Natasha Klappstein 🐻‍❄️🇨🇦📈

Illustration of a magnifying glass below text that reads "Freedom to research." Unlock Education campaign logo and "Education2025.ca" URL below the magnifying glass.

In Canada, proposed cuts of 15% across the federal government would have a dramatic effect on already globally decimated research & science.

Join Canada's research & science community and tell PM Mark Carney to preserve the funding promised in 2024.

Send a letter: win.newmode.net/canadianasso...

hmmTMB: Hidden Markov Models with Flexible Covariate Effects in R by Théo Michelot <p>Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are widely applied in studies where a discrete-valued process of interest is observed indirectly. They have for example been used to model behavior from human and animal...

The hmmTMB paper is finally out in the Journal of Statistical Software!

An R package for hidden Markov models with random effects, flexible spline-based covariate effects, and fast inference using TMB or Stan.

Check out the GIthub repository for more examples.

doi.org/10.18637/jss...

Yes! Very happy to see the DSU finally taking a public stand!

Uniforum (Nous Group) has been at Dal since 2022 and they've likely been advising senior administration on creating the crisis narrative since then. Read these articles: circles.eduvation.ca/posts/inviti... and nationalpost.com/feature/how-...

The @dalhousieu.bsky.social Board of Governors' "offer" for interest arbitration won't resolve this. It's just creating further delays. Bargaining on the issues important to our members is required. Stop with the stunts, let's get back to the table and talk. It's the only way to #KeepDalStrong

Message to faculty and staff, August 27, 2025

Perhaps you have seen the newest presser by @dalhousie.bsky.social (www.dal.ca/dept/hr/labo...) about interest arbitration.
Note:
THEY CONVINIENTLY LEFT OUT THAT THE @dalfaculty.bsky.social WOULD HAVE TO DROP ALL UNRESOLVED ITEMS

They have had since May to bargain and have not.
#KeepDalStrong

Agreed. Yesterday, I emailed the DSU to urge them to take a stronger stance in support of the DFA. Neutrality is just not the way to go here.

Strategic plan Dalhousie's Strategic Plan (2021-2026): Third Century Promise, signals our long-term ambition and provides a clear, actionable strategy to guide us.

How does locking out faculty achieve this objective? Uncompetitive offer followed by lockout disproportionately affects junior faculty (poor retention) and makes Dal less attractive to future hires (poor recruitment).
#Solidarity #KeepDalStrong @dalfaculty.bsky.social

This is just it. Strikes & lockouts are the big tools unions & employers use, often to bring the other back to the table.

Dal’s prez locked us out—while voting on her “offer”!—after her team walked away. I guess just to show she could?

That’s not leadership; it’s childish bullying. #KeepDalStrong

Also baffling how they are claiming that fall courses will proceed normally in any scenario, when they are actively taking prep time from all DFA members with every day of the lockout.

Students have set up an open letter, which students can sign, in support of @dalfaculty.bsky.social! THANK YOU! forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/respon...

As if a terrible offer wasn't bad enough, @dalhousieu.bsky.social walked away from the table, AGAIN! Won't even talk about our members' priorities. The disrespect is baffling. DFA wants to bargain, and we need the other side to engage and help us #KeepDalStrong. @ansut.bsky.social @caut.bsky.social

@supportourscience.bsky.social's letter of concern covered in @science.org's News today #cdnpoli #cdnsci

Concerned about the yellow bars here though. Over a third of researchers are open to using AI to compose a draft. Plus more for editing… so basically using AI for the entire writing process?

Sheer insanity. Can you imagine this in any other industry? Not only giving content away for free, but paying billions for the privilege of doing so, and then paying yet more billions in order to access the content we paid to give away. Make it make sense. 📚

1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world.


I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.

Well over 600 signatories now. Please keep the momentum going.

Sign and share to show how much the wider scientific community is concerned by the Royal Society's silence over Musk's FRS.

Members of the UK and international scientific community are all welcome to sign.

With help from @marcofesta.bsky.social the Canadian Ecologists Starter Pack is now over 50. Please reply to this with brief information if you'd like to be added.

bsky.app/starter-pack...

The strain on scientific publishing: we set out to characterise the remarkable growth of the scientific literature in the last few years, in spite of declining growth in total scientists. What is going on?

direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A 🧵 1/n
#AcademicSky #PhDchat #ScientificPublishing #SciPub

Recently discovered a fun webpage called Probability Playground where you can interactively explore probability distributions.

It’s helpful especially for distributions with parameters that are not immediately intuitive. Very cool!

www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~adamcunn/pr...