Ημερολόγιο Εκδηλώσεων

AUEB-NKUA-Indiana Conference in Biostatistics & Health Analytics

4-6 July 2022, Aegina Island

We are pleased to announce the first AUEB-NKUA-Indiana Conference on Biostatistics & Health Analytics. 

​This is within the broader collaboration between the The Fairbanks School of Public Health, the School of Public Health in Bloomington of Indiana University and the Department of Statistics of Athens University of Economics and Business and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Medicine (NKUA). 

More info: https://aueb-analytics.wixsite.com/biostats-conf

Registration: https://aueb-analytics.wixsite.com/biostats-conf/registration

ΑΙ@AUEB talk (hybrid presentation)

Tuesday, 28 June 17.15 (Greek time)

Room: Ground floor, Troias building

and virtually via MS Teams:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aOiYUJgd5vTDTv9p0FnXvTdZ9TTZxIBRHwZzEpD02P-Y1%40thread.tacv2/1653150802937?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ad5ba4a2-7857-4ea1-895e-b3d5207a174f%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%225b49c8b5-6801-409c-a8f8-6e18215b3a08%22%7d

Speaker: Stratis Ioannidis, Northeastern University, USA

Title: Spectral Algorithms for Ranking Regression

Abstract: We consider learning from rankings, i.e., learning from a dataset containing subsets of samples ranked w.r.t. their relative order. For example, a medical expert presented with patient records can order them w.r.t. the relative severity of a disease. Rankings are often less noisy than class labels: human experts disagreeing when generating class judgments often exhibit reduced variability when asked to compare samples instead. Rankings are also more informative, as they capture both inter and intra-class relationships; the latter are not revealed via class labels alone. Nevertheless, the combinatorial nature of rankings increases the computational cost of training significantly. We propose spectral algorithms to accelerate training in this ranking regression setting; our main technical contribution is to show that the Plackett-Luce negative log-likelihood augmented with a proximal penalty has stationary points that satisfy the balance equations of a Markov Chain. This observation yields fast spectral algorithms for ranking regression for both shallow and deep neural network regression models.
Compared to state-of-the-art siamese networks, our resulting algorithms are up to 175 times faster and attain better predictions by up to 26%
Top-1 Accuracy and 6% Kendall-Tau correlation over five real-life ranking datasets.

Bio: https://ece.northeastern.edu/fac-ece/ioannidis/bio.html

We are happy to announce the next (remote) AI@AUEB talk:

Date/time: Tuesday 7 June 2022, 17:15-18:00 (Greek time)
Title: "On new variants of multiplicative weights update and mirror descent methods for zero-sum games"
Speaker: Vangelis Markakis (http://pages.cs.aueb.gr/~markakis/)

Abstract:

Our work focuses on extra gradient learning algorithms for finding Nash equilibria in bilinear zero-sum games. Such algorithms tend to exhibit a stronger performance than simple gradient methods, by having an intermediate and a final gradient step in each iteration. In this talk, we will first give an overview of recently proposed learning algorithms in this context, such as the Optimistic Multiplicative Weights Update method (by Daskalakis, Panageas, 2019) and Optimistic Mirror Descent (by Mertikopoulos et al. 2019). We will then propose a new algorithm, which can be formally considered as a variant of Optimistic Mirror Descent, using a large learning rate for the intermediate gradient step (and interpreted as computing approximate best response strategies against the profile of the previous iteration). Our main theoretical result is that the method guarantees last-iterate convergence to an equilibrium. In particular, we show that the algorithm reaches first an approximate Nash equilibrium, by decreasing the Kullback-Leibler divergence of each iterate, until the method becomes a contracting map, and converges to the exact equilibrium. Furthermore, we present experimental comparisons against the optimistic multiplicative weights update method, and show that our algorithm has significant practical potential since it offers substantial gains in terms of accelerated convergence.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.03579

MS Teams link:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aOiYUJgd5vTDTv9p0FnXvTdZ9TTZxIBRHwZzEpD02P-Y1%40thread.tacv2/1653150802937?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ad5ba4a2-7857-4ea1-895e-b3d5207a174f%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%225b49c8b5-6801-409c-a8f8-6e18215b3a08%22%7d

ΑΙ@AUEB Lecture Series aim is to create collaborations, both between AUEB’s Departments and with external bodies and organizations, promoting the work of AUEB members, further strengthening existing collaborations, and possibly attracting additional resources.

