A major challenge in many modern economic, epidemiological, ecological and biological questions is to understand the randomness in the network structure of the entities they study. Although analysis of data on networks goes back to at least the 1930s, the importance of statistical network modelling for many areas of substantial science has become more pronounced since the turn of the century.  This Committee on Statistical Network Science (CSNS) will focus on promoting and fostering research in statistical and probabilistic network analysis, in the wider sense. This remit includes graphical models, random graph models as well complex functional network models.

 

Committee Members:

 

• (Chair) Gesine Reinert (University of Oxford, UK), Professor of Statistics. Editor-in-chief for SpringerBriefs in Probability and Mathematical Statistics. 
  
  
• Vladimir Batagelj (University of Ljubljana, Slowenia), Professor Emeritus Of Mathematics, is known for his work in discrete mathematics and combinatorial optimization, particularly analysis of social networks and other large networks.
  
  
• Anuška Ferligoj (University of Ljubljana, Slowenia), Faculty of Social Sciences, Professor Emeritus, is an elected member of the European Academy of Sociology and International Statistical Institute, and has been a member of boards of the International Network for Social Network Analysis, International Federation of Classification Societies, and International Sociological Association.
  
  
• Claire Gormley (School of Mathematics and Statistics, University College Dublin, Ireland), co-director of the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research Training (CRT) in Foundations of Data Science.
  
  
• Sarika Jalan (Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India), Complex Systems Lab. Professor Salan is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Computational Science and Executive Member of the Complex Systems Society.
  
  
• Goeran Kauermann (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany), Chair of Applied Statistics in Social Sciences, Economics and Business.
  
  
• Eric D. Kolaczyk (Boston University, USA), Professor of Statistics, Director, Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing.
  
  
• Clelia Di Serio (Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, and San Raffaele Vita-Salute University, Milano, Italy), Professor in Statistics.
  
  
• Veronica Vinciotti (University of Trento, Italy), Associate professor.
  
  
• Ernst C. Wit (Università della Svizzera Lugano, Switzerland) Professor of Statistics and Data Science.

 

 

Some video links

Can we use network models to shed new light on global arms trading?
Using statistical network models to understand the driving forces in arms trading in the last decades and today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxzJ9RFSCJ0

Can we improve social support for the elderly during COVID-19?
This research highlights which groups of elderly people have either non-existent or insufficient social support during the COVID-19 pandemic and are therefore more vulnerable. For these elderly people, sustainable care policy planning and crisis intervention planning should be organised especially for future waves of the coronavirus and other pandemics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tIWuBvA6NI

Normal or not? How to detect anomalies in networks
Complex interactions such as financial transactions or links between computers can often be visualised as networks. Anomalies in such networks may indicate deviant behaviour. How can we detect such anomalies?
In this video we shall encounter a statistical test called Monte Carlo test to address this issue. The Monte Carlo test can also be applied in many other scenarios.
https://sciani.com/portfolio/normal-or-not-how-to-detect-anomalies-in-networks/

Sometimes, correlation does imply causation
You often hear “correlation does not imply causation” in order to warn the listener about spurious relationships that may be observed in everyday life. The number of homicides seems to correlate with ice cream sales, but clearly this is not a causal relationship. Given that all we can see in real life are mere correlations, can we ever be sure of causality? This video will describe a network inspired definition of causality in order to derive a method, known as the PC algorithm, to detect causal interactions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLxQfi194c

 

Some online seminars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1iSbsQjWxo Prof. Gesine Reinert, Turing Institute Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha32LmYLmrU Prof. Gesine Reinert, Master Class "Inference of Networks

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160727093010001 Prof. Gesine Reinert, "Estimating the number of communities in a network

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161214111512001 Dr. Veronica Vinciotti, "Sparse Gaussian graphical models for dynamic gene regulatory networks

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160824113012301 Prof. Ernst Wit, "Network inference in genomics

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160715113012001 Prof. Neil Friel, "Properties of Latent Variable Network Models

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160728091510152 Dr. Alberto Caimo, "Bayesian ERGMs -- computational and modelling challenges

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160825104011001 Dr. Pariya Behrouzi, "Detecting Epistatic Selection in the Genome of RILs via a latent Gaussian Copula Graphical Model

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160826090009401 Prof. Alberto Roverato, "The Networked Partial Correlation and its Application to the Analysis of Genetic Interactions

