Gwynn Gebeyehu points us to this announcement:
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Government Advances in Statistical Programming (GASP) 2025
Submissions Due: 5 April 2025We invite you to submit an abstract for the next Government Advances in Statistical Programming (GASP) conference scheduled for 25-26 June 2025, 12-5 pm ET. There is no fee to present or attend the conference. The virtual conference is open to anyone and will feature various ways for you to share your work:
Regular presentation: Regular presentation sessions will include several talks with a common theme. Each speaker will have about 12-15 minutes followed by Q&A.
Lightning talk: Quick 5-7 minute presentation on a particular application, code, visualization, etc. Lightning talks will be grouped into a session and presented back-to-back, with most Q&A delayed until the end.
Students: Separate lightning talk sessions may be set up for students (e.g., using government data, code demonstrations, or data visualizations of government activities).
Other: A panel, an unconference session, workshop, demo, or interest group meeting. To submit an abstract, complete this google form. If you have questions, contact Lisa Frehill ([email protected]) or Peter Meyer ([email protected]).
We welcome any submission of interest to a general audience of producers and users of government statistics. For example, past conferences have included the following topics:
Tools and techniques
• Open source software (Python, R, Stan, Julia)
• Natural language processing
• Machine learning / Neural networks
• Data analytics
• Generative AI / Large Language Models (LLMs)Infrastructure – resources
• Version control / reproducibility
• Developing R libraries / Python packages
• Cost-saving innovation
• Privacy and disclosure avoidance
• Policy issues (e.g., open government)
• Porting codeDeployment
• Dashboards (e.g., Shiny)
• Data visualization
• Innovation in data dissemination and accessibilityApplications
• Proof of concept
• Model development, selection, and validation
• Automating and streamlining analysisSelected GASP23 papers appeared in a special issue (July 2024) of the Journal of Data Science. The GASP23 Final Program can be accessed here.
Sponsored by: Data Science for Federal Statistics (DSFS), an Interest Group of the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology (FCSM)
My question: are we sure this government agency will continue to exist? Are they in line to be fired or to resign? I don’t see any DEI language, so perhaps they are safe – but I do think they are interested in things like bias, so who knows.
Dale Lehman wrote, “I don’t see any DEI language, so perhaps they are safe.” Somehow, and this may be a stretch, this reminds me of some dialogue in the 1957 play, “The Birthday Party,” by Harold Pinter.
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“At one point, McCann claims to be from an official-sounding organization, which adds to the play’s air of menace and ambiguity. While not explicitly named “the Waterboard,” the idea of shadowy authority figures exempt from normal rules aligns with the themes of the play.”
“The idea that someone from the “Water Board” would be exempt from the usual restraints placed on police contributes to the play’s surreal and unsettling atmosphere.”
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As an aside, the term “Water Board” took on an entirely different meaning a few decades later on the other side of the planet.