To subscribe to the mailing list of AI@AUEB, send a message (with any subject and body) to ai_meetings-subscribe@lists.aueb.gr. To unsubscribe, send a  message (with any subject and body) to ai_meetings-unsubscribe@lists.aueb.gr. Only the organizers of AI@AUEB can post messages to the mailing list.

If you have an AUEB account, you can also subscribe to the MS Teams team "AI@AUEB" (team code: r2dtl45). This way you will be able to see the scheduled AI@AUEB talks on your MS Teams calendar. You will also be able to send messages to the members of the team.

The Sports Analytics Group of the Department of Statistics of Athens University of Economics & Business (AUEB) announces the short course on

BASKETBALL DATA SCIENCE

as a part of the

6th AUEB Sports Analytics Workshop (AUEB SAW2022)

​The course will be delivered by Professor Paola Zuccolotto and Professor Marica Manisera from University of Brescia, authors of the best seller book with the same title.

The course will be  hosted in a hybrid form (virtual and live) at AUEB, Athens (Greece) on the evenings of Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th of May 2022 (Day 1 ~12.00-16.00, Day 2 14.00-18.00, Greek time, EEST (Eastern European Summer Time), GMT+3).

Course Program

DAY 1

12.00-16.00 Monday 23/5/2022 (Hybrid)

•             Data science in basketball

•             Basketball data

•             Introduction to the R package BasketballAnalyzeR

•             Basic statistical analyses using BasketballAnalyzeR (1/2)

DAY 2

14.00-18.00 Tuesday 24/5/2022 (Hybrid)

•             Basic statistical analyses using BasketballAnalyzeR (2/2)

•             Discovering Patterns in data

•             Finding groups in data

Bibliography

•    Paola Zuccolotto and Marica Manisera, Basketball Data Science. With Applications in R. CRC Press, 2020.

•    Marco Sandri, Paola Zuccolotto, Marica Manisera (2020), BasketballAnalyzeR: Analysis and Visualization of Basketball Data. R package version 0.5.0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=BasketballAnalyzeR

•    Marco Sandri, The R package BasketballAnalyzeR, in: Zuccolotto P. and Manisera M., Basketball Data Science, 2020, Chapter 6.

•    Paola Zuccolotto, Marica Manisera, Marco Sandri (2021), Alley‐oop! Basketball analytics in R, Significance, 26-31 https://doi.org/10.1111/1740-9713.01507

All participants must bring their own laptops fully charged with R and the R package BasketballAnalyzeR already installed.

How to install it: https://bdsports.unibs.it/basketballanalyzer/

For any problem, please write to basketball.analyzer.help@gmail.com

All course participants will receive a certificate of attendance if they attend in both four-hour sessions.

Early registration will be available until Sunday 15 May 2022.

Web-page of Basketball Data Science course@SAW2022 is available here https://aueb-analytics.wixsite.com/saw2022/short-course

Apply now here https://aueb-analytics.wixsite.com/saw2022/registration

Limited positions are available for live attendance at the facilities of AUEB.  

The Sports Analytics Group of the Department of Statistics of Athens University of Economics & Business (AUEB) announces the

6th AUEB Sports Analytics Workshop (AUEB SAW2022)

​which will be  hosted in a hybrid form (virtual and live) AUEB, Athens (Greece) on the evenings of Thursday 26th and Friday 27th of May 2022 (~Day 1 ~17.00-21.30, Day 2 14.00-21.00, Greek time, EEST (Eastern European Summer Time), GMT+3).

The workshop will be also accompanied by a short course on Basketball Data Science (23-24 May 2022). The short course will be held in hybrid form with a limited number of places available at the facilities of AUEB.

The workshop is dedicated to the memory of Professor Stefane Kesenne, World class Sports Economist, Pioneer in the area, mentor and a good friend of Sports Analytics Group.

The Series of Sports Analytics Workshop was originally organized because of professor Kesenne.

Topics of the workshop include:

• Mathematical and physical models in sports
• Performance measures and models
• Optimization of sports performance
• Statistics and probability models
• Match outcome models
• Competitive strategy
• Game theoretical models
• Optimal tournament design and scheduling,
• Decision support systems
• Econometrics in sport
• Analysis of sporting technologies
• Computationally intensive methods
• Financial valuation in sport

Early registration will be available until Sunday 15 May 2022.

Webpage of SAW2022 is available here https://aueb-analytics.wixsite.com/saw2022.

Apply now here https://aueb-analytics.wixsite.com/saw2022/registration. 

Limited positions are available for live attendance at the facilities of AUEB. 

