Dr. Nicola Botta

I apply type theory, generic programming and program verification to climate science. I have active collaborations with M. Crucifix (UCL, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), P. Jansson (Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden) and C. Ionescu (THD, Deggendorf, Germany). I am responsible for Theme 4 (Data and Decisions) and for part of work package 6 of the EU Horizon 2020 TiPES project. I am a developer of IdrisLibs and of the verified framework for sequential decision problems IdrisLibs/SequentialDecisionProblems. I have worked on agent based models of exchange economies with A. Mandel (CES, Paris, France) and on numerical methods for partial differential equations with R. Klein (FU-Berlin, Berlin, Germany). I have obtained a PhD from the Department of Engineering of the ETH Zürich.

Recent submissions:

• Extensional equality preservation and verified generic programming. N. Botta, N. Brede, P. Jansson, T. Richter. Submitted to the Journal of Functional Programming, July 2020 (accepted Feb 2021), arXiv 2008.02123.
• Semantic verification of dynamic programming. N. Brede, N. Botta. Submitted to the Journal of Functional Programming, July 2020, arXiv 2008.02143.

Recent publications:

• COPOD: Copula-Based Outlier Detection. Zheng Li, Yue Zhao, Nicola Botta, Cezar Ionescu, Xiyang Hu. 19th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM 2020).

Further publications:

• Google Scholar

• I am a member of the COMET (Computational methods and visualization) unit and a developer of IdrisLibs.
• I am responsible for Theme 4 (Data and Decisions) and for deliverables D6.1 and D6.2 of the EU Horizon 2020 TiPES project.

• Cartesian Seminar, see CS@uni-potsdam and CS@github.
• Introduction to functional languages and to dependently typed languages; theory of optimal decision making under uncertainty for finite horizon sequential decision problems; policy, policy sequences and value functions; optimality, viability and reachability; uncertainty measures and possible trajectories. Given at UCLouvain in Nov. 2019 (20 hours) and March 2020 (20 hours) as TiPES deliverable D6.1, regular lectures, extra lectures).

... for thought, in no particular order:

•  A very enjoyable paper on The School of Sqiggol and the history of the Bird-Meertens formalism, by J. Gibbons.
• On dynamical and statistical regularities (and potentially misleading analogies), a lecture by Max Planck from 1914, in German.
• Another great lecture by Max Planck, on the unity of the physical conception of the world. From 1908, also in German.
• How to link logic to computation: Philip Wadler's Propositions as Types.
• Let's be critical: A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic from 1935.
• How can we guarantee that our computations are correct? Testing versus proving in climate impact research, by C. Ionescu and P. Jansson.
• Let's be critical: On the Use and Misuse of models for climate policy, by  Robert Pindyck.
• A very enjoyable paper on modelling Vulnerability, by former PIK member C. Ionescu.
• A great short book: Rudolf Carnap's Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, via Google Books.
• One of the most enjoyable PhD thesis to read: David Aubin's Cultural History of Catastrophes and Chaos and of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) during the first two decades after its foundation.