Talking about vacation...

...wonderful Chiapas!

...BTW, I'm in the US too right now!

Bayes likes surfing and sunbath!

Hi guys! I'm leaving in one week for Veracruz, Mexico for the 8th BNP workshop!
I've a poster to present there and just for your interest: "The session posters will take place in around the swimming pool area of the venue Hotel, Hotel Emporio."
(Go dito tutto!!!)

From Mexico I'll go directly back to the old Durham, NC to spent there the summer working with David Dunson again. So... see ya in september!!!

Heading for Chile

I bought the tickets! Back to my old love... the Skew-normal for the IV skew workshop in Santiago!

Skew normal and Baysian nonparametrics... a sparkling union! I get ready to receive the weirdest questions from the boss...

E parafrasando Enrico IV "Santiago val bene una skew".

To respond...

Snow?

Ok, checca will say that I'm a lazy asshole that waste his time all the day. Well, when you run simulations it's part of the game!

Riccardo! We want to see some picture of the windy city with the snow! I have been told that it's amazing (and freezing!).

For all the others, I'll see you guys next Wed...

Cheers from Duke...

This blog is dying...

Come on guys! Let this blog to come back to life!

Bustra why aren't yuo writing something 'bout snow!?

BTW 18 days and I'm back! See y'all soon!

Perfect world of research

Hi guys, this is really funny.

Living in the US in an international and scientific environment is a wonderful experience that is teaching me a lot of things about science and life as well. More and more the "perfect world of Research" is becoming just a work, made of compromises and things not totally fair. Like the one I'm gonna tell you...

I was at lunch with one of my friend, that as almost all my network here is a young and smart scientist. Zrinka is a postdoc at the Department of Radiation Oncology here at Duke. She published a paper last year: "The novel amidocarbamate derivatives of ketoprofen: synthesis and biological activity" on Medicinal and Chemistry Research available here. Notice the received date of the paper: 16 July 2009.

What happened few months later is amazing. Two indian guys Prasanta Kumar Sahoo and Pritishova Behera saw her paper while it wasn't still accepted for publication. What they did? They cut&paste the whole paper, changed the author's names (clearly!) and slightly changed the title. They submitted to the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry the copied paper with title "Synthesis and biological screening of some novel amidocarbamate derivatives of ketoprofen"! The paper, received the 15th of September was eventually accepted and published! And it is still available here!Amazing, but it is not the end of this story.

Maybe Prasanta Kumar Sahoo and Pritishova Behera were not totally happy about "their" pubblication result. Hence they decided to submit the same paper, again changing sligthly the title in "Cytostatic Activity of Some Novel Amidocarbamate Derivatives of Ketoprofen" to the Journal of Cancer Therapy, which again accepted their paper. Received date April, 19, 2010. Note that "their" first copied paper was already published when they submitted for the second time.

The last paper is no more available online, since Zrinka realized what was happening after a google search. She and her coauthors wrote to all the journals involved and one replyed dropping the fake pubblication, while the other still did nothing (sad, isn't it?). After few days she also received an email from Dr. (maybe just Mr.) Sahoo that's hilarious!

(somebody suggest me to drop this part...)

Riccardo & Maestro, could you please send me your working paper about clustering via nonparametric density estimation? ;)

If you want to waste 5 min of your time...

...try this!

http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/

And go further on the web page to see what happens somethimes in this fake world of research! Now I know how Bustra(TM), Cane and other strange fools were able to get a job!

After all this pessimism and sadness...

...something nice: United States of America National Parks!

Last week I finished the first part of the thesis and written in a paper form I've submitted it to JASA T&M. Right moment to take a short break!

Taking a camping tent, two sleepingbags and one cheap flight to Las Vegas and renting a small car there can bring you to some of the most wonderful landscape in the world! We all know that Europe is better that USA for almost everything: art, culture, history, people, food, wine, way of living the city... but we don't have something so spectacular as Bryce Canyon, Arches park or the famous Grand Canyon!

It's wonderful to imagine that millenia of geology, plate tectonic and erosion, everything moved by natural mechanisms and a big amount of randomness, can lead to spectacular landscape like those!

Really recommended to Maestro (you are so close to Utah and Arizona!) and Riccardo but actually to everyone!

Wine and cheese...

...are wonderful expecially if they are for free!

Bayesian girls

La cosa interessante e` che il tizio che canta e` David Banks... un personaggio anche solo quando passa per i corridoi!

Just to recall 6 even greater statisticians

From left to right Riccardo de Bin (before Bayesian conversion), Antonio Canale (some hairs before), Nicola Lunardon (before absuming hormones and anabolic), Francesca Solmi (several Kilos ago!), Davide Risso (before Mac era) and Monjed H. Samuh (before becoming a Pesarin man).

Presentation!

Hi guys! Just to let you know that I passed safely the presentation of my project here in front of a fully Bayesian class! Hopfully they didn't realize my false-Bayesian faith...

Ciao tosi! Voevo soeo dirve che gò passà senza dolore 'a presentassion del me lavoro qua davanti a 'na classe intera de Bayesiani duri! Speremo che non se sia incorti che mi so soeo un falso Bayesiano...

Salutatemi la checca e fatela dimagrire. In skype ieri sembrava un dirigibile con la sciarpa...

CANILE BOUGHT A CAR!

Canile bought a car, and he didn't post a picture in OUR blog. Anyway, it's a crappy car, almost 300000 Km (which for a petrol car.. is a lot!).

Since I'm much better than him... here is the picture (I'm sorry for the driver...I'll tell Vale to buy a huge hat to hide him when they go out):




See you in 3 days!!!

Checca

Hint for Marlies and her period abroad...

Evita in ogni modo gli Stati Uniti d'estate! Fuori è bellissimo, fiori, verde e un venticello caldo ma gradevole. Dentro ci sono 15 gradi! Aria condizionata del cazzo a manetta! Mi tocca stare con pile in ufficio e in pantaloncini e infradito quando esco... magari a NY a ottobre non è cosi, cmq tienilo presente!

Avoid in any way the United States in summer! Outside is beautiful, flowers, nature and a warm but pleasant breeze. Inside there are 15 degrees! Fucking air conditioning!! I have to stay with the pile in the office in shorts and flip flops when I go out ... maybe in NY in October is not so, but keep it in mind!

CANAE SCARES ME EVEN FROM THERE!!!

Hi mates,

it's increbible how Canae can annoy me even from North Carolina.

This is the picture he just sent me through skype:


I almost had a heart attack (imagine it full-screen)... very scary!


See you all, but Canae luckily, in two weeks! (and but Monjed unluckily, sigh...)


Bye!

Checca



P.S.: - Bustra cossa xè VIF?
- Canae, taiate i baffi un fià meio!

MCM...C!

> system.time(MCMC(y,hyperpar, nrep=3000))
  user  system elapsed
 0.928   0.008   1.033

@checca: che dici, posso permettermi di cazzeggiare un po'?

Bisognaria farghe un monumento...

What's that?

http://iscrizioni.stat.unipd.it/openday/

...ma soprattutto, perchè non c'è la fotto di Monjed con Agresti

...but most of all, why they didn't put Monjed and Agresti's picture?

MCMC...

Se non era per quella canaglia di fizban me lo prendevo tutto...

But for that folk of fizban, I would take it all...