Authors are worldwide leading in this field. A state-of-the-art report is more than welcome even for experts of neighbouring fields.

Michel Ledoux held first a research position with CNRS, and since 1991 is Professor at the University of Toulouse. He is moreover, since 2010, a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France, having been also a junior member from 1997 to 2002. He has held associate editor appointments for various journals, including the Annals of Probability and Probability Theory and Related Fields (current). His research interests centre on probability, random matrices, logarithmic Sobolev inequalities, probability in Banach spaces.

Michel Talagrand has held a research position with the CNRS since 1974. His thesis was directed by Gustave Choquet and his interests revolve around the theory of stochastic processes and probability in Banach spaces, as well as the mathematical theory of spin glasses.  He was invited to deliver a lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1990, and to deliver a plenary lecture at the same congress in 1998. He received the Loeve Prize (1995) and the Fermat Prize (1997) for his work in probability theory. He was elected to the Paris Academy of Sciences in 2004.