Seventh Annual Conference of the Australasian Bayesian Network Modelling Society (ABNMS 2015)

Call for Abstracts and Participation

Seventh Annual Conference of the Australasian Bayesian Network Modelling Society (ABNMS 2015)

November 23 - 24, 2015: Pre-Conference Tutorials

November 25 - 26, 2015: Conference

Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Melbourne

 

The organising committee for ABNMS 2015 is pleased to invite the submission of abstracts.

Abstracts are invited from all fields. Past presentations have covered a wide range of disciplines including environmental management, geology, law, ecology and medicine, and a variety of technical aspects on methods of development, data mining, linking GIS with Bayesian Networks, and lessons learned from particular BN projects.

Those beginning to use Bayesian networks are invited to present prospective projects for discussion.

Key Dates

  • Call for abstracts: 31 July 2015
  • Abstract submission deadline: 4 September 2015
  • Decision on abstracts: 11 September 2015
  • Deadline for conference registration (including pre-conference tutorials): 21 September 2015

Abstracts for ABNMS 2015 should be no longer than 300 words. Please submit your abstracts via https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=abnms2015

Include the title of your presentation, authors, affiliations, contact details for the corresponding author and abstract. The abstract should be self-contained and explicit, covering the aims, methods, results and main conclusions of the work. The abstract should not contain figures, tables or references.

Travel Grants

The Australasian Bayesian Network Modelling Society (ABNMS) is offering 4 travel grants to attend the ABNMS Tutorials and Conference 23-26 November 2015 Melbourne, Australia. Awards will be for $250 to $500 to contribute to the costs of travel to and from the conference.

Three Student Grants will be awarded and one 2015 Travel Grant for any person who attended the ABNMS pre-conference tutorials in 2014 in Rotorua, New Zealand and will present in 2015.

Applications should include a brief statement indicating the type of travel grant being applied for, justifying the application, an estimate of travel costs, a scanned signed statement from an academic supervisor verifying student status (if in application for one of the student travel grants), and a CV. An abstract of the talk to be presented at the conference must be submitted in parallel (see above). Student travel grants will only be awarded if the recipient registers for the conference and tutorials. Please note the 2015 Travel Grant recipient is not required to register for the pre-conference tutorials.

Travel grant applications must be submitted by email to president@abnms.org by 20 September 2014.

If you have any questions regarding ABNMS2015, please email ABNMS2015@abnms.org.

Melbourne Bayesian Network Training Workshop in June

We are pleased to announce that we will be holding our Introduction to BNs workshop in Melbourne on June 18-19th at Monash University's Caulfield campus. This is an excellent opportunity to learn the foundations of Bayesian networks, common extensions and connect with others in using the techniques.

If you would like to attend, please register at the following site:

http://bayesian-intelligence.com/training/

There you will also find a draft workshop schedule with an overview of the topics covered. If you are unable to make these dates, please email me indicating your interest in attending at another time.

For more general information about our workshops, you can visit http://bayesian-intelligence.com/training/ where you will find contact info.

Finally, please also feel free to pass this email on to anyone you know that may be interested in attending our BN training courses.

Regards,
Owen Woodberry

The Future of Science & Technology Research under Defence: A Forum on DTCA

Forum-flyer

 

PDF Slides from the DTCA Forum:

The forum included the following two talks which give an overview of the DTCA legislation and its potential impact on Australian science and technology:

Kevin Korb: An Overview of DTCA

Carlo Kopp: Introduction to the DSGL

 


Bayesian Network Training Workshops

Due to demand, we are pleased to announce that we will be holding two two-day Introduction to BNs workshops in February: in Melbourne on February 12-13th, and in Townsville on February 26-27th.  This is an excellent opportunity to learn the foundations of Bayesian networks, common extensions and network with others in using the techniques.

If you would like to attend either of the sessions, please register at the following site:

http://bayesian-intelligence.com/training/

There you will also find a draft workshop schedule with an overview of the topics covered. If you are unable to make these dates, please email indicating your interest in attending at another time.

For more general information about our workshops, you can visit http://bayesian-intelligence.com/training/ or contact Owen Woodberry at owen.woodberry@bayesian-intelligence.com.

