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The 58th meeting of the Prague computer science seminar

Radim Jiroušek

From Graphical to Compositional Models

'Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, loves Bayesian networks.' This statement appeared in the titles of many newspaper and journal articles after October 28, 1996, when the Los Angeles Times published an interview with him. He said that Microsoft's competitive advantage was its expertise in Bayesian networks.

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March 21, 2024

4:15pm

Auditorium S5, MFF UK
Malostranské nám. 25, Praha 1
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'Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, loves Bayesian networks.' This statement appeared in the titles of many newspaper and journal articles after October 28, 1996, when the Los Angeles Times published an interview with him. He said that Microsoft's competitive advantage was its expertise in Bayesian networks. This declaration indisputably contributed to the popularity of Bayesian networks, and since that time, they have become a standard technique incorporated in statistical and data-mining software packages. However, Bayesian networks are only a part of the technology developed to handle multidimensional probability distributions efficiently.

The lecture will therefore also mention other, less famous, graphical models, as well as non-graphical tools, especially, compositional models. It will also show that most of the results valid for probability may be extended to other uncertainty theories, especially to belief functions. Thus, the audience will learn how to differentiate between combination and composition, and, for example, what belief functions have in common with the furniture sold by IKEA. The talk will be an author's subjective glimpse of almost 40 years of history and an opportunity to recollect some names that should be remembered.

Radim Jiroušek

Radim Jiroušek is a student and follower of the distinguished scientist of Greek origin, RNDr. Albert Perez, DrSc. Jiroušek graduated from the MFF UK (1969) and received academic degrees from the Academy of Sciences: CSc. (1979) and DrSc. (1993). After completing postgraduate studies, he accepted Perez's offer and commenced a research career at the Institute of Information Theory and Automation (ÚTIA) of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. After 1998, he participated in forming the Department of Mathematical Decision Theory at ÚTIA, which he afterward led for more than five years. He also started teaching at the Czech Technical University in Prague and the University of Economics, Prague, and served in different academic positions for nearly twenty years at the latter. The international professional community knows Radim Jiroušek primarily for publications concerning the representation of multidimensional probability distributions and later for his theory of compositional models. He is the author or co-author of more than a hundred and fifty publications. His name is also connected with Workshops on Uncertainty Processing (famous WUPES), which have been organized since 1988. He also participated in the realization of several international projects. He was the local coordinator of three European projects within the fifth and sixth framework programs and the ESF EUROCORES project, The Logic of Causal and Probabilistic Reasoning in Uncertain Environments.

Its program consists of a one-hour lecture followed by a discussion. The lecture is based on an (internationally) exceptional or remarkable achievement of the lecturer, presented in a way which is comprehensible and interesting to a broad computer science community. The lectures are in English.

The seminar is organized by the organizational committee consisting of Roman Barták (Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics), Jaroslav Hlinka (Czech Academy of Sciences, Computer Science Institute), Michal Chytil, Pavel Kordík (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Information Technologies), Michal Koucký (Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics), Jan Kybic (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering), Michal Pěchouček (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering), Jiří Sgall (Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics), Vojtěch Svátek (University of Economics, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics), Michal Šorel (Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Information Theory and Automation), Tomáš Werner (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering), and Filip Železný (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering)

The idea to organize this seminar emerged in discussions of the representatives of several research institutes on how to avoid the undesired fragmentation of the Czech computer science community.