Second Call for Contributions (+ updated details and corrected email address) *** Deadline: October 31, for 1-page abstracts. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- NIPS 2010 workshop Monte Carlo Methods for Bayesian Inference in Modern Day Applications http://montecarlo.wikidot.com/ http://nips.cc/ December 10, 2010 Whistler, Canada. Westin Resort and Spa and Hilton Resort and Spa Sponsored by the PASCAL2 EU Network of Excellence --------------------------------------------------------------------------- We invite submissions on Monte Carlo methods and their practical application. Particularly welcome are "tricks of the trade" and "war stories" that might not make it into conventional publications. Submissions are solicited both from researchers developing new methodology and from practitioners using established techniques. Send poster abstracts of up to one page to [log in to unmask] by Oct 31, 2010. Use the NIPS style file with no anonymity. We will notify acceptances by Nov 4, before the NIPS early registration deadline. We intend to invite key contributions from the workshop to submit full papers to a JMLR W&CP issue to appear in the new year. We also invite contributions to the wiki, including suggested readings and discussion topics: http://montecarlo.wikidot.com/ The organizers: Ryan Prescott Adams, http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~rpa/ Mark Girolami, http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/inference/ Iain Murray, http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/ Confirmed invited speakers: Derek Bingham Julien Cornebise Arnaud Doucet Andrew McCallum Yee-Whye Teh Max Welling Workshop description: Monte Carlo methods have been the dominant form of approximate inference for Bayesian statistics over the last couple of decades. Monte Carlo methods are interesting as a technical topic of research in themselves, as well as enjoying widespread practical use. In a diverse number of application areas Monte Carlo methods have enabled Bayesian inference over classes of statistical models which previously would have been infeasible. Despite this broad and sustained attention, it is often still far from clear how best to set up a Monte Carlo method for a given problem, how to diagnose if it is working well, and how to improve under-performing methods. The impact of these issues is even more pronounced with new emerging applications. This workshop is aimed equally at practitioners and core Monte Carlo researchers. For practitioners we hope to identify what properties of applications are important for selecting, running and checking a Monte Carlo algorithm. Monte Carlo methods are applied to a broad variety of problems. The workshop aims to identify and explore what properties of these disparate areas are important to think about when applying Monte Carlo methods. We look forward to seeing you in Whistler this December! -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. You may leave the list at any time by sending the command SIGNOFF allstat to [log in to unmask], leaving the subject line blank.