Julian Ernst Besag. 26 March 1945—6 August 2010. (30th April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Diggle, Peter J.; Green, Peter J.; Silverman, Bernard W.
• Is Part Of: Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. Volume 64(2018)
• Page Start: 27
• Page End: 50
• Publication Date: 2018-04-30
• Subjects: Scientists -- Obituaries -- Periodicals; Scientists -- Great Britain -- Obituaries -- Periodicals; Biography -- Periodicals; 509.2241
• DOI: 10.1098/rsbm.2017.0039
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0080-4606

Abstract

Abstract : Julian Besag was an outstanding statistical scientist, distinguished for his pioneering work on the statistical theory and analysis of spatial processes, especially conditional lattice systems. His work has been seminal in statistical developments over the last several decades ranging from image analysis to Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. He clarified the role of auto-logistic and auto-normal models as instances of Markov random fields and paved the way for their use in diverse applications. Later work included investigations into the efficacy of nearest-neighbour models to accommodate spatial dependence in the analysis of data from agricultural field trials, image restoration from noisy data, and texture generation using lattice models.