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2006 Kyoto Prize Laureates
Mathematical Sciences（including Pure Mathematics）
/ Statistical Mathematician
1927 - 2009
Professor Emeritus, The Institute of Statistical Mathematics
2006
11 /11 Sat
Place：Kyoto International Conference Center
Major contribution to statistical science and modeling with the development of the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)
2006
11 /12 Sun
13:00 - 17:20
Place：Kyoto International Conference Center
In the early 1970’s, Dr. Hirotugu Akaike formulated the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), a new practical, yet versatile criterion for the selection of statistical models, based on basic concepts of information mathematics. This criterion established a new paradigm that bridged the world of data and the world of modeling, thus contributing greatly to the information and statistical sciences.
＊This field then was Field of Mathematical Sciences.
In the early 1970s, Dr. Hirotugu Akaike formulated the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), a new practical, yet versatile criterion for the selection of statistical models, based on fundamental concepts of information mathematics. This criterion established a new paradigm that bridged the world of data and the world of modeling, thus contributing greatly to the information and statistical sciences.
Dr. Akaike derived the AIC based on the foundations of information mathematics, through the study of actual examples, including analysis of the processing of sericultural products, cement kiln controls, and thermal electric power plant controls, and the criterion gave a breakthrough solution to the model selection problem, a major problem common to any form of intellectual information processing. The AIC allows selecting a model that balances between the complexity of the model and goodness of its fit to the data. The AIC is widely used as a practical guideline for the selection of statistical models in a wide range of areas including medicine, epidemiology, biology, control engineering, economics, environmentology, geophysics and social sciences, as well as the fields of mathematics and statistics.
Dr. Akaike has multiple achievements, including the practical application of statistical control to various industrial plants, development of a modeling methodology in the time domain of multivariable time-series analysis, and development and promotion of the time-series analysis software TIMSAC. The widespread use of commercial statistics software packages that incorporate the idea and methodology of the AIC indicates the practicality and reliability of this criterion. Furthermore, Dr. Akaike identified the importance of the Bayesian model as early as the early 1980s, and contributed to the practical application of this model to the information and statistical sciences. Looking at the current growth of the Bayesian model in various fields that require intelligent information processing, more than 20 years after Dr. Akaike first recognized its importance, we cannot help being impressed by his scientific insight.
Today, thanks to the rapid progresses in information processing technologies, we are able to obtain an enormous amount of data and process it at a high speed. Extraction of knowledge and information, and the forecast and control of risk factors in human life have critical importance to the survival and development of human society. Based on the recognition of this situation, there is no doubt that Dr. Akaike’s criterion and the modeling methodology based thereon will become an increasingly important tool for humankind, and hence Dr. Akaike’s achievements deserve our greatest esteem.
For these reasons, the Inamori Foundation is pleased to present the 2006 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences to Dr. Hirotugu Akaike.
Profile is at the time of the award.
