mixed news on the Western [abortion] front

In the past weeks, a mix of negative and positive moves about abortion in Europe and the USA (which among other bans resuscitated a 1864 near-total abortion ban in Arizona and saw sad-faced Mike Pence complain in TNYT (!) about mad-hatter and opportunist Donald Trump “retreat from the pro-life cause”):

France has added that “The law determines the conditions by which is exercised the freedom of women to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy, which is guaranteed” to the Article 34 of the French Constitution, which is intended to make access to abortion a fundamental right but still remains a formal move as it can be reinterpreted restrictively (which conditions?!) and does not state anything about the practical side of universally ensuring this access, which might be severely hindered by a dearth of willing practicians or the introduction of constraints on clinics, as seen for many years in the US, prior to the revocation of Roe vs. Wade.

Poland has seen its MPs from its lower house vote on four bills on abortion for further study, of which two propose legalising abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy and cancel the current quasi-complete ban on abortion.

Germany Bundestag is working on a bill that would outlaw the intimidation of people around abortion clinics offering abortion. The country should however more much further by making abortion legal, which is not the case now (even though there are “exceptions for abortions with counseling in the first trimester, and for medically necessary abortions [incl. or serious social or emotional distress] and abortions due to unlawful sexual acts”) and actual access to abortion practitioners proves a challenge. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are unsurprisingly opposing this legalisation.

Italy saw Meloni’s far-right government allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion consultation clinics!!, as part of a package of measures funded by the EU!!!. with the [newspeak] argument that they “must not criminalise those who are against abortion. [The Government has] always allowed freedom of conscience on issues of this kind [and] believe it is right for everyone to behave according to their own beliefs and conscience.”

position at the Technical University of Munich (TUM)

Mathias Drton from TUM pointed out this opening in his department:

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) invites applications for the prestigious Rudolf Mößbauer Tenure Track Assistant Professorships to be appointed in spring 2024. The position is a W2 fixed-term (6 year) tenure-track professorship with the possibility for promotion to a tenured W3. Within its Fellowship program, the TUM Institute of Advanced Study (TUM-IAS) awards Rudolf Mößbauer Tenure Track Professorships to excellent early-career scientists with a high potential for developing an internationally recognized research agenda at TUM. Applications are invited for up to five professorships in the following areas of the TUM research:

· Cyber Security & Cryptography

· Green Hydrogen Production and Hydrogen Storage Technology

· Neutron-based Methods for Energy or Quantum Materials

· Participation and Diversity in Digital Societies

· Preventive Medicine

· Statistical Modelling and Uncertainty Quantification for Spatio-Temporal Data

Applications to be sent before 20 September 2023 (12:00 pm/noon CEST) via the  online form: https://wiki.tum.de/x/cIMZWg.

MaxEnt im Garching

The next edition of the MaxEnt conferences, or more precisely workshops on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering , MaxEnt2023, will take place in Garching (bei München) next 3-7 July. At the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik. While the conference is usually of strong interest, it is rather improbable I will attend it this year. (The only time I took part in a MaxEnt conference was in 2009, in Oxford. Oxford, Mississippi!).

Poisson-Belgium 0-0

“Statistical match predictions are more accurate than many people realize (…) For the upcoming Qatar World Cup, Penn’s model suggests that Belgium (…) has the highest chances of raising the famous trophy, followed by Brazil”

Even Nature had to get entries on the current football World cup, with a paper on data-analytics reaching football coaches and teams. This is not exactly prime news, as I remember visiting the Department of Statistics of the University of Glasgow in the mid 1990’s and chatting with a very friendly doctoral student who was consulting for the Glasgow Rangers (or Celtics?!) on the side at the time. And went back to Ireland to continue with a local team (Galway?!).

The paper reports on different modellings, including one double-Poisson model by (PhD) Matthew Penn from Oxford and (maths undergraduate) Joanna Marks from Warwick, which presumably resemble the double-Poisson version set by Leonardo Egidi et al. and posted on Andrews’ blog a few days ago. Following an earlier model by my friends Karlis & Ntzoufras in 2003. While predictive models can obviously fail, this attempt is missing Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Uruguay, and Denmark early elimination from the cup. One possible reason imho is that national teams do not play that often when players are employed by different clubs in many counties, hence are hard to assess, but I cannot claim any expertise or interest in the game.

Data science for social good fellowships [DSSGx UK 2023]

Warwick is (again) running a 12-week summer programme bringing together some of the top student talents from data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, all over the World, to work on real-world data science challenges and deliver positive social impact. Applications for DSSG 2023 are now OPEN! Click here for the application form (please read the information carefully) and click here for the FAQs for 2023. (The application also works for a similar programme in Kaiserslauten, Germany.

DSSG helps not-for-profit organisations and government bodies to achieve more with their data by enhancing their services, interventions and outreach, helping fulfil their mission of improving the world and people’s lives.

The programme gives not-for-profit organisations and government bodies unprecedented access to inspiring, top-tier data science talent. This helps build their capacity to use cutting-edge quantitative methods to address societal challenges in areas such as education, health, energy, public safety, transportation and economic development.

At the same time, it provides intensive case-based and supported training to students to create industry-standard data science products in collaboration with government agencies and NGOs, to deliver positive social impact. And it builds a world-wide community of data scientists who care about the social good.

In 2019, the University of Warwick together with the Alan Turing Institute brought DSSG to the UK. The University of Warwick has run it each year since and now preparation is well underway for DSSGx UK 2023, which will be held at the University of Warwick, UK, from 5 June to 25 August.