Scott Schmidler, Steve Scott and myself just submitted a proposal for holding the next World ISBA Conference in 2016 in Banff, Canada! After enjoying the superb environment of the Advanced in Scalable Bayesian computation workshop last week, we thought it would be worth a try as a potential location for the next meeting, esp. when considering the superlative infrastructure of the Banff Centre (meaning we really do not have to be local to be local organisers!), the very reasonable rates for renting the site and securing two hundred rooms, the potential for a special collaboration with BIRS, the scarcity of alternative proposals (as far as I can fathom) and the ultimate mountain environment… I remember fondly the IMS annual meeting of 2002 there, with a great special lecture by Hans Künsch and, exceptionally, an RSS Read Paper by Steve Brooks, Paulo Guidici and Gareth Roberts. (Not mentioning en exhilarating solo scramble up Mount Temple and another one with Arnaud Guillin up the chimneys of Mount Edith!) Since the deadline was this Saturday, March 15, we should hear pretty soon if we are successful in this bid. (Good luck to our Scottish friends from Edinburgh for their bid for holding ISBA 2018! Moving from the feet of Mount Rundle [above] to the feet of Arthur’s Seat would make for a great transition.)
Archive for Alberta
ISBA 2016 in Banff???
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Alberta, Arthur's Seat, Banff, Banff Centre, Canada, Canadian Rockies, Edinburgh, ISBA, ISBA 2016, ISBA 2018, Mount Rundle, Mount Temple, Scotland on March 16, 2014 by xi'ancascade on Cascade Mountain
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags 14w5125, Alberta, Banff, Banff Centre, Canada, Canadian Rockies, Cascade Mountain, ice climbing, Mike Barter on March 3, 2014 by xi'an
I started my stay in Banff with an interesting ice-climb on Cascade Mountain, just next to the Icefields Parkway exit to the town. (So we climbed the redundant Cascade Fall!) While the difficulty of the climb was much lower [grade III] than for my earlier ice-climb in Banff, it was incredibly cold (when we started, the temperature was -27⁰C… and rose to -19⁰C by the mid-afternoon, freezing the water in my thermos bottle) and I was a little worried at getting numb fingers, which would definitely not help with the climbing. And at the ice getting too brittle. As it happened, the cold temperature did not bother us at all during the climb which ended up being highly enjoyable. (The missing thumb did not bother me either. Except when clipping gear in and out, where I was rather clumsy.) The mountain guide who took us there was Joe McKay, who was hilarious and highly laid-back. He is also involved in filming climbing tricks and advices, so I may see him again at the Banff Centre this week… (In a video, Joe states that one should not be climbed if it’s 25 below!)
Mount Rundle (ter repetita)
Posted in Mountains, pictures with tags Alberta, Banff, Mount Rundle on September 12, 2010 by xi'an
Before the start of the workshop, Devin, François and I went up Mount Rundle. This mountain is just behind the town of Banff and the hike is a straightforward scramble with an elevation gain of 1570 meters. Nonetheless, this was my third attempt at it as on both previous visits to Banff, I was under time constraints and had to turn back before the top… This time, we made it to the summital ridge if not to the actual top. Compared with both previous visits, there was much more (hard frozen) snow on the final part. This made for an easier climb, compared with fighting the painful scree under it, but this got me a bit worried of possible slips as we did not have crampons or an ice-axe (or even hiking poles). And I had stupidly left my gloves down in Banff, lulled by the non-freezing temperature in town…
When we arrived on the ridge, I got even more worried of the possibility of a (potentially dramatic) slip and decided to turn back (along with Devin and François) at the spot on the picture above where there was no hand hold and a very narrow passage between a vertical drop of hundreds of meters and the gentler if steep slope of the slab. (So, technically, this is yet another failed attempt at Rundle, grumble grumble!) On the way down, the clouds disappeared in the ten minutes we spent crossing down the snowy area and we got great views of the Banff ranges. It took us a bit over 6 hours to complete the trip, so it was a very good half-day excursion before the workshop.
Bayes in the Rockies
Posted in Books, Mountains, Statistics, University life with tags 07w5079, 10w2170, Alberta, Banff, Canadian Rockies, Eiffel Peak, environmental sciences, Introducing Monte Carlo Methods with R, Luminy, Mount Temple, Vale d'Aosta on June 25, 2010 by xi'an
A few months ago, following the course I gave last summer in Vale dAosta, I got contacted by Devin Goodsman from the University of Alberta, in order to organise a short course there for environmental scientists in hierarchical Bayes modelling and its R implementation. I (obviously) accepted the invitation and, thanks to Devin and François Teste, we managed to get the short course housed at the wonderful BIRS (Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery) centre in Banff, in the very heart of the Canadian Rockies. Last time I was at BIRS, it was four year ago for the 07w5079 Bioinformatics, Genetics and Stochastic Computation: Bridging the Gap workshop, organised jointly with Arnaud Doucet and Raphaël Gottardo from UBC, and I enjoyed the place and organisation immensely. (Not to mention the surroundings, as shown this picture of Mount Temple, climbed in 2002, taken from Eiffel Peak.)
The current workshop, Hierarchical Bayesian Methods in Ecology, is numbered 10w2170 and will take place over the weekend of September 10-12 this Fall. The schedule is provided on the workshop webpage. I plan to cover Chapters 2, 3 and 4 of Bayesian Core on Saturday, before spending all of Sunday morning and early afternoon on hierarchical models. I actually plan to take advantage of the revision of Bayesian Core in Luminy next week to include a chapter on hierarchical modelling. Now, there are still a few places left in order to reach the 20 participant (strict) upper limit, so, if you are interested in attending the workshop/course, contact me at my gmail email account: bayesianstatistics. (The cost is $220, which includes two nights of lodging at BIRS and a copy of Introducing Monte Carlo Methods with R! Meals and transportation are not included.)