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160826094010201 Dr. Reza Mohammadi, "Bayesian modelling of Dupuytren disease using Gaussian copula graphical models

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160826102010401 Dr. Silvia Fierascu, "Applying network science to political problems. A conceptual and analytical framework for understanding and predicting corruption risks in business-political networks

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20160826133014101 Dr. Ben Parker, "Optimal Design of Experiments on Connected Units with Application to Social Networks

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161212093010301 Prof. Tom Snijders, "Continuous-time statistical models for network panel data

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161212111512001 Prof. Eric Kolazyk, "Dynamic causal networks with multi-scale temporal structure

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161213093010301 Prof. Tom Britton, "A network epidemic model with preventive rewiring: comparative analysis of the initial phase

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161213160016451 Prof. Stephane Robin, "Detecting change-points in the structure of a network: Exact Bayesian inference

https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/20161215160016451 Dr. Catherine Matias, "Statistical clustering of temporal networks through a dynamic stochastic block model

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHTGY8VCinY Prof. Niel Lawrence, "Deep Probabilistic Modelling with Gaussian Processes ostnet.webhosting.rug.nl/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pub:online

 

 

The 63rd ISI WSC 2021 will be held 11-16 July as a virtual conference. The WSC theme “Statistics and Data Science for a Better World” highlights the developments and contributions of statistics and data science in various domains of application that impact all aspects of life. The Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee (SPC), Nalini Ravishanker, invites the statistical community to submit proposals for Invited Paper Sessions (IPS). Please use the Submission System.

The 63rd ISI WSC 2021 will host talks and presentations on a wide variety of topics, with the overall goal of presenting a balanced programme that provides a sense of the current state and future direction of statistics, data science and their applications. The programme will span sectors of practice including academia, business, industry, government and official statistics along with the breadth of ISI and Associations affiliated with ISI. Topics include but are not limited to official statistics, survey statistics, environmental statistics, business and industrial applications of statistics, mathematical statistics, probability, statistics and data science education, statistical literacy and statistical computing and data visualization.

Accepted Invited Sessions will be held either live-streamed or pre-recorded, details will be given later. The pre-recorded sessions will have a time to have live interactions with attendees. The SPC will determine which IPS will be offered in which modality, but all submissions should be willing to do either.

Live-streamed

Real-time (synchronous) sessions will be scheduled each day. This time block is necessarily limited, given the desire to reach out to all time zones. It will last two and a half hours from 14:00 to 16:30 Central European Summer Time. The relevant times are:

Country	Start	End
West Coast USA	05:00	07:30
The Netherlands	14:00	16:30
Japan	21:00	23:30
Australia (Sydney)	22:00	00:30
New Zealand	00:00	02:30

Pre-recorded

Asynchronous, pre-recorded sessions will be released each day during the conference. Opportunities to interact with presenters either live or via chat will be available.

Invited Paper Sessions

IPS proposals must meet the following requirements and include the following information:

1. Session Title - description
2. Connection to ISI, Associations or Committees
3. Organiser – name, affiliation, contact information
4. Session Chair – name, affiliation, contact information
5. For each speaker,
   1. Name, affiliation, contact information
   2. Title of talk (if appropriate – not needed for panel)
   3. Abstract

The best proposals will include participants that reflect the diversity of ISI including age, gender and country/region. Strong proposals will have speakers confirming their willingness to participate should the programme be accepted. Note that speakers can only speak in one session.

When submitting a proposal, you should indicate to which of the ISI Associations your session is related:

1. If you specify more than one Association, choose a primary one and your proposal will be first reviewed by that Association under the guidance of its representative on theSPC.
2. If you think that your proposal does not relate to any ISI Association, you may choose ISI as the primaryassociation.
3. Proposals will be reviewed by the SPC on a competitivebasis.

Just a quick reminder: each proposal should include a brief description and justification for the proposed session and a list of presenters and discussants who have agreed to participate. The selection criteria will take into account scientific quality, impact, and overall diversity.

IPS Selection Criteria 

The SPC will select IPS to ensure that the WSC programme:

1. is interesting, of high quality, with sessions that emphasize innovative ideas, approaches and/or applications to problems ofimportance;
2. reflects a balance of Organisers / Presenters / Discussants from around theworld and a diversity of participants with respect to age, gender and statisticalinterests.

