4.00pm Monday, Mathematical Institute Theatre D

Dr. Vincent Macaulay, University of Glasgow

“Out of Africa: moving on “

A recent dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa is now widely accepted, partly due to the pioneering work of members of the Wilson lab examining genetic variation in the maternally-transmitted genome mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Subsequent work on other parts of the genome has in general supported this conclusion (although not unequivocally). In this presentation, I will review the evidence that has led to this position, but go on to show that the evidence from mtDNA is not yet exhausted. I will report recent work of myself and others that has attempted to tease out, using a little phylogenetics and probability, more of the characteristics of the process by which modern humans came out of Africa. I shall in particular address the route taken across Eurasia, which is hotly disputed. The mtDNA variation in isolated “relict” populations in southeast Asia supports the view that there was only a single dispersal from Africa, most probably via a southern coastal route, through India and onward into southeast Asia and Australasia. In this picture, there was an early offshoot, leading ultimately to the settlement of the Near East and Europe, but the main dispersal from India to Australia ~65,000 years ago was rapid, most probably taking only a few thousand years.

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7pm, Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews.

Dr Hans Blix

“Time for a Revival of Disarmament?”

Best quotations:
A wise American friend of mine said: “I always trust those who seek the truth and mistrust those who claim to know it.”
During my work as a UN weapons inspector I was bugged by the US government, if only they’d paid attention to what I said(!)

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4.00pm Wednesday, CREEM
Undecaffeinated coffee and tea from 3.45pm

Tiago A. Marques (Joint work with Len Thomas)

“DECAF - Overview and initial results”

The goal of this talk is to describe the project I am currently working on as part of my post-doc and some of the results obtained so far. DECAF, the project acronym, stands for “Density Estimation for Cetaceans from passive Acoustic Fixed sensors”. It is a 3 year project, built around 4 case studies: sperm whales (2 case studies) at AUTEC, beaked whales at AUTEC and humpback whales at PMRF. For all of them, the ultimate objective is density estimation.

The background for the use of passive acoustics will be discussed, contrasting this approach with visual line surveys.

Until now most of the work was related to the beaked whales case study. We started by evaluating a method previously used at AUTEC to estimate beaked whale density. This was a group counting algorithm, with several potential problems related to some arbitrary choices and a statistical artifact: these are briefly reviewed. Building on that, we have evolved into looking at two different approaches: (1) dive counting and (2) cue counting. Both of these will be described. A likelihood based method to estimate a whale location was attempted, but just recently we realized that it was not adequate, and improvements to this will be attempted next. Further, data analysis to obtain relevant parameters to carry simulation of plausible data sets to evaluate the “dive counting” approach have also been attempted, with interesting preliminary results.

Recently we have started looking into the sperm whales case study, and some general ideas about the way to address this case study will also be presented.

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4.00pm Wednesday, CREEM

Ali Johnstone, University of Cambridge

“Detectability of breeding birds”

The aim of this work is to estimate what proportion of birds breed at various ages. Existing methods such as Pradel cannot be used, as various assumptions are violated. Therefore, I’m trying to estimate the number of pairs which nest in a given breeding season, but are not detected, using closed population mark-recapture methods within the breeding season. I will compare the initial results, and hopefully spark discussion on other possible approaches to this problem.

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Monday 10th December 5.15 pm, Lecture theatre A, Physics Building, University of St Andrews

Dr John Haigh, University of Sussex

“How Likely is That?”

This lecture was established in memory of Edward Copson, Regius Professor of Mathematics in the University of St Andrews from 1950-1969, and aims to bring to St Andrews a distinguished mathematician with the reputation of being able to communicate mathematical ideas to a non-specialist audience.

Dr Haigh is an expert on probability who has written a popular book on the subject “Taking chances: winning with probability” and has given one of a series of popular lectures for the London Mathematical Society. Jointly with fellow sports lover Rob Eastaway he has also written “Beating the Odds; the hidden mathematics of sport”. He sums up his lecture entitled “How likely is that” as follows. “Answers to questions about probability are often surprising and may even seem paradoxical. But a logical approach shows why these answers arise”.

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4.00pm Wednesday. Coffee from 3.45 pm, CREEM

Christian Ewald, Economics, University of St Andrews

“The conflict over parental care: A game theoretic analysis on aspects such as cooperation, benefit and welfare for the young”

In this talk we address various issues which arise in the classical parental care conflict, which have, should or could be modeled with game theoretic models. After a brief summary of fundamental concepts in game theory, aspects such as cooperation, benefit and welfare consequences for the young will be put into a game theoretic context and various models will be discussed. These models have been developed in joint work with John McNamara and Alasdair Houston.

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Monday 26 November, Lecture Theatre D 4.00 p.m. Mathematical Institute, University of St Andrews

Professor Geir Storvik, University of Oslo (visiting University of Bristol)

Posterior Predictive p-values in Bayesian Hierarchical models

Checking a chosen model is an important part of a statistical analysis. Within the Bayesian framework this could also include checking the prior. The class of posterior predictive p-values has become a much used tool for checking the model, but can be conservative. Within hierarchical models, standard posterior predictive p-values can be extended in different ways. In this talk I will discuss different alternatives and explore their properties in some simple examples. I will further discuss methods for calibrating such p-values to become uniformly distributed under the model assumptions, a property useful for interpretation. In situations where the calibration is based on the prior assumptions, this transforms the posterior predictive p-values to prior-predictive p-values. Some results from real examples will also be presented.

This talk will very much be based on joint work with Gunnhildur Steinbakk, Nils Lid Hjort and Fredrik Dahl at the University of Oslo

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7:30-8:30pm. Room D 502 (Clement’s House, 5th Floor) LSE

Jeremy Leggett, CEO of Solarcentery
Climate Change meets Peak Oil

“One of the key players in putting the climate issue on the world agenda” -Time Magazine
Outside the current White House and a dwindling band of contrarians who have now lost even their funding from ExxonMobil, climate change is perceived as a dire threat, Many at the top of the business world now accept it can wreck the global economy if left unmitigated.
Peak oil - the prospect of an unexpected topping point in global oil production within the next few years - is a related but different problem. Only a minority, though a growing and authoritative one, believe it is a significant threat. If they are right, however, this problem is also capable of wrecking the global economy, so oil-addicted have we allowed it to be become.

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In the CREEM seminar room. Coffee from 3.45pm

Catriona Stephenson, CREEM
Testing mechanistic models of seed dispersal for the invasive Rhododendron ponticum

Rhododendron ponticum is a serious invasive alien plant in the British Isles and is of considerable conservation and economic concern. While optimal control strategies for single individuals and small stands of R. ponticum are well described, effective regional control of the plant demands an improved understanding of its spatial dynamics, in particular its dispersal ecology. I will describe the results of two field experiments designed to quantify the dispersal pattern of R. ponticum seeds: 1. controlled release over a few seconds at known windspeeds and 2. natural release over the peak dispersal period. We then use these results to assess the potential use of two different mechanistic wind dispersal models (WINDISPER and WALD) as descriptors of seed dispersal ecology for this species.

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Yes, I am still alive. For those who are interested in my latest geekery they can check out my journey (with Fearghas and his iPhone) from St Andrews to London last weekend. The moblog of the roadtrip is here.

Additionally, I’ve decided to start posting the abstracts from seminars I’ve been to here (as much for me to remember as any other reason.)

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