new reproducibility initiative in TOMACS

[A quite significant announcement last October from TOMACS that I had missed:]

To improve the reproducibility of modeling and simulation research, TOMACS  is pursuing two strategies.

Number one: authors are encouraged to include sufficient information about the core steps of the scientific process leading to the presented research results and to make as many of these steps as transparent as possible, e.g., data, model, experiment settings, incl. methods and configurations, and/or software. Associate editors and reviewers will be asked to assess the paper also with respect to this information. Thus, although not required, submitted manuscripts which provide clear information on how to generate reproducible results, whenever possible, will be considered favorably in the decision process by reviewers and the editors.

Number two: we will form a new replicating computational results activity in modeling and simulation as part of the peer reviewing process (adopting the procedure RCR of ACM TOMS). Authors who are interested in taking part in the RCR activity should announce this in the cover letter. The associate editor and editor in chief will assign a RCR reviewer for this submission. This reviewer will contact the authors and will work together with the authors to replicate the research results presented. Accepted papers that successfully undergo this procedure will be advertised at the TOMACS web page and will be marked with an ACM reproducibility brand. The RCR activity will take place in parallel to the usual reviewing process. The reviewer will write a short report which will be published alongside the original publication. TOMACS also plans to publish short reports about lessons learned from non-successful RCR activities.

[And now the first paper reviewed according to this protocol has been accepted:]

The paper Automatic Moment-Closure Approximation of Spatially Distributed Collective Adaptive Systems is the first paper that took part in the new replicating computational results (RCR) activity of TOMACS. The paper completed successfully the additional reviewing as documented in its RCR report. This reviewing is aimed at ensuring that computational results presented in the paper are replicable. Digital artifacts like software, mechanized proofs, data sets, test suites, or models, are evaluated referring to ease of use, consistency, completeness, and being well documented.

Special Issue of ACM TOMACS on Monte Carlo Methods in Statistics

As posted here a long, long while ago, following a suggestion from the editor (and North America Cycling Champion!) Pierre Lécuyer (Université de Montréal), Arnaud Doucet (University of Oxford) and myself acted as guest editors for a special issue of ACM TOMACS on Monte Carlo Methods in Statistics. (Coincidentally, I am attending a board meeting for TOMACS tonight in Berlin!) The issue is now ready for publication (next February unless I am confused!) and made of the following papers:

* Massive parallelization of serial inference algorithms for a complex generalized linear model MARC A. SUCHARD, IVAN ZORYCH, PATRICK RYAN, DAVID MADIGAN	Abstract
*Convergence of a Particle-based Approximation of the Block Online Expectation Maximization Algorithm SYLVAIN LE CORFF and GERSENDE FORT	Abstract
* Efficient MCMC for Binomial Logit Models AGNES FUSSL, SYLVIA FRÜHWIRTH-SCHNATTER, RUDOLF FRÜHWIRTH	Abstract
* Adaptive Equi-Energy Sampler: Convergence and Illustration AMANDINE SCHRECK and GERSENDE FORT and ERIC MOULINES	Abstract
* Particle algorithms for optimization on binary spaces CHRISTIAN SCHÄFER	Abstract
* Posterior expectation of regularly paved random histograms RAAZESH SAINUDIIN, GLORIA TENG, JENNIFER HARLOW, and DOMINIC LEE	Abstract
* Small variance estimators for rare event probabilities MICHEL BRONIATOWSKI and VIRGILE CARON	Abstract
* Self-Avoiding Random Dynamics on Integer Complex Systems FIRAS HAMZE, ZIYU WANG, and NANDO DE FREITAS	Abstract
* Bayesian learning of noisy Markov decision processes SUMEETPAL S. SINGH, NICOLAS CHOPIN, and NICK WHITELEY	Abstract

Here is the draft of the editorial that will appear at the beginning of this special issue. (All faults are mine, of course!)

back from down under

After a sunny weekend to unpack and unwind, I am now back to my normal schedule, on my way to Paris-Dauphine for an R (second-chance) exam. Except for confusing my turn signal for my wiper, thanks to two weeks of intensive driving in four Australian states!, things are thus back to “normal”, meaning that I have enough of a control of my time to handle both daily chores like the R exam and long-term projects. Including the special issues of Statistical Science, TOMACS, and CHANCE (reviewing all books of George Casella in memoriam). And the organisation of MCMSki 4, definitely taking place in Chamonix on January 6-8, 2014, hopefully under the sponsorship of the newly created BayesComp section of ISBA. And enough broadband to check my usual sites and to blog ad nauseam.

This trip to Australia, along the AMSI Lectures as well as the longer visits to Monash and QUT, has been quite an exciting time, with many people met and ideas discussed. I came back with a (highly positive) impression of Australian universities as very active places, just along my impression of Australia being a very dynamic and thriving country, far far away from the European recession. I was particularly impressed by the number of students within Kerrie Mengersen’s BRAG group, when we did held discussions in classrooms that felt full like a regular undergrad class! Those discussions and meetings set me towards a few new projects along the themes of mixture estimation and model choice, as well as convergence assessment. During this trip, I however also felt the lack of long “free times” I have gotten used to, thanks to the IUF chair support, where I can pursue a given problem for a few hours without interruption. Which means that I did not work as much as I wanted to during this tour and will certainly avoid such multiple-step trips in a near future. Nonetheless, overall, the own under” experience was quite worth it! (Even without considering the two weeks of vacations I squeezed in the middle.)

Back to “normal” also means I already had two long delays caused by suicides on my train line…

ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation

Pierre Lecuyer is the new editor of the ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS) and he has asked me to become an Area Editor for the new area of simulation in Statistics. I am quite excited by this new Æditor’s hat, since this is a cross-disciplinary journal:

The ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS) provides a single archival source for the publication of high-quality research and developmental results in computer simulation. The subjects of emphasis are discrete event simulation, combined discrete and continuous simulation, as well as Monte Carlo methods. Papers in continuous simulation will also receive serious consideration if their contributions to modeling and simulation in general are substantial.

The use of simulation techniques is pervasive, extending to virtually all the sciences. TOMACS serves to enhance the understanding, improve the practice, and increase the utilization of computer simulation. Submissions should contribute to the realization of these objectives, and papers treating applications should stress their contributions vis-a-vis these objectives.

As an indication of this cross-disciplinarity, I note that most Area Editors and Associate Editors are unknown to me (except for Luc Devroye, of course!). In addition, I savour the irony of being associated with a journal of the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), given my complete lack of practical skills! So, if you have relevant papers to submit in the field, please consider the ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS) as a possible outlet.