Invited Papers historically have been and will continue to be a key feature of a successful WSC. We look forward to receiving your proposals!

Please read the Guidelines for Session Organisers before submitting your proposal.
Please submit your IPS proposal before 15 November 2020.

General enquiries about the Scientific Programme should be directed to Nalini Ravishanker at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^

Bernoulli Society Bulletin e-Briefs Issue 41 June 2020

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Contents:

• GENERAL NEWS
• EVENTS
• RECENT ISSUES OF OFFICIAL AND SPONSORED PUBLICATIONS

For information to be considered in the next issue, please contact Carlos Améndola This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by August 30th.

General News

***Leif Döring as new Virtual Event Coordinator

We are excited to announce a new position in the Publicity Committee: the Bernoulli Society took an important step in the context of this new worldwide reality and decided to create the position of Virtual Event Coordinator. Our colleague Leif Döring (Uni Mannheim) has been chosen to take this role. Welcome!

***One World Probability Project

The One World Probability project https://www.owprobability.org/ is an online platform for research seminars, workshops and schools in probability theory. Started during the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020, the project intends to bring together researchers from all over the world in a virtual and inclusive environment. The project is a community wide initiative supported by the Bernoulli Society and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. It runs the regular online One World Probability Seminar, and supports online workshops and schools.

***Schramm Lectures at BS-IMS-WC 2021 and SPA 2022

Omer Angel (U British Columbia) is going to give the Schramm Lecture at the Bernoulli-IMS 10th World Congress in Probability and Statistics, in Seoul, July 19-23, 2021. Furthermore, Louigi Addario-Berry (Mc Gill U) will give the Schramm Lecture at the 42nd Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications (SPA) in Wuhan, China, June 27 – July 1, 2022.

***2020 Carver Medal awarded to Lynne Billard

Lynne Billard, Professor at the University of Georgia and Treasurer of the Bernoulli Society from 2013-2019, has been named the 2020 IMS Carver Medalist. Lynne Billard receives the award for her outstanding service to IMS on a number of key committees, including publications, nominations, and fellows; for her extraordinary leadership as Program Secretary (1987-90) that culminated in IMS forging a partnership with the Bernoulli Society that includes co-hosting the biannual World Congress; and for her advocacy of the inclusion of women and young researchers on the scientific programs of IMS sponsored meetings.

***ISI Short Course Committee for WSC 2021

In the context of the World Statistics Congress 2021 in the Hague, Netherlands, ISI sponsors short courses that promote continuing professional development and training capacity. Ingrid van Keilegom (KU Leuven) has been approved as the Bernoulli Society representative in the ISI Short Course Committee.

Events sponsored and co-sponsored by Bernoulli Society

***Bernoulli-IMS One World Symposium 2020
August 17 - 21, 2020

The Bernoulli Society jointly with IMS plans a virtual symposium during the week of August 17-21, 2020 (of the postponed Bernoulli-IMS World Congress in Seoul). Watch out for the special announcement soon!

 

***Bernoulli-IMS 10^th World Congress in Probability and Statistics (BS-IMS-WC)

July 19 - 23, 2021

Seoul, South Korea

http://www.wc2020.org/

The congress is the latest in a series organized jointly by the Bernoulli Society and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Held every four years, the Congress is a worldwide event covering all branches of statistics and probability. This includes theoretical, methodological, applied and computational statistics and probability, as well as stochastic processes. The latest scientific developments in all of these fields are showcased. It will be held at the Seoul National University.

***6th IMS Asia Pacific Rim Meeting

January 5 - 8, 2021

Melbourne, Australia
http://ims-aprm2021.com/

The Institute of Mathematical Statistics APRM will provide an excellent forum for scientific communications and collaborations for the researchers in Asia and the Pacific Rim, and promote communications and collaborations between the researchers in this area and those from other parts of the world. The program covers a wide range of topics in statistics and probability, presenting recent developments and the state of the art in a variety of modern research topics and in applications Invited session proposals are now being considered.

***Frontier Probability Days (FPD’20)

May 16-18, 2021

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

http://lechen.faculty.unlv.edu/FPD20/

The Frontier Probability Days is a regional workshop, now postponed to 2021 at the University of Nevada. Its purpose is to bring together mathematicians, both regionally and globally, who have an interest in probability and its applications. FPD aims to complement other regional conferences in Probability that are held annually elsewhere in the United States.

