Connectionists: Call for Papers: ABC in Montreal Workshop at NIPS 2014

[Ted Meeds]

CALL FOR PAPERS

NIPS 2014 Workshop: ABC in Montreal

December 12 or 13, 2014
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) or likelihood-free (LF) methods have developed mostly beyond the radar of the machine learning community, but are important tools for a large segment of the scientific community.  This is particularly true for systems and population biology, computational psychology, computational chemistry, etc.  Recent work has both applied machine learning models and algorithms to general ABC inference (NN, forests, GPs) and ABC inference to machine learning (e.g. using computer graphics to solve computer vision using ABC).  In general, however, there is significant room for collaboration between the two communities.

The workshop will consist of invited and contributed talks, poster spotlights, and a poster session.  Rather than a panel discussion we will encourage open discussion between the speakers and the audience!

Examples of topics of interest in the workshop include (but are not limited to):

* Applications of ABC to machine learning, e.g., computer vision, inverse problems 
* ABC in Systems Biology, Computational Science, etc
* ABC Reinforcement Learning 
* Machine learning simulator models, e.g., NN models of simulation responses, GPs etc.
* Selection of sufficient statistics
* Online and post-hoc error 
* ABC with very expensive simulations and acceleration methods (surrogate modeling, choice of design/simulation points)
* ABC with probabilistic programming
* Posterior evaluation of scientific problems/interaction with scientists
* Post-computational error assessment
* Impact on resulting ABC inference
* ABC for model selection

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Submission:
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We invite submissions in NIPS 2014 format with a maximum of 4 pages, excluding references.  Anonymity is not required.  Relevant works that have been recently published or presented elsewhere are allowed, provided that previous publications are explicitly acknowledged.  Please submit papers in PDF format abcinmontreal at gmail.com .
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ISBA at NIPS
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This workshop has been endorsed by ISBA.  As part of their sponsorship, ISBA will be awarding a limited number of travel awards to PhD students and young researchers.  The organizing committee may nominate particularly strong submissions for this award.

In addition to the general ISBA endorsement, ABC in Montreal has been endorsed by the BayesComp section of ISBA.

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Important Dates:
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Submission Deadline: October 9, 2014
Author Notification: October 26, 2014
Workshop: December 12 or 13, 2014

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Invited Speakers:
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Michael Blum, Laboratoire TIMC-IMAG
Juliane Liepe, Imperial College London
Vikash Mansinghka, MIT
Frank Wood, Oxford

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Organizers:
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Neil Lawrence, University of Sheffield
Ted Meeds, University of Amsterdam
Christian Robert, Université Paris-Dauphine
Max Welling, University of Amsterdam
Richard Wilkinson, University of Nottingham

Contact:
The organizers can be contacted at abcinmontreal at gmail.com.
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