Blog Posts

Welcome to the NIMBLE blog! Here you’ll find announcements about new releases, tutorials, and insights into using NIMBLE for your statistical computing needs.

 

announcing the nimbleMacros package and the use of macros in NIMBLE models

announcement
release
Recent versions of NIMBLE now include the ability to use macros in models. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially…
Mar 19, 2025
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 1.3.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Dec 21, 2024
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 1.2.1 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Jul 31, 2024
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 1.2.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Jun 14, 2024
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 1.1.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Feb 4, 2024
NIMBLE Development Team
 

nimbleHMC version 0.2.0 released, providing improved HMC performance

release
announcement
nimbleHMC provides Hamiltonian Monte Carlo samplers for use with NIMBLE, in particular NUTS samplers. NIMBLE’s HMC samplers can be flexibly assigned to a subset of model…
Sep 20, 2023
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 1.0.1 of NIMBLE released, fixing a bug in version 1.0.0 affecting certain models

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Jun 21, 2023
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 1.0.0 of NIMBLE released, providing automatic differentiation, Laplace approximation, and HMC sampling

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
May 31, 2023
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.13.1 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. This version is purely a bug fix release that fixes a bug introduced in our new handling of…
Dec 19, 2022
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Bug in newly-released version 0.13.0 affecting MCMC for models with predictive nodes

announcement
We recently released version 0.13.0, which has some improvements in how we handle predictive nodes in NIMBLE’s MCMC engine.
Dec 8, 2022
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.13.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Nov 29, 2022
NIMBLE Development Team
 

We’re looking for a programmer

announcement
The NIMBLE project anticipates having some funding for a part-time programmer to implement statistical algorithms and make improvements in nimble’s core code. Examples may…
Oct 7, 2022
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE virtual short course, January 4-6, 2023

education
announcement
We’ll be holding a virtual training workshop on NIMBLE, January 4-6, 2023 from 8 am to 1 pm US Pacific (California) time each day. NIMBLE is a system for building and…
Sep 8, 2022
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Beta version of NIMBLE with automatic differentiation, including HMC sampling and Laplace approximation

announcement
release
We’re excited to announce that NIMBLE now supports automatic differentiation (AD), also known as algorithmic differentiation, in a beta version available on our website. In…
Jul 15, 2022
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.12.2 of NIMBLE released, including an important bug fix for some models using Bayesian nonparametrics with the dCRP distribution

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Mar 4, 2022
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE in-person short course, June 1-3, Lisbon, Portugal

education
announcement
We’ll be holding a in-person training workshop on NIMBLE, June 1-3, 2022, in Lisbon, Portugal, sponsored by the Centro de Estatística e Aplicações at the Universidade Lisboa…
Mar 2, 2022
Chris Paciorek
 

A close look at some linear model MCMC comparisons

This is our second blog post taking a careful look at some of the results posted in an arXiv manuscript by Beraha, Falco, and Guglielmi (BFG). They compare JAGS, Stan, and…
Nov 11, 2021
Perry de Valpine
 

A close look at some posted trials of nimble for accelerated failure time models

A bunch of folks have brought to our attention a manuscript by Beraha, Falco and Guglielmi (BFG) posted on arXiv giving some comparisons between JAGS, NIMBLE, and Stan.…
Oct 29, 2021
Perry de Valpine
 

NIMBLE online tutorial, November 18, 2021

education
announcement
We’ll be giving a two-hour tutorial on NIMBLE, sponsored by the environmental Bayes (enviBayes) section of ISBA (The International Society for Bayesian Analysis), on…
Oct 20, 2021
Chris Paciorek
 

Version 0.12.1 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Oct 13, 2021
NIMBLE Development Team

Posterior predictive sampling and other post-MCMC use of samples in NIMBLE

announcement
tutorial
Once one has samples from an MCMC, one often wants to do some post hoc manipulation of the samples. An important example is posterior predictive sampling, which is needed…
Aug 10, 2021
Chris Paciorek and Sally Paganin
 

Version 0.11.1 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Jun 2, 2021
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.11.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Apr 24, 2021
NIMBLE Development Team

Bayesian Nonparametric Models in NIMBLE: General Multivariate Models

announcement
NIMBLE is a hierarchical modeling package that uses nearly the same language for model specification as the popular MCMC packages WinBUGS, OpenBUGS and JAGS, while making…
Mar 25, 2021
Claudia Wehrhahn
 

NIMBLE virtual short course, May 26-28

education
announcement
We’ll be holding a virtual training workshop on NIMBLE, May 26-28, from 8 am to 1 pm US Pacific (California) time each day. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing…
Mar 5, 2021
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE is hiring a programmer

announcement
The NIMBLE development team is hiring for a one-year programmer position. We are looking for someone with R and C++ experience. There is also a possibility of a part-time…
Feb 2, 2021
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.10.1 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Nov 30, 2020
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE’s sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms are now in the nimbleSMC package

announcement
release
We’ve moved NIMBLE’s various sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms (bootstrap particle filter, auxiliary particle filter, ensemble Kalman filter, iterated filter2, and…
Nov 29, 2020
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.10.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Oct 14, 2020
NIMBLE Development Team
 