***International Symposium on Nonparametric Statistics (ISNPS2020)

June 14 – 18, 2021

Paphos, Cyprus

http://cyprusconferences.org/isnps2020/

The conference has been postponed to 2021 and it will bring forth recent advances and trends in several areas of nonparametric statistics, in order to facilitate the exchange of research ideas, promote collaboration among researchers from all over the world, and contribute to the further development of the field. The program will include plenary talks, special invited talks, invited talks, contributed talks and posters on all areas of nonparametric statistics.

***Rényi 100 Conference

June 28 - July 1, 2021

Budapest, Hungary
https://conferences.renyi.hu/renyi100/home

Alfréd Rényi was born on the 20th of March 1921. To celebrate this occasion, the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences are organizing a high-profile conference, representing modern probability, graph theory and networks, information theory, dynamical systems, number theory and other fields in Rényi's spirit. That is: not respecting strictly the borders between these and possibly other areas of pure and applied mathematics.

***International Conference on Robust Statistics (ICORS)

June 28 – July 2, 2021

Vienna, Austria

http://cstat.tuwien.ac.at/filz/icors2020/

The conference has been an annual international conference since 2001. The aim of the conferences is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in robust statistics, data analysis and related areas. This includes theoretical and applied statisticians as well as data analysts from other fields, and leading experts as well as junior researchers and graduate students.

***Extreme Value Analysis (EVA 2021)

June 28 – July 2, 2021

Edinburgh, UK
https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/school-of-mathematics/eva-2021/

The conference brings together researchers in Extreme Value Theory, Methods and its Applications. The conference will take place at the University of Edinburgh. Short courses will be held on 26-27 June 2021. 

***63^rd ISI World Statistics Congress 2021 (ISI-WSC)

July 11 - 15, 2021

Hague, Netherlands
http://www.isi2021.org/

The congress series is organized by the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and the Bernoulli Society is participating in the series as an association of ISI. It brings together statisticians and data scientists from academia, health sector and business, junior and senior professionals, in an inviting environment.

***42^nd Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications (SPA)

June 27 - July 1, 2022

Wuhan, China

Previously scheduled for July 2021, the conference will take place in 2022. SPA Conferences are organized under patronage of the Bernoulli Society and can justifiably be regarded as the most important international scientific meeting on the theory and applications of stochastic processes. They are held annually except for the years when the World Congress in Probability and Statistics takes place. This iteration will be hosted by Wuhan University. 

[POSTPONED] ***23^rd  Conference of the Romanian Society of Probability and Statistics

Timisoara, Romania
http://www.spsr.ase.ro/spsr2020

Since 1991, the annual conference of the Romanian Society of Probability and Statistics brings together academics and students from Romania and abroad to discuss recent developments in research in probability theory and mathematical statistics. This year, the conference will be held at UPT (Politehnica University of Timisoara).

[POSTPONED] ***40^th Finnish Summer School on Probability and Statistics

Lammi, Finland
https://fdnss.fi/40th-finnish-summer-school-on-probability-and-statistics/

The mission of this traditional summer school is to provide one-week intensive courses on active research topics in probability and statistics, lectured by leading scholars in the field. The school is targeted primarily for doctoral students in probability, statistics, and related areas. Advanced MSc students, fresh postdocs and everyone in the research and applied field are also encouraged to apply.

[POSTPONED]***XXIV Brazilian School of Probability

Campinas, Brazil

https://www.ime.unicamp.br/bsp2020/

The EBP is an international event which has been running since 1997. From its start it has been a meeting point for high level researchers and an excellent opportunity for young students to learn about different aspects of probability theory from world leading experts. 

The event has been canceled and possibly rescheduled for July / August 2021.

Recent Issues of Official and Sponsored Publications

* Recent issues of official publications of the Bernoulli Society

Bernoulli http://goo.gl/yJywLg,

Stochastic Processes and their Applications http://goo.gl/JCahtH

* Co-sponsored publications

Have a look at http://goo.gl/7EP2cZ for the latest articles in Electronic Communications in Probability, Electronic Journal of Probability, Electronic Journal of Statistics, Probability Surveys, Statistics Surveys, and ALEA.

* Bernoulli News

Latest issue at http://goo.gl/nRDPYo