Hey, JAGS users and would-be users, be warned that registration is now open for the annual JAGS workshop on probabilistic modelling for cognitive science. The tenth instalment of this workshop takes place July 10–14, 2023 in Amsterdam and online. This workshop is meant for researchers who want to learn how to apply Bayesian inference in practice. Most applications we discuss are taken from the field of cognitive science. The workshop is based on the book Bayesian Cognitive Modeling: A practical course written by Michael Lee and Eric-Jan Wagenmakers. It is followed by a shorter workshop (15-16 July) on Theory and Practice of Bayesian Hypothesis Testing.
Archive for the Netherlands
JAGS Workshop [10-14 July 2023]
Posted in Books, pictures, R, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Amsterdam, Bayesian cognitive modeling, Bayesian hypothesis testing, Bayesian inference, JASP, probabilistic modelling, R, the Netherlands, workshop on March 21, 2023 by xi'anthe mysterious disappearance of the Leiden statistics group
Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, University life with tags Bayesian asymptotics, Bayesian nonparametrics, ERC, Leiden, mathematical statistics, the Netherlands, TU Delft, Universiteit Leiden on July 14, 2021 by xi'an
I was forwarded an article from Mare, the journal of the University of Leiden (Universiteit Leiden), a weekly newspaper written by an independent team of professional journalists. Entitled “Fraude, verdwenen evaluaties en een verziekt klimaat: hoe de beste statistiekgroep van Nederland uiteenviel” (Fraud, lost evaluations and a sickening climate: how the best statistics group in the Netherlands fell apart), it tells (through Google translate) the appalling story of how an investigation on mishandled student course evaluations led to the disintegration of the World-renowned Leiden statistics group, with the departure of a large fraction of its members, including its head, Aad van der Vaart, a giant in mathematical statistics, author of deep, reference, books like Asymptotic Statistics and Fundamentals of Nonparametric Bayesian Inference, an ERC advanced grant recipient, and now professor at TU Delft… While I am not at all acquainted with the specifics, reading the article makes the chain of events sound like chaos propagation, when the suspicious disappearance of student evaluation forms about a statistics course leads to a re-evaluation round, itself put under scrutiny by the University, then to a recruitment freeze of prospective statistician appointments by the (pure math) successor of Aad, as well as increasing harassment of the statisticians in the Mathematisch Instituut, and eventually to the exile of most of them. Wat een verspilling!
the mechanical [book review]
Posted in Books, pictures with tags AI, book review, Calvin, Catholic Church, Huygens, Isaac Newton, Montréal, New Amsterdam, Québec, robots, Talleyrand, The Hague, the Netherlands on June 4, 2021 by xi'an
Read this 2015 book by Ian Tregillis with growing excitement as I was first unsure why I had ordered it. It is a mix of the Baroque Cycle and of the Difference engine, with Huygens playing the central role (rather than Newton). The postulate of the story is that he found [in the 1600’s] a way to create robots (or mechanicals, or yet Clakkers) with autonomy, prodigious strength, and unlimited “life” time. Endowing the Netherlands with such an advantage as to become the unique European power. Except for a small population of French people, living in exile in Montréal, renamed as Marseille-in-the-West, where the descendants of Louis XIV were desperately fighting the Dutch robots with their barely sufficient chemical skills… 
In addition to this appealing alternate history, where the French are arguing about the free will of the machines, and building underground railways to convey rogue mechanicals outside the Dutch empire, partly for being Catholics and hence following the Pope’s doctrine [and partly to try to produce their own robots], where the Pope is also a refugee in Québec, and where New Amsterdam has not turned into New York, but is a thriving colonial city in America, linked to the mother country by mechanical boats and Zeppelin-like airships, the machines are constrained to obey the humans, with the Queen’s wishes at the top of a hierarchy of constraints. And no Asimov’s law to prevent them from being used as weapons, to the French’s sorrow! But their degree of autonomous thought is such that a mere loosening of a component may remove the compulsion and turn them into rogues, i.e, free willed robots. On the converse side, a nefarious guild in charge of a Calvinist faith and of the maintenance of the robots is attempting to extend this control of the Dutch State over some humans. Which makes for a great setting discussing the blurry border between humans and AIs, with both humans and Clakkers bringing their arguments to the game… I am now eagely waiting for the second and third volumes in the series of The Alchemy Wars to arrive in the mail to continue the story!
Lorenz-eScience competition
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags AI, competition, explainable AI for science, Leiden, Lorentz center, the Netherlands, Universiteit Leiden, workshop on May 7, 2021 by xi'an
monomial representations on Netflix
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags chess, chess tournament, Cornell University, monomial representations, Najdorf Sicilian, Netflix, New York State, North Sea, PhD thesis, Queen's Gambit, the Netherlands, White Hall, Wijk aan Zee on February 16, 2021 by xi'an
When watching the first episode of Queen’s Gambit, following the recommendations of my son, I glimpsed the cover of a math thesis defended at Cornell by the mother of the main character..! Prior to 1957, year of her death. Searching a wee bit further, I found that there exists an actual thesis with this very title, albeit defended by Stephen Stanley in 1998 at the University of Birmingham. that is, Birmingham, UK [near Coventry]. Apart from this amusing trivia piece, I also enjoyed watching the first episodes of the series, the main actor being really outstanding in her acting, and the plot unfolding rather nicely, except for the chess games that are unrealistically hurried, presumably because watching people thinking is anathema on TV! The representation of misogyny at the time is however most realistic (I presume|!) and definitely shocking. (The first competition game when Beth Hamon loses is somewhat disappointing as failing to predict a Queen exchange is implausible at this level…) However, the growing self-destructive behaviour of Beth made me cringe to the point of stopping the series. The early episodes also reminded me of the days when my son had started playing chess with me, winning on a regular basis, had then joined a Saturday chess nearby, was moved to the adult section within a few weeks, and … stopped altogether a few weeks later as he (mistakenly) thought the older players were making fun of him!!! He never got to any competitive level but still plays on a regular basis and trashes me just as regularly. Coincidence or not, the Guardian has a “scandalous” chess story to relate last week, when the Dutch champion defeated the world top two players, with one game won by him having prepared the Najdorf Sicilian opening up to the 17th round! (The chess problem below is from the same article but relates to Antonio Medina v Svetozar Gligoric, Palma 1968.)
