Archive for Italia
information fusion
Posted in pictures, Travel, University life with tags Bayesian conference, Fusion 2024, information fusion, ISBA, ISBA 2024, Italia, signal processing, target tracking, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Venezia, Venice on July 23, 2024 by xi'an
per una democrazia che no fermi al momento del voto [jatp]
Posted in pictures, Running, Travel with tags Bayesian conference, Campo Sant'Alvise, ISBA, ISBA 2024, Italia, jatp, organising committee, poster, San Giobbe, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, vaporetto, Venezia, Venice on July 18, 2024 by xi'an
a bridge too far! [19:31, 3rd, 26⁰, 6am]
Posted in pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags 5K, Bayesian conference, bridges, Fusion 2024, ISBA, ISBA 2024, Italia, organising committee, Ponte della Libertà, road race, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Venezia, Venice on July 11, 2024 by xi'an
venISBA⁴⁻
Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags ambulance, Bayesian conference, coreset, Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, ISBA, ISBA 2024, Isola de San Michele, Italia, Japan, Kullback-Leibler divergence, Nagoya, nested sampling, NUTS, organising committee, PDMP, poster session, slice sampling, slides, sticky PDMP, Tōkaidō, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Venezia, Venice, Venice cemetery on July 8, 2024 by xi'an
As I was released all of a sudden from the Ospedale Civile di Venezia around noon, I managed to attend the last session of ISBA 2024 (after stopping by my airbnb for an emergency coffee next to the hospital and stopping for showering, changing clothes, and eating something more substantial than the contents of IV bags).
My first of these last talks was about coresets by Trevor Campbell, for reducing sample sizes while keeping the likelihood roughly the same (and making me wondering if possibly getting some privacy on the side??) Original algorithm almost completely blind to the data, but a new version by subsample-optimize (KL distance to the posterior) version bringing huge improvements (although I missed the practical details on how the algorithm is reaching this minimum), namely a KL distance of order O(1), i.e., not growing in the sample size. Then, in the same session, a talk by Aikihiko Nakamura on mixing and PDMP, resulting in the novel bouncy Hamiltonian dynamics, which proves time reversible and volume preserving, with no U turns and the time within a given general Hamiltonian value being itself generated w/o rejection. (I am quite sorry to have missed other PDMP talks during the conference, eg, Paul Fearnhead’s, as well as the last poster session…) And I finally jumped rooms to listen to Sam Power on hybrid slice sampling with an MCMC extension to avoid simulating from the Uniform conditional. Reminding me of nested sampling, which also faces this difficulty of sampling from a possibly complex set. This was the end of a wonderful (if shortened by my personal issue) meeting. Next round, see you in Nagoya, Japan (on the Tōkaidō road!).
As a final word about this ISBA 2024 conference in Ca’Foscari, on many levels, I want to most warmly thank my friend Roberto Casarin for his investment and dedication for making the event running so efficiently, in an ideal environment for a meeting of this (800+) size that kept to the Aristotelian unities, especially keeping people together on a unique site without feeling crowded (and very few falling in a Venice canal). And many thanks as well to the local organisers (discounting my nominal inclusion in that group!), the Ca’Foscari staff, and all the students involved in the event!
venospedale⁺²
Posted in pictures, Travel, University life with tags ambulance, Bayesian conference, emergency, hospital, ISBA, ISBA 2024, Italia, Ocean, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Venezia, Venice on July 6, 2024 by xi'an
The last days of the ISBA 2024 meeting have turned out to be quite different from my expectations. Missing two days of exciting sessions, including the one I organised on privacy, and chance discussions. And a fresco dinners with friends… Indeed, just before our round table on Wednesday, I started feeling unwell and while I think I managed the session (correct me if I am wrong!) to argue my case towards multiple hubs, if clearly not convincing the entire audience, I was feeling worse by the end of the afternoon and shivering despite the Venetian balmy weather. Still decided to join friends for dinner as this was an unmissable opportunity but fainted soon after arrival. The restaurant called an ambulance boat (!) that took me to the Venice hospital and I spent the night and the entire morning in the emergency room before being diagnosed with a blood infection rather than a mere gastroenteritis… And was moved to an hospital bedroom, hopefully for not too long as I am currently feeling pretty well if somewhat famished.I definitely hope to be back on track for our Ocean satellite meeting on Sunday and the following retreat next week.
The protocols in the emergency room didn’t seem much different from the ones I experienced in French hospitals with multiple tests, long waits and limited information. It was also very noisy despite the relatively low number of patients.