May 2014 Bayesian Network Training with Bayesian Intelligence

We will be holding our next Introduction to BNs workshop at the Mount Albert Research Centre in Auckland, New Zealand, on May 13-14. We still have some places available, so if you would like to attend, please register at:

http://bayesian-intelligence.com/training/training-registration.php

There you will also find a draft workshop schedule with an overview of the topics covered. If you are unable to make these dates, please email me indicating your interest in attending at another time.

For more general information about our workshops, you can visit http://bayesian-intelligence.com/training/ or contact Owen Woodberry on owen.woodberry@bayesian-intelligence.com or on +61 (0)406 924 446.

Finally, please also feel free to pass this info on to anyone you know that may be interested in attending our BN training courses.

Bayesian Watch

— Kevin Korb

I have started a new blog, BayesianWatch, on which I will post (occasionally) on Bayesian argumentation theory and practice. The differences from this blog are: this is the official blog of Bayesian Intelligence, while BayesianWatch is my personal blog; this blog is about Bayesian technology and methods, while the other is about argument analysis, with a Bayesian orientation. Inevitably, there will be some cross talk, however; for example, on that blog you will find a response to the Sally Clark post here.

Bayesian network training workshop

On February 13-14 BI will run its Introduction to BNs workshop at Monash University, Caulfield Campus. We still have places free, so if you would like to attend, please register at the following site:

http://bayesian-intelligence.com/training/training-registration.php

There you will find a draft workshop schedule with an overview of the topics covered. If you are unable to make these dates, please email me (steven.mascaro@bayesian-intelligence.com) indicating your interest in attending at another time.

For more general information about our workshops, you can visit http://bayesian-intelligence.com/training/ or contact me by email.

CaMML (Causal discovery via MML) software available

From the mid-1990s we have developed and enhanced causal discovery software for learning causal Bayesian networks from sample data using an MML measure. We have now made linear CaMML available after some years of absence, when we exclusively focused on developing discrete CaMML. Discrete CaMML has been available for some years via Rodney O'Donnell's github web page, but we link into it now through our "Software" page. The user interfaces for these programs are not exactly user friendly; however, a GUI has been developed for discrete CaMML and should become available reasonably soon.

Bayes by the Bay, Chennai, India, 2013

Kevin B Korb

The Chennai Institute of Mathematical Sciences held its 50th birthday party in Pondicherry, India, 4-8 January 2013, organized by Ronojoy Adhikhari and Rahul Siddharthan. This was a lively meeting attended by statisticians, physicists, biologists, climate scientists, computer scientists and others, united by an interest in applying Bayes Theorem in solving all kinds of scientific problems — and divided, as usual, by the many possible interpretations of Bayes Theorem. I look forward to the day(?) when Bayesians can find consensus, not over what in particular probabilities may be, but over the fact that they may be diverse things. Acknowledging objectivity needn't come at the price of abandoning subjectivity (see, e.g., David Lewis's "A subjectivist's guide to objective chance" in R. Jeffrey (ed) Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability, vol III, 1980).

In any case, there were many interesting presentations and discussions, including, among many others: Devinder Sivia (Oxford) presenting Bayesian methods of data analysis, Rajesh Rao (Washington) describing recent Bayesian models of brain function, Erik van Nimwegen (Basel) using Bayesian networks to predict protein contacts, Balaji Rajagopalan (Colorado) analysing climate change with extreme value models. I gave talks on Bayesian network modeling, causal discovery of Bayesian nets, and discretization. Most of these were filmed and will be made available on Youtube. When that happens, I'll update this post.

Science Slam

The Science Slam final will be held in few days in Cologne. The English-speaking world needs something like this as well! (see the list of countries at wikipedia.) What is the Science Slam?

I translate the corresponding page from www.scienceslam.de:
 

Was ist ein Science Slam?

The Science Slam offers students and researchers an opportunity to present their research projects in an entertaining 10-minute show on stage.

In contrast to a Poetry Slam any sort of aid is allowed: Power point, props or live experiments are welcome. When the Science Slam ends, the audience decides which Slammer goes home the winner.

The aim of Science Slam is to encourage scientists to present their work in a clear and easily understandable way. At the same time, the entertaining lectures for non-specialist audiences give people the chance to get infected by the enthusiasm of the slammers for their projects. Although research is the focus here, the scientific value of the lecture plays a subordinate role. Rather, the emphasis is on communication, and on showing the public what young scientists are devoting their energies to.