BAYSM 2013: first Bayesian Young Statisticians Meeting

Just got this email about the incoming first Bayesian Young Statisticians Meeting next June in Milano!

We would like to announce the first BAYESIAN YOUNG STATISTICIANS MEETING (BAYSM 2013), to be held in CNR IMATI in Milano on June 5-6, 2013.

BAYSM 2013 is a fantastic opportunity to present and discuss your work with other young statisticians in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, with senior discussant giving you suggestions and comments aimed at improving your work. Attendees are encouraged to give a talk and/or submit a poster. The meeting is aimed at early career statisticians, i.e. people carrying out a PhD, post-doc or finishing the Master Degree with outstanding theses/projects dealing with Bayesian statistics. Presentations on current PhD research are therefore welcomed as well as talks on work in progress on applied experience.

The registration and submissions are now open, with the following deadlines:

• *Submission closing*: February 28, 2013
• *Notification of acceptance*: March 15, 2013

*No conference fee is due*, but *registration is mandatory*, using the form available on the website. Electronic submission by email is required by sending both the TeX file (together with enclosed pictures) and the pdf file to baysm2013[@robase]mi.imati.cnr.it. Accepted papers will be published on the meeting website. Moreover, the abstract contributions and plenary lectures will be also included in a Springer book from the series “Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics”.

Note that the email does not mention any age limit for attending! Also Milano is not that far from Roma, so you should consider attending ABC in Roma on May 30-31, then make your leisurly way up north to Milano for BAYSM 2013!

summer reads (#2)

As mentioned in a previous blog, I only packed four books in my suitcase in early July. Among those, Richard Ford’s A Piece of my Heart, and Niccolo Ammaniti’s La Fête du Siècle (Che la festa cominci). I also bought Dan Simmons’s Hyperion in the (same) nice bookshop near Bondi Junction in Sydney, Berkelouw Books.

“Whoever it was, though, didn’t have no business being here. I’ll tell you that. I’ll tell you that right now.” A Piece of my Heart, R. Ford

A Piece of my Heart is the first novel written by Richard Ford and I did not even know about it. (I happen to have bought it perchance in a closing bookshop in Bristol selling every book there for two pounds!) I feel it is quite different from the other novels of Richard Ford I read so far. A Piece of my Heart is quite harsh and bleak in a Southern (U.S.) way, making one feel all characters (esp. men) are doomed from the start and that there is no use fighting against this… This makes their actions and decisions unpredictable and mostly irrational, but there is a kind of beauty in seeing them succumbing to this doom. I also found there is a sort of Faulknerian feeling in the novel, particularly in the character of Mr. Lamb, an old recluse living on an island that does not even exist on official maps. The tragic and foreseeable ending of the book is actually announced in the very first pages, but this does not make A Piece of my Heart less fascinating to read. Because this is not what matter…

“There’s a legend that Cowboy Gibson did it before the Core seceded.” Hyperion, D. Simmons

I finished reading Hyperion in the plane back home. This again is a (1989) book I had not heard of until I saw it in the Gollancz 50 series (which delivers at a low price the “best” 50 books in science-fiction and fantasy, like Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind and Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, its only drawback being a vivid and ugly yellow color!) I do not often read space opera sci’fi’, however this book is a masterpiece that completely deserves its inclusion in the Gollancz 50 series… Hyperion offers a complex plot, compelling characters, an interesting universe, a credible political structure, and, above all, relates quite strongly and openly to literary history, from Chauncer’s Canterbury Tales, to H.G. Wells, to William Gibson’s Neuromancer, to Philip K. Dick (and Blade Runner), and to Keats as a central figure. Plus interesting plays on religions and beliefs. The book does not conclude, as there is a sequel, The Fall of Hyperion, that I will most certainly read.

La Fête du Siècle (Che la festa cominci) is an hilarious book by Niccolo Ammaniti that I can only classify as picaresque, given the accumulation of well-drawn characters and of fantastic events that build throughout the book. It is very different from the much more intimate Io non ho paura, however La Fête du Siècle reads very well and offers a very harsh criticism of the Berlusconi era and of the new social class it created. From nouveaux riches to would-be Satanists (all) looking for recognition or at least a few minutes of fame on TV… And meeting their end in a grandiose way. (I do not know if this book has been translated into english.) I read it in a few hours during my vacation week along the Great Ocean Road. And am still laughing at the comedy it exposed.

ABC in Roma, May 30-31, 2013!!!

After ABC in Paris in 2009 and ABC in London in 2013, the ABC workshop on the current developments of ABC methodology continues its tour of European capitals! It will take place next year in Rome over two days to allow for travel from Paris and London (no EuRomaStar yet!). ABC in Rome is organised by Brunero Liseo and his colleagues at Roma 1 and Roma 3 Università, and sponsored by La Sapienza Università di Roma. Following the previous meetings, in Paris and London, the field still sees rapid methodology progress and an increased number of applications in a wider range of scientific areas, as no doubt readers of the ‘Og are aware! ABC in Rome (ABCiR) will hopefully bring together leading researchers in the field, with focus on

•  applications of ABC to real world problems
• recent computational advances in ABC
• comparative efficiency of ABC methods with respect to alternative methodologies
• model selection and model checking in the ABC framework.

As in the previous meetings, attendance is free of charge (free as in “no registration fee at all”!) but you do need to register as space is strictly limited. (For ABC in London, the waiting list was more than 100 persons long…) If you wish to present a poster then please email the organisation committee with a brief abstract. We particularly encourage posters from young participants and posters detailing recent software implementations of ABC methods and computational advance.

Course at Monash (#2)

Here are the slides for the second day of my course at Monash University, Melbourne, in the Special Lectures in Econometrics, with a strong strong similarity with the slides of my course in Roma this Spring. (Ah, sunny Roma…) The first day lecture was very well attended and I hope this remains true for the second! (I also think I should spend more time on particle filters in general, the next time I give a similar course…)

ISBA lecture on Bayesian foundations

I have finished revised my “ABC in Roma” slides into a more focused presentation for my lecture in Kyoto next Monday: nothing surprising in the following slides (most likely to be updated between now and the talk on Monday afternoon!)

but I hope I can convey the overall message that ABC can be seen as being fully part of the Bayesian machinery, rather than a poor man’s version… This meeting sounds quite exciting, because of its exceptional programme, its particularly attractive location (at least for japanophiles like me!), and the unique opportunity to remember our friend George during the memorial session of next Wednesday.