New NIMBLE cheatsheat available

announcement
We have prepared a cheatsheet that summarizes NIMBLE’s functionality and syntax in a two-page format that follows the RStudio collection of cheatsheets. NIMBLE is a system…
Jun 14, 2020
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.9.1 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
May 27, 2020
NIMBLE Development Team
 

nimbleEcology: custom NIMBLE distributions for ecologists

announcement
nimbleEcology is an auxiliary nimble package for ecologists.
Apr 18, 2020
Ben Goldstein
 

registration open for online NIMBLE short course, June 3-5, 2020

education
announcement
Registration is now open for a three-day online training workshop on NIMBLE, June 3-5, 2020, 9 am – 2 pm California time (noon – 5 pm US EDT). This online workshop will be…
Apr 6, 2020
NIMBLE Development Team
 

registration open for NIMBLE short course, June 3-4, 2020 at UC Berkeley

education
announcement
Registration is now open for a two-day training workshop on NIMBLE, June 3-4, 2020 in Berkeley, California. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for…
Mar 2, 2020
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE short course at March ENAR meeting in Nashville

announcement
education
We’ll be holding a half-day short course on NIMBLE on March 22 at the ENAR meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.
Jan 4, 2020
Chris Paciorek

Variable selection in NIMBLE using reversible jump MCMC

announcement
Reversible Jump MCMC (RJMCMC) is a general framework for MCMC simulation in which the dimension of the parameter space (i.e., the number of parameters) can vary between…
Jan 2, 2020
Sally Paganin
 

Version 0.9.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Dec 21, 2019
NIMBLE Development Team
 

New NIMBLE code examples

announcement
We’ve posted a variety of new code examples for NIMBLE at https://r-nimble.org/examples.
Dec 19, 2019
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE short course, June 3-4, 2020 at UC Berkeley

announcement
education
We’ll be holding a two-day training workshop on NIMBLE, June 3-4, 2020 in Berkeley, California. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical…
Dec 11, 2019
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE short course at Bayes Comp 2020 conference

announcement
education
We’ll be giving a short course on NIMBLE on January 7, 2020 at the Bayes Comp 2020 conference being held January 7-10 in Gainesville, Florida, USA.
Sep 13, 2019
Chris Paciorek
 

Version 0.8.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Jun 7, 2019
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.7.1 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Mar 15, 2019
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.7.0 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. NIMBLE is a system for building and sharing analysis methods for statistical models, especially for…
Feb 5, 2019
NIMBLE Development Team

Bayesian Nonparametric Models in NIMBLE, Part 2: Nonparametric Random Effects

tutorial
NIMBLE is a hierarchical modeling package that uses nearly the same language for model specification as the popular MCMC packages WinBUGS, OpenBUGS and JAGS, while making…
Dec 6, 2018

Bayesian Nonparametric Models in NIMBLE, Part 1: Density Estimation

announcement
Bayesian Nonparametric Models in NIMBLE, Part 1: Density Estimation
Dec 4, 2018
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Spread the word: NIMBLE is looking for a post-doc

announcement
We have an opening for a post-doctoral scholar to work on methods for and applications of hierarchical statistical models using the NIMBLE software (https://r-nimble.org) at…
Sep 13, 2018
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.6-12 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. Version 0.6-12 is primarily a maintenance release with various bug fixes.
Jul 29, 2018
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.6-11 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website.
Jun 16, 2018
NIMBLE Development Team

Quick guide for converting from JAGS or BUGS to NIMBLE

tutorial
Converting to NIMBLE from JAGS, OpenBUGS or WinBUGS
May 30, 2018
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Two day workshop: Flexible programming of MCMC and other methods for hierarchical and Bayesian models

announcement
education
We’ll be giving a two day workshop at the 43rd Annual Summer Institute of Applied Statistics at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah, June 19-20, 2018.
Apr 19, 2018
Chris Paciorek
 

Version 0.6-10 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. Version 0.6-10 primarily contains updates to the NIMBLE internals that may speed up building and…
Mar 29, 2018
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE webinar Friday April 13

announcement
education
We’ll be presenting a webinar on NIMBLE, hosted by the Eastern North America Region of the International Biometric Society. Details are as follows.
Mar 20, 2018
Chris Paciorek
 

Version 0.6-9 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. Version 0.6-9 is primarily a maintenance release with various bug fixes and fixes for CRAN packaging…
Feb 9, 2018
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE workshop in Switzerland, 23-25 April

announcement
education
There will be a three-day NIMBLE workshop in Sempach, Switzerland, 23-25 April, hosted at the Swiss Ornithological Institute. More information can be found here: http://www.p…
Jan 24, 2018
Perry de Valpine
