Acknowledgments
I began developing our graphical user interface (GUI) in 2016, after being diagnosed with cervical dystonia. I worked on this side project during weekends, which I called ``nerd weekends,’’ and it served as a form of release from my health condition. Once I began to recover, I invited Mateo Graciano, my former student, business partner, and friend, to join the project. He has been instrumental in developing our GUI, and I am enormously grateful to him.
I would also like to thank the members of the BEsmarter research group at Universidad EAFIT, as well as the NUMBATs members at Monash University, for their valuable feedback and recommendations to improve our GUI.
This book is an extension of the paper (Ramírez-Hassan and Graciano-Londoño 2020), which serves as a brief user guide for our GUI. I decided to write this book to explain the underlying theory and code in our GUI, and to use it as a textbook in my course on Bayesian econometrics/statistics. I am grateful to my students in this course; their insights and thoughtful questions have deepened my understanding of the material.
I also thank Chris Parmeter for his suggestions on how to present our user guide, Professor Raul Pericchi and Juan Carlos Correa for introducing me to Bayesian statistics, and Liana Jacobi and Chun Fung Kwok (Jackson) from the University of Melbourne, as well as David Frazier from Monash University, for engaging talks and amazing collaborations in Bayesian econometrics/statistics. My sincere gratitude goes to Professor Peter Diggle for his unwavering support of my career, and especially to Professor Gael Martin, who gave me the opportunity to work with her, she is a constant source of intellectual inspiration.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to my colleagues and staff at Universidad EAFIT for their continuous support.
To my parents, Orlando and Nancy, who have always been there for me with their unconditional support. They have taught me that the primary aspect of human spiritual evolution is humility, a lesson I am still learning every day. To my fiancée, Estephania, for her unwavering love and support.