Minicourse on Spatial Models

We organised a two-day minicourse (or actually three-day event for some participants) on spatial models and related issues in Math Department in the main campus of the University of Oulu. Lecturer Finn Lindgren (University of Bath, UK) presented studies on Gaussian Markov random fields as well as the R-INLA software, which is a computational solution for studying GMRF and other similar models.

We started on Monday by a splinter session on Gaussian Markov fields and gave a special emphasis on the boundary conditions.

Sari Lasanen discussing convergence issues.

On Tuesday Finn Lindgren gave talks on stochastic partial differential equations and on the R-INLA software itself.

Finn Lindgren talking about the R-INLA package.

Naturally blackboard is a handy tool for writing down the most important equations! (Why are the blackboards so rare in the commercial lecture halls nowadays?)

Of course we had to define stationary random fields.

Wednesday ended with hands-on exercises on R-INLA (for details, see r-inla.org). Afterwards we had several science discussions before lecturer and some of the participants had to take the flight/train to various destinations. For us, it meant of course a drive up to north to the Observatory in Sodankylä!


More info on the event at inverse-problems.org/gmrf2013.

Tutorials and lab exercises at http://people.bath.ac.uk/fl353/tutorials/oulu/.