Today I am off to Chile, to attend the 13th Bayesian non-parametric conference, BNP13. Which follows BNP11 that took place in Paris. And BNP12, which took place in Oxford (just prior to O’Bayes in Warwick, which in retrospect was the wrong strategy as most attendees did not extend their stay…). The programme is quite diverse and exciting, plus involving a lot of friends I had not seen for quite a while (as they weren’t at ISBA in Montréal). And the location is fabulous, sitting by Lake Llanquihue [whose waters may prove too cold!] and facing the [tantalizing] volcán Osorno (2652m). Which was observed by Darwin on his second trip, during a 1835 eruption. (The last eruption was in 1869, hopefully staying the same for the whole week!)
The main section of the ISBA 2021 (formerly ISBA 2020) conference starts a week from today, with short courses this week, but it is now a futuristic conference in that… the number of registered participants already exceeds the year of the meeting! There are currently 2033 registrations, a quantic leap from the earlier editions (if helped with the virtual nature of the meeting and the absence of any registration fee). Here are the recommendations to be found on the Whova conference portal, just in case:
The ISBA conference will be a mixture of live talks, pre-recorded talks, and posters. All live-streaming will be via Zoom, with links integrated into the Whova platform.
Plenary talks (i.e., Foundational Lectures, Keynote Lectures, and Named Lectures) and all invited talks will be live-streamed during the corresponding sessions.
Contributed talks are prerecorded (available from June 10, 2021). During the live-streamed Contributed Sessions, each speaker will give a 5-min live recap of their contributed talk, highlighting the main points, followed by live discussion and Q&A from the audience.
Contributed speakers who had optionally chosen to accompany their talk with a poster will present the poster in their designated Poster Sessions. All Poster Sessions will be held on Gather.town, which will also serve as the virtual space for social times during the whole conference.
When putting this volume together with Umesh Singh, Dipak Dey, and Appaia Loganathan, my friend Satyanshu Upadhyay from Varanasi, India, asked me for a foreword. The book is now out, with chapters written by a wide variety of Bayesians. And here is my foreword, for what it’s worth:
It is a great pleasure to see a new book published on current aspects of Bayesian Analysis and coming out of India. This wide scope volume reflects very accurately on the present role of Bayesian Analysis in scientific inference, be it by statisticians, computer scientists or data analysts. Indeed, we have witnessed in the past decade a massive adoption of Bayesian techniques by users in need of statistical analyses, partly because it became easier to implement such techniques, partly because both the inclusion of prior beliefs and the production of a posterior distribution that provides a single filter for all inferential questions is a natural and intuitive way to process the latter. As reflected so nicely by the subtitle of Sharon McGrayne’s The Theory that Would not Die, the Bayesian approach to inference “cracked the Enigma code, hunted down Russian submarines” and more generally contributed to solve many real life or cognitive problems that did not seem to fit within the traditional patterns of a statistical model. Two hundred and fifty years after Bayes published his note, the field is more diverse than ever, as reflected by the range of topics covered by this new book, from the foundations (with objective Bayes developments) to the implementation by filters and simulation devices, to the new Bayesian methodology (regression and small areas, non-ignorable response and factor analysis), to a fantastic array of applications. This display reflects very very well on the vitality and appeal of Bayesian Analysis. Furthermore, I note with great pleasure that the new book is edited by distinguished Indian Bayesians, India having always been a provider of fine and dedicated Bayesians. I thus warmly congratulate the editors for putting this exciting volume together and I offer my best wishes to readers about to appreciate the appeal and diversity of Bayesian Analysis.
Along other members of BayesComp who launched a brainstorming session for the next MCMSki meeting before the snow has completely melted from our skis, we discussed the following topics about the future meeting:
1. Should we keep the brandname MCMSki for the incoming meetings? The argument for changing the name is that the community is broader than MCMC, as already shown by the program of MCMCSki 4. I have no strong feeling about this name, even though I find it catchy and sexy! I would thus rather keep MCMSki because it is already a brandname. Else, we could switch to M(CM)Ski, MCMSki with friends (and foes?), Snowtistics and Compuskis, or to any other short name with or without ski in it, as long as the filiation from the previous meetings is clear in the mind of the participants.
2. Should we move the frequency to two years? While the current meeting was highly popular and attracted the record number of 223 participants, and while the period right after the Winter break is not so heavily packed with meetings, we were several at a banquet table last week to object to a planned move from three to two years. I understand the appeal of meetings with great speakers in a terrific mountainous taking place as often as possible… However what stroke me with the meeting last week is that, despite the large number of parallel sessions, I overwhelmingly heard novel stuff, compared with previous meetings. And would have heard even more, had I been gifted with ubiquity. Moving to two years could cull this feeling. And induce “meeting fatigue. Furthermore, I fear that the increase in ISBA sections and the natural increase of meeting entropy pushes the percentage of meetings one can attend down and down. Sticking to a three year period would keep MCMSki more significantly attractive in that refusing an invitation would mean postponing for three years, &tc. So I personally oppose a move to two years.
3. Should we seek further financial support? The financial support behind a conference is obviously crucial. When planning MCMski 4, I however decided against contacting companies as I have no skills in the matter, but finding ways to support conference rooms, youngster travels, ski race, poster prizes and banquet would be more-than-nice. Anto’s initiative to bring a pair of skis offered by a ski company was a great one and one feat that I hope can be duplicated in the future. (During my spare week in Chamonix, I contacted ski rentals and the skipass company for a rebate, to no avail.) Travel support from ISBA and SBSS towards the travel costs of around 20 young researchers was much appreciated but is not necessarily to be found at each occurrence… Note that, despite the lack of corporate support, MCMski 4 is going to provide a positive financial return to ISBA (and BayesComp) and I strongly suggest we keep a tradition of minimalist services for the future meetings in order to fight outrageous conference fees. I think the fees should cover the conference rooms and possibly a cuppa or two a day but nothing more. In particular, the banquet should remain optional. And so should any other paying social event. (We can also do without goodies and conference material.)
4. Where should the next meeting take place? The call is on for potential organisers in either 2016 or 2017, early January. Between the Alps and the Rockies, there are plenty of possible locations, but more exotic places in the Northern Hemisphere could be suggested as well, from Lapland to Hokkaido… A question raised by Christophe Andrieu that I’d like to second is whether the preference should go to places that qualify as villages or as resort. Bormio and Chamonix are villages, while Park City is not. (I definitely prefer villages!)
who each received two books from those kindly sent by Academic Press, CRC Press, and Springer-Verlag. (Except one of the above who should contact me for delivering her/him the dedicated books!) And to the honourable mention winners:
And to the members of the jury who worked hard both evening to produce this set of winners… Congrats too to Mina Vekhala from Helsinki who left the banquet with a pair of Blossom skis, thanks to a random draw from U({1,…,188}) of a dinner participant. She was 154th on the list and this number came out first. (Renewed thanks to Blossom skis for their generosity!)
Xi'an's Og 
