From the Old Abbey

A week in the Oude Abdij Drongen, near Ghent in Belgium, accompanying Rosemary to the mODa14 conference. The name of this conference gives a double role to the initials OD: model-oriented design and analysis, and optimal design, hence the typography. Drongen Abbey was founded by the Premonstratensian order, but has been run by the Jesuits since 1837, as well as having a variety of other uses over the centuries. You can read its history here. mODa has a much shorter history, having begun in 1987, in part (as with the AAA conferences) as a channel between east and west when Europe was divided. I had some urgent jobs, some of which got at least partially done. But some of the talks caught my interest as well. The best talk of the conference, for my money, was a survey of Gaussian processes, by David Ginsbourger. I am not entirely sure what a Gaussian process is, but he began by asking the audience to suggest who might have invented them. His own answer was Abraham de Moivre, a…