. Freya and her team made a
digital ‘goodybag’ of science writing tips available at the close of the meeting.
In addition, and with case studies contributed from some more of the Climate
Risk fellows, the AU4DM team collaborated with designer Jana Kleineberg to
produce their Communicating Climate Risk Toolkit. The Communicating Climate
Risk Toolkit seeks to narrow the gap between climate science and climate action,
by providing insights, recommendations, and practical tools to support the
dialogue between scientists, decision-makers, and many diverse communities
that is required for effective action. The AU4DM team drew on expertise in
statistics, foresight, digital humanities and mathematical sciences as well as
broad experience in interfacing with decision-makers from business,
government and industry. This joins two previous publications by the AU4DM
team: Decision Support Tools for Complex Decisions under Uncertainty (2019)
and Visualising Uncertainty: An Introduction (2020) ; the latter has reached over
2000 reads on ResearchGate and many more elsewhere.
The 76-page first edition of the Communicating Climate Risk Toolkit is set to be
presented in the Blue Zone at COP26 Science Pavilion on Friday 05 November
16.30-17.30. The Blue Zone is the UN-managed space which hosts the
negotiations. The space brings together delegations from 197 Parties, alongside
observer organisations to share their stories at panel discussions, side events,
exhibits, and cultural events. All attendees within the Blue Zone must be
accredited by the UNFCCC. After gaining feedback form decision makers and
other attendees, the second edition is planned for early 2022.

Congratulations to Marta Catalano who has been announced as one of the
inaugural winners of the Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award, an award of the
International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) for junior researchers in
Bayesian statistics. In addition to Marta, both of the other winners in the
Europe/Africa/Asia/Oceania section have a Warwick connection. Dootika Vats
held an NSF fellowship at Warwick in 2017-19 and Sam Livingstone's
postdoctoral position at Bristol was part of the i-like programme, led by
Warwick. Congratulations all.