Yr Eisteddfod

Dw i'n dysgu Cymraeg. I'm a Welsh learner (still making many mistakes). Wythnos diwetha es i i'r Eisteddfod i helpu yn yr Pafiliwn Gwyddoniaeth a Thechnoleg (dydd Gwener i dydd Sul). Last week I went to the Eisteddfod to help in the Science and Technology Pavilion (Friday to Sunday). Mae hi'n fy Eisteddfod gyntaf. It was my first Eisteddfod. Bendigedig! Bydda yn mynd eto blwyddyn nesaf. Fantastic! I'll go again next year.

Gregynog Statistical Conference 2016

The Gregynog Statistical Conference is a long running conference, now in its 52nd year. This conference has been running since 1965. The conference has such a long history that its origins predate box-and-whisker plots, bootstrapping and the R language. But statistics has clearly been relevant and important for the last 52 years and will no doubt remain so for the next 52 years.

Gregynog Hall, where the conference is held every year, is in the heart of mid Wales. It is a beautiful old mansion bequeathed to the University of Wales by the Davies sisters, and now used for conferences, music festivals and educational activities, such as our computer science undergraduate weekends away.

This year the conference main themes seemed to be modelling of epidemics, using variants of S-I-R models, MCMC and Markov models in general. Another topic for discussion was p-values, following the Friday evening after-dinner talk on this subject by David Colquhoun. The statistical power of experiments and meta-studies to combine data from smaller studies was also a recurring theme. Some of the talks I enjoyed were by Ruth King, who described how to include time spent in each state (dwell time) in a Markov model, and Simon Spencer who explained S-I-R epidemic models and went on to use MCMC and importance sampling to estimate his model parameters. Also Chris Jewell, who described the challenges of modelling vector-borne disease outbreaks in cattle in New Zealand, while at the same time providing real-time advice to government on how to manage the course of the disease.

The poster session was a little haphazard. Somehow the posterboards hadn't arrived so posters were bluetacked to the cupboards, blackboards and walls. But the range of topics was good, from Sam Nicholls' work on modelling the metahaplome in metagenomics, to students from Warwick working on the approximation of integration and partial derivatives using Gaussian functions, and a meta-analysis of studies on delayed rewards and delayed penalties (receiving £10 today instead of £20 next week, vs minus £10 today instead of minus £20 next week).

Hopefully another new statistics lecturer will be joining our maths department shortly, as we're recruiting at the moment. Statistics underlies almost every area of research now, particularly in the sciences. We do need to make sure that we keep talking to the expert statisticians regularly.

The Welsh Crucible

This year I applied for a place on the Welsh Crucible, and my application was accepted. The Welsh Crucible is a yearly scheme for researchers in Wales. It takes 30 researchers from different institutions and different disciplines and puts us all together for 3 workshops ("labs") over the summer, to see what interesting ideas and collaborations can be forged.

So I'm now talking about grant applications to a plant biologist in Cardiff, an environmental chemist in Bangor and a physical geographer in Aberystwyth, and I have a new network of future collaborators spanning a huge range of subjects.

Here are a few other thoughts about the experience, in no particular order:

It's a fantastic networking opportunity, a great way to make contacts for subjects outside your immediate area.

Over the course of the 3 labs I became better at introducing my research in a short and presentable manner. At the start I found this very difficult. At the end it's still hard, but I'm making progress. As a researcher I often feel that I can't really describe my research, full of its day-to-day technical details, in a way that anyone else will understand. One of the exercises they asked us to do was to write 100 words about our research, for a lay person. Another was speed-networking (just 3 minutes per person and then move on). My description of my work still varies, depending on who I'm talking to, but I'm much more happy to attempt it now. Doing these exercises not only helps us communicate with other researchers, but also makes us introspect and see if we're actually doing what we want to be doing.

Speed networking. Photo by Keith Morris.

The best interdisciplinary work is likely to come from a real working friendship where we already trust each other. So build these, and the rest will follow. The Crucible has actually made me take more of an interest in other disciplines and it allows me to feel that it is okay to do so. It's good to be interested in other disciplines, even if the REF assessment says otherwise. In fact its generally made me think about the longer term, about putting good foundations in place and not worrying about short term measurements, and individual wins and losses. From Crucible people I've learned about gallium teaspoons, arthritis inflammation and bone chomping, the placebo effect, dating rocks by luminescence under big black sheets, Jews in Scotland, and the problems of conducting health studies across populations of people.  I'll definitely go to more seminars from other departments now. And maybe I'll wander into some other departments' coffee rooms too...

The wants and offers wall. Photo by Keith Morris.

We were asked to start off by introducing ourselves with a 9-slide pecha kucha presentation. Far more of the male participants than the female participants included a picture of their children in this introduction (about 8/19 male vs about 0/11 female).

Several of the Crucible participants were promoted or took on new positions of responsibility between lab two and lab three. One participant described it as a useful benchmarking experience. We look at others around us and see what can be achieved. 

We have some very talented and enthusiastic researchers across Wales. As a group, we cover a lot of research expertise, and we have the whole range of skills (people management, media engagement, conference organising, book writing, schools outreach, grant writing, presenting, teaching, etc). I look forward to meeting everyone again at the reunion.

All the Crucible 2013 attendees. Photo by Keith Morris.

NLW digitised newspapers

Some fascinating stories are available in the newly digitised newspapers (from 1844 to 1910) from the National Library of Wales collection of Welsh Newspapers.

"The railway officials shouted to her to lay down, which she did just as the train reached her." http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk/en/page/view/3252907/ART69