Beta unblockers

A couple of weeks ago, we've uploaded the new version of BCEA on CRAN, to include the function implementing our method for the computation of the EVPPI based on INLA-SPDE $-$ I've also already mentioned this here.

While this is a stable version, we are still continuously testing many of the functions and so I thought I'd keep a beta version on the BCEA website (I've uploaded both a .tar.gz and a .zip file). I will continue to modify this beta version in the next few months, including minor changes/improvements $-$ I don't think these will really affect the basic use of BCEA, but may be relevant in terms of advanced users, for example for customisation of the graphs.

So, BCEA users out there: do tell us what you really, really want $-$ we may even try and implement it for you...

Bayes 2015

This week I'm in Basel for Bayes 2015. As usual lots of interesting talks and a very healthy mix of perspectives $-$ if perhaps a bit less so than usual in terms of topics. I like this conference as it's always very helpful to get interesting ideas $-$ often people do work in areas that are mostly unrelated with what I am working on, but there are commonalities and ideas for potential collaborations.

In keeping with last year's theme (when we tried hard to find Bayes' tomb in Bunhill Fields), almost by chance I stumbled on Jacob Bernoulli's tomb, yesterday during the city tour.

We had already decided that next year's conference will be in Leuven (but the news is now the social even has been also decided: a beer sampling tour) and we've also "volunteered" Virgilio to have the 2017 edition in Castilla-La Mancha $-$ I guess we'll need to find an angle to prove that Don Quixote was a Bayesian... 

That time of the year...

Slightly later than last year, but, like every year, that time is coming. Yes: Eurovision again. From our point of view, it's of course being a lot quieter than last year, although the paper is still going strong. 

But we've had two nice surprises: first we've been asked to give a radio interview on Australian radio. Why on earth, do you say? I'm glad you asked! Well, apparently, Australians looove the ESC $-$ just to give you an idea, I think the radio programme is usually focussed on serious elections, but this week they dedicated the whole show to the ESC! 

Since this is the 60th edition, Australia have been invited to participate. So they'll feature later this week in Vienna and the people at Radio Adelaide have asked me to discuss our results (the podcast for the full programme is here $-$ I'm on at around minute 15:00). If you get over how nasal my voice sounds and keep listening, you will also learn that the University of Melbourne has also recently activate a module on Eurovision! May be we have a career lined up...

The second interesting news is that we've been contacted by Taylor and Francis (the publisher of the Journal of Applied Statistics). They have had this amazing idea to promote the paper by turning it into a cartoon $-$ here's a draft version (I think that the final one will be out shortly).

I think this is a super-cool idea $-$ it's nerdy-fun and conveys the sense of the paper in a very clear way. Also, I really like the sketch of me!

Webinar

Yesterday, I have given a webinar (is it even how you say it? "give a webinar"? Anyway...). It was organised by Mapi and I spoke about using the analysis of the value of information in health economic evaluation. The link to the complete webinar is here.

ICTM Conference

I've been asked to advertise the upcoming International Clinical Trial Methodology conference $-$ this year it will be held in Glasgow. Oddly enough, this will be the second time in a row that the conference is held in Scotland (the 2nd edition was in Edinburgh, two years ago).

I have enjoyed both past editions (the first one in Bristol in 2011), so I think I'll try and go to this one too.  

SPDEVPPI (2)

Following up on our paper, which I've mentioned in the previous post, we've also updated our BCEA package to implement our SPDE-INLA method for the computation of the EVPPI. This is currently a very advanced beta version (available for download here or here) $-$ we have done quite a few tests and all seems to work OK. 

We are also working on writing a more detailed and user-friendly guide to the function implementing the EVPPI, which should make it easier to replicate the examples and actually work on more applied cases.