ESPM Courses Info

To PhD students:

This fall, Paul Fine, John Harte and I will co-teach a graduate seminar on beta diversity - see description below. If you are interested, please email me (dackerly@berkeley.edu). We will send this notice out again at the beginning of fall semester, and hold an organizational meeting to determine the best class time for those who enroll.

Thanks,
David Ackerly

Graduate Seminar in Beta Diversity
Instructors: Paul Fine, David Ackerly, John Harte (ERG)
Time: One 3 hour meeting/week, time TBA
Enrollment: Ph.D. students, with preference to students in IB and ERG.
Limit 15 students.
Permission of instructor required

We will examine spatial patterns in biological diversity from both ecological and evolutionary perspectives. Topics will include both statistical and mechanistic theories of spatial structure in the distribution and abundance of species, the match between environmental variables, traits, and species turnover across spatial scales, and the phylogenetic component of ecological communities across space. Students will develop an independent project that will further explore these topics.
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Posted by Brad on 07.22.08

Announcing "Recent Advances in Conservation Genetics"
January 18th through January 31st, 2009

The American Genetic Association
( http://www.theaga.org/overview.html) in conjunction with the National Cancer, Institute, The Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, Frederick, Maryland (http://home.ncifcrf.gov/ccr/lgd), NOAHS-Smithsonian Institute and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (http://stri.org/) is presenting a 13 day intensive course January 18th through January 31st, 2009, at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama. The course will be directed by Dr. Stephen J. O'Brien, and taught by renowned scientists in methods, interpretation, and applications of molecular genetic analyses for conservation of endangered species, who will also share a variety of their personal experiences in this important field. Applicants should be conservation-minded scientists (advanced graduate students, post-docs, teachers, and researchers with advanced degrees) from academia, government, non-government organizations, or industry who are studying the genetics of endangered species and who will apply the knowledge gained from this course to the conservation of such species. Interested individuals can contact us at congen@ncifcrf.gov or visit the website at http://home.ncifcrf.gov/ccr/lgd/congen2009/index.asp
for course details.
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Posted by Brad on 07.22.08

ESPM290 Special Topics: Fall 2008

Development of Taxonomic Identification Keys and Natural Language Descriptions

Course description: This course will allow students to learn both the theoretical basis and develop the practical skills for building traditional dichotomous keys and various interactive keys. Emphasis will be on learning to build a web-based interactive key through individual projects. Students can train on the Microptics Digital XLT imaging system and learn to use Lucid (http://www.lucidcentral.com/) and Lucid Phoenix (http://www.lucidcentral.com/phoenix/) software. Other internet identification tools will also be surveyed and discussed. Each student will be required to produce an online key as a project. Development of ToL pages (http://tolweb.org/tree/sep/scicontent.html) and output of Natural Language taxonomic descriptions for taxa will also be introduced and students will be encouraged to produce these as well. Enrollment Information: 2 credits (letter grade is an option. However, I strongly urge taking it S/U); we will meet Fridays 1-3pm in 318 Wellman. This requires independent work on projects. Previous knowledge of the organisms to be used for your project and specimen preparation skills, as appropriate, are required. If you have no group for which you want to produce a key but are familiar with insects, then I have plenty of beetle groups to work with. Class can be retaken for credit. Class is limited to 10 students.
Instructor: Kipling Will, 319 Wellman, kiplingw@nature.berkeley.edu, 642-4296

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Posted by Brad on 07.22.08

This summer, for only the third time in 40 years, Dr. Michael Barbour will be offering a spring quarter class, "Survey of California Plant Communities," as a full-time two-week field course. It's offered through UCD Extension
(www.extension.ucdavis.edu) between 7 and 19 July.

If anyone wants more details, call Dr. Barbour at: 530-795-2009.
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Posted by Brad on 06.11.08

Statistics 212A, Fall 2008
Information Theory and Statistics
www.stat.berkeley.edu/~binyu/212A

Instructor: Professor Bin Yu (2-2021, 429 Evans Hall, binyu@stat)
Time: 9:30-11:00 T/Th; Room: TBA

Information Theory deals with a basic challenge in communication:

-How do we transmit information efficiently? In addressing that issue, Information Theorists have created a rich mathematical framework to describe communication processes with tools to characterize so-called fundamental limits of data compression and transmission.

-What might Statisticians learn from Information Theory? Basic concepts like entropy and Kullback-Leibler divergence have certainly played a role in statistics. But so too have estimation frameworks like the Maximum Entropy principle; novel decompositions like ICA; and even model selection methodologies like AIC and the Principle of Minimum Description Length. In this course we will illustrate how the basic questions and tools of Information Theory relate to statistical practice and theory. In addition to the topics mentioned above, we will cover minimax estimation in nonparametric estimation and sparse modeling, from the point of view of information theory.

Prerequisites:
205A and 210A or equivalents or consensus of the instructor.


Recommended books:

1. Information Theory and Statistics: A tutorial by I. Csiszar and P. Shields
(available at www.stat.berkeley.edu/~binyu/csiszar.shields.pdf)

2. Elements of Information Theory by T. Cover and J. Thomas. (2006 edition)

3. Information and Complexity in Statistical Modeling (Information Science and Statistics) by Jorma Rissenan

Grading: Based on class participation, a presentation/report, project, and occasional homework assignments.
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Posted by Brad on 06.11.08