Science Agora organizes the first Entrepreneurship Bootcamp and invites individuals (students, researchers, etc.) to register. The two-day Entrepreneurship Bootcamp will take place on Tuesday 10 May and Wednesday 11 May at the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, ACEin of the Athens University of Economics and Business.

The National Technical University of Athens and the Athens University of Economics and Business, as well as three research institutes, the National Research Centre for Natural Sciences "Demokritos", the Research Centre "Athena" and the University Research Institute for Computer Systems at NTUA work together for the establishment of the new "Science Agora" Technology Transfer.

Pre-registration is required using the link: https://lnkd.in/drgJ-b3f

Press Release

Award of Doctorate ‘Honoris Causa’ and Address of Professor Olivier Blanchard on

‘Reform of EU Fiscal Rules’

The Athens University of Economics and Business organizes on Thursday 5 May 2022 at 18:00, in the Amphitheater “Leonidas Zervas” of the National Research Foundation in Athens, the award ceremony of an Honorary Doctorate of the Department of Economics, of the School of Economics, to Professor,

OLIVIER BLANCHARD

The award ceremony will conclude with a lecture by Professor Blanchard on

Reform of EU Fiscal Rules

Olivier Blanchard is the C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Robert M. Solow Professor of Economics emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

A citizen of France, Blanchard has spent most of his professional life in the United States.  After obtaining his PhD in economics from MIT in 1977, he taught at Harvard University and returned to MIT in 1982. He was chair of the economics department from 1998 to 2003. In 2008, he took a leave of absence to serve as economic counsellor and director of the research department at the International Monetary Fund where he stayed until 2015. He then joined the Peterson Institute.

Blanchard has worked on a wide set of macroeconomic issues, including the role of monetary and fiscal policy, speculative bubbles, the labor market and determinants of unemployment, economic transition in former communist countries, and the nature of the Global Financial Crisis. In the process, he has worked with numerous countries and international organizations.

Blanchard is the author of many books and articles, including two textbooks on macroeconomics, one at the graduate level with Stanley Fischer and the other at the undergraduate level. He is a past editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the NBER Macroeconomics Annual and founding editor of American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. He is a fellow and former Council member of the Econometric Society, a past president of the American Economic Association, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Link to the Olivier Blanchard Page at the Peterson Institute

The Panhellenic Student Negotiations Competition, Athens Negotiations Tournament, will be held for the 4^th consecutive year!

On the 14^th-15^th and 28^th-29^th May 2022, students from all over Greece and Cyprus will participate in negotiation exercises until the Champion Team in the Negotiations.

In the qualifying rounds of May 14 and 15, teams of three undergraduate and postgraduate students will test their negotiation competence in demanding negotiation scenarios. Then, on May 28 and 29, the top 10 teams will participate in the Live Semi-Final Phase. The 2 best teams will negotiate in front of a large panel of negotiation experts as well as members from the business and academic communities. The Grand Final on May 29 will be broadcasted on live streaming.

The competition is an initiative of the Department of Business Administration of the Athens University of Economics and Business, under the academic coordination of Dr Ιlias Kapoutsis, Assistant Professor at AUEB. ANT 2022 is supported by 30 undergraduate students-volunteers.

The competition aims to reduce the skills gap in the market and provide students with the valuable knowledge and experience to thrive in the workplace.

The finalists of the Athens Negotiations Tournament 2021 are currently representing our country in two international negotiations competitions.

All teams (or individuals) who wish to participate, can submit their applications via the Competition’s website https://ant.aueb.gr/

"Hand it ... to HERMES", March 8 & 9, 10:00-14:00

In the framework of AUEB’s cooperation with the HERMES Association, the action "Hand it to ... HERMES" will be implemented.

You may bring all kinds of things that you have at home which are not useful to you but can be utilized at the labs of the HERMES Association and transformed with imagination and passion into Easter gifts.
Indicative list includes: candles, beads, pieces of old jewellery, buttons, shells, pebbles, dried plants, flowers, glass bottles, jars, wooden / plastic and metal boxes, tulle, and pieces of fabric.

The delivery of the objects will take place on Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 March 2022 from 10:00 to 14:00 in the multipurpose Hall of the Antoniadou Amphitheatre.

Presentation of AUEB’s Undergraduate Study Programs to Lyceum students, on March 10, 2022

The Athens University of Economics and Business presents online its Schools and Departments to all Greek Lyceum students on Thursday, March 10 at 09.00 am.
Register for the presentation, until Wednesday 23rd February, by clicking here.