Google Doodle: Honouring Dr Hirotugu Akaike's contributions to statistics on his 90th Birth Anniversary
Google is celebrating the 90th Birth Anniversary of Japanese statistician Dr Hirotugu Akaike with a Doodle that represents his immense contribution to the field of statistics. Dr Hirotugu Akaik had, in the 1970s, formulated the Akaike Information Criterion, which is a criterion for model selection in statistics. It was heralded as a very new paradigm of statistical modelling. It was set apart and was completely different from traditional statistical theory. The Akaike paradigm greatly influenced a broad area of research in statistics.
Dr Hirotugu Akaike also led the world of the Time Series Analysis in the 1960s by researching and developing the spectral analysis technique, multivariate time series model, statistical control methods and TIMSAC, software for time series analysis.
In the 1980s, Dr Akaike pushed for the Bayesian model to be put into practical use. In 2006, Dr Akaike was awarded the Kyoto prize for contributing immensely to modelling in the development of the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC).
Apart from the immense contributions that Dr Akaike was responsible for, he also held several key positions at different times of his life. Dr Akaike was a researcher at The Institute of Statistical Mathematics (Technical Official of the Ministry of Education) in 1952. In 1986, he became the Director-General of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, a position he held till 1994.
From 1994, Dr Akaike became Professor Emeritus of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and also the Professor Emeritus at The Graduate University for Advance Study.
Dr Hirotugu Akaike was born on November 5, 1927 in Japan's Shizuoka Prefecture and died on August 8, 2009 of pneumonia in Ibaraki Prefecture. Today being his 90th Birth Anniversary, Google honours Dr Akaike with his very own Doodle.