coronavirus also hits reproduction rights!

“The [UK] Department of Health says reported changes to the abortion law, that would allow women to take both pills at home during the coronavirus outbreak, are not going ahead.” Independent, 23 March

“Texas and Ohio have included abortions among the nonessential surgeries and medical procedures that they are requiring to be delayed, saying they are trying to preserve precious protective equipment for health care workers and to make space for a potential flood of coronavirus patients.” The New York Times, 23 March

“Le ministre de la Santé, Olivier Véran, et la secrétaire d’Etat chargée de l’Égalité femmes-hommes, Marlène Schiappa, ont tenté lundi de rassurer : les IVG « sont considérées comme des interventions urgentes », et leur « continuité doit être assurée ». Le gouvernement veillera à ce que « le droit des femmes à disposer de leur corps ne soit pas remis en cause », ont-ils assuré.” Le Parisien, 23 March

“Lawmakers voted on Wednesday to liberalize New Zealand’s abortion law and allow unrestricted access during the first half of pregnancy, ending the country’s status as one of the few wealthy nations to limit the grounds for abortion during that period.” The New York Times, 18 March

to bike or not to bike

A recent debate between the candidates to the Paris mayorship, including a former Health minister and physician, led to arguments as to whether or not biking in Paris is healthy. Obviously, it is beneficial for the community, but the question is rather about the personal benefits vs dangers of riding a bike daily to work. Extra physical activity on the one hand, exposition to air pollution and accidents on the other hand. With an accident rate that increased during the recent strikes, but at a lesser rate (153%) than the number of cyclists in the streets of Paris (260%). While I do not find the air particularly stinky or unpleasant on my daily 25km, except in the frequent jams between Porte d’Auteuil and Porte de la Muette, and while I haven’t noticed a direct impact on my breathing or general shape, I try to avoid rush hours, especially on the way back home with a good climb near Porte de Versailles (the more on days when it is jammed solid with delivery trucks for the nearby exhibition centre). As for accidents, trying to maintain constant vigilance and predicting potential fishtails is the rule, as is avoiding most bike paths as I find them much more accident-prone than main streets… (Green lights are also more dangerous than red lights, in my opinion!) Presumably, so far at least, benefits outweight the costs!

200 years making history

assistant/associate professor position in statistics/machine-learning at ENSAE

ENSAE (my Alma Mater) is opening a new position for next semester in statistics or/and machine-learning. At the Assistant Professor level, the position is for an initial three-year term, renewable for another three years, before the tenure evaluation. The school is located on the Université Paris-Saclay campus, only teaches at the Master and PhD levels, and the deadline for application is 31 March 2020. Details and contacts on the call page.

!ABC%in%Grenoble

Most regrettably, the incoming ABC in Grenoble, planned on 19-20 March 2020 is now postponed till a yet unspecified date, like next Summer or next Fall. Due to travel disruptions all over the World and to gathering restrictions in France, courtesy of the Covid-19 virus. Not particularly surprising given the avalanche of cancellations, but unfortunate. The mirror meetings that had emerged in the past weeks will most likely be cancelled as well, unless a joint program can be constructed based on the local attendees.

Here is the full message from the organisers to the registered participants:

It is with regret that we have to cancel the ABC in Grenoble workshop. We (local organizers) will be waiting for the situation to settle down in order to possibly reschedule for a future date.  If so, we would open up the call again both for contributed talks and posters.

As you may know, we were already planning to provide electronic options to hold virtual mirrors for the workshop. However, we consider that relying only on streamed talks from various places without a main venue here in Grenoble would make it hard to follow.

This may take some time, but we will let you know as soon as we have further information. Please consult the workshop website for up-to-date information

Scott Sisson’s ABC seminar in Paris [All about that Bayes]

On the “All about that Bayes” seminar tomorrow (Tuesday 21 at 3p.m., room 42, AgroParisTech, 16 rue Claude Bernard, Paris 5ième), Scott Sisson, School of Mathematics and Statistics at UNSW, and visiting Paris-Dauphine this month, will give a talk on

Approximate posteriors and data for Bayesian inference

Abstract
For various reasons, including large datasets and complex models, approximate inference is becoming increasingly common. In this talk I will provide three vignettes of recent work. These cover a) approximate Bayesian computation for Gaussian process density estimation, b) likelihood-free Gibbs sampling, and c) MCMC for approximate (rounded) data.

maths & AI