Date: 2011-11-11

Time: 14:00-16:30

Location: UdeM

Abstract:

Guérin: I will study the long time behavior of a variant of the classic telegraph process, with non-constant jump rates that induce a drift towards the origin. This process can be seen as a toy model for velocity-jump processes recently proposed as mathematical models of bacterial chemotaxis. I will give its invariant law and construct an explicit coupling for velocity and position, providing exponential ergodicity with moreover a quantitative control of the total variation distance to equilibrium at each time instant. It is a joint work with Joaquin Fontbona (Universidad de Santiago, Chile) and Florent Malrieu (Université Rennes 1, France).

Staicu: We introduce a novel class of models for functional data exhibiting skewness or other shape characteristics that vary with spatial location. Such data are not envisaged by the current approaches to model functional data, due to the lack of Gaussian – like features. Our methodology allows modeling the pointwise quantiles, has interpretability advantages and is computationally feasible. The methods were motivated by and are illustrated with a state-of-the-art study of neuronal tracts in multiple sclerosis patients and healthy controls.

Speaker

Ana-Maria Staicu obtained her PhD from the University in Toronto and is currently Assistant Professor at the North Carolina State University. She works in functional data analysis and likelihood methods.

Hélène Guérin is an Associate Professor at Université Rennes 1. She obtained her PhD at the Université Paris X Nanterre. Her main research interests are in the probabilistic interpretation of nonlinear partial differential equations.