Department of Physics organized a workshop on "Statistical Techniques for Data Analysis" (STDA-2021), from 22nd to 26th Nov 2021, sponsored by DST-SERB under the research project "Fluctuations and Correlations: A hunt to QCD critical endpoint" for head "Scientific Social Responsibilities". The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. Arun K Khosla, Director cum Dean, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar. He encouraged the participants and the organizers for attending and conducting the workshop. The participants were welcomed by Dr. Arvinder Singh, HOD Physics, Convener of the workshop, Dr. Arvind Kumar (PI of DST-SERB project), and coordinators of the workshop Dr. Harleen Dahiya and Dr. Suneel Dutt. The chief guest of the day Dr. Kajari Mazumadar, Professor, TIFR Mumbai also graced the occasion with her inspiring words.

The Day 1 (by Prof. Kajari Mazumadar from TIFR Mumbai) was devoted to the basics of probability and distribution functions”. The session started with the basic definitions of probability and statistics followed by a detailed discussion on characteristics of probability distributions, mean and variance, quantification of uncertainty using probability, Bayesian statistics, Bayes theorem, random errors, measurement errors and systematic uncertainty. Different distribution functions like Binomial, Poisson, Chi Square and Gaussian were elaborated in detail. Prof. Mazumadar emphasized on Gaussian quantile and various aspects of Gaussian distribution along with the central limit theorem.

The Day 2 (by Dr. Raghunath Sahoo, Associate Professor from IIT Indore) lectures were focused on data reduction, error analysis, estimation of errors, and maximum likelihood. The lectures were concentrated on the definition & types of error, accuracy and precision. Dr. Sahoo discussed in detail the different types of distributions, variances & standard deviations, rounding off, rejection of data, propagation & transformation of errors. He also gave an overview about the topics like Error Ellipse, Error Matrix & Confidence Interval.

The Day 3 (by Dr. Raghunath Sahoo, Associate Professor from IIT Indore and Dr. Aruna Kumar Nayak, Associate Professor at Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar) lectures were dedicated to different fitting techniques like curve fitting, least-square fit, linear fit & fitted binned data, hypothesis tests, confidence intervals and limits.

The Day 4 (by Dr. Aruna Kumar Nayak, Associate Professor at Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar) lecture was delivered on Monte Carlo methods including generation of random numbers. Some applications of Monte Carlo methods such as approximating integrals were also discussed. The major highlights of this talk were discussion of Acceptance/Rejection Methods, Markov Chains, random walks, Metropolis Algorithm.

The Day 5 ( by Prof. Gagan Mohanty from TIFR, Mumbai) lecture was delivered on an interesting topic entitled “ How to separate red from blue balls in a box?”. The talk stressed upon multivariate analysis, identification of optimum input and output variables, Fisher’s linear discriminant, neural networks, weight factor calculation, and optimization with appropriate examples.

Links to all the lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5gjOsvRo50Se1g6oQjM6AudNLPx3mfA

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/stda2021/home

Thank you all to be with us, I hope we will meet soon in the near future.

Story by Nisha Chahal, Shubham Sharma and Ankush


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