Archive for software
congrats, Håvard!!!
Posted in Statistics with tags approximate Bayesian inference, computational statistics, Gaussian Markov fields, Guy Medal, honours, INLA, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, JRSSB, Laplace approximation, R-INLA, Royal Statistical Society, software on March 4, 2021 by xi'an
following versions [xkcd reposted]
Posted in Books, Kids, University life with tags software, updates, xkcd on November 18, 2019 by xi'an
we have never been unable to develop a reliable predictive model
Posted in Statistics with tags benefit claims, Bristol, child abuse, council, crime prediction, David Spiegelhalter, flooding, local authority, machine learning, Palantir, predictive analytics, RSS, sexual exploitation, software, The Guardian, United Kingdom on November 10, 2019 by xi'an
An alarming entry in The Guardian about the huge proportion of councils in the UK using machine-learning software to allocate benefits, detect child abuse or claim fraud. And relying blindly on the outcome of such software, despite their well-documented lack of reliability, uncertainty assessments, and warnings. Blindly in the sense that the impact of their (implemented) decision was not even reviewed, even though a portion of the councils does not consider renewing the contracts. With the appalling statement of the CEO of one software company reported in the title. Blaming further the lack of accessibility [for their company] of the data used by the councils for the impossibility [for the company] of providing risk factors and identifying bias, in an unbelievable newspeak inversion… As pointed out by David Spiegelhalter in the article, the openness should go the other way, namely that the algorithms behind the suggestions (read decisions) should be available to understand why these decisions were made. (A whole series of Guardian articles relate to this as well, under the heading “Automating poverty”.)
BayesComp 20: call for contributed sessions!
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags BayesComp 2020, Bayesian computing, conference, deadline, Florida, Gainesville, ISBA, MCMSki, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, software, USA on March 20, 2019 by xi'an
Just to remind readers of the incoming deadline for BayesComp sessions:
The deadline for providing a title and brief abstract that the session is April 1, 2019. Please provide the names and affiliations of the organizer and the three speakers (the organizer can be one of them). Each session lasts 90 minutes and each talk should be 30 minutes long including Q&A. Contributed sessions can also consist of tutorials on the use of novel software. Decisions will be made by April 15, 2019. Please send your proposals to Christian Robert, co-chair of the scientific committee. We look forward to seeing you at BayesComp 20!
In case you do not feel like organising a whole session by yourself, contact the ISBA section you feel affinity with and suggest it helps building this session together!
call for sessions and labs at Bay2sC0mp²⁰
Posted in pictures, R, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags BayesComp, call for contributions, Florida, Gainesville, ISBA, last call, machine learning, MCMC, MCMSki, Monte Carlo methods, poster session, R, software, STAN, statistical language, University of Florida, untractable normalizing constant, USA on February 22, 2019 by xi'an
A call to all potential participants to the incoming BayesComp 2020 conference at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, 7-10 January 2020, to submit proposals [to me] for contributed sessions on everything computational or training labs [to David Rossell] on a specific language or software. The deadline is April 1 and the sessions will be selected by the scientific committee, other proposals being offered the possibility to present the associated research during a poster session [which always is a lively component of the conference]. (Conversely, we reserve the possibility of a “last call” session made from particularly exciting posters on new topics.) Plenary speakers for this conference are
- David Blei (Columbia University)
- Paul Fearnhead (University of Lancaster)
- Emily Fox (University of Washington)
- Max Welling (University of Amsterdam)
and the first invited sessions are already posted on the webpage of the conference. We dearly hope to attract a wide area of research interests into a as diverse as possible program, so please accept this invitation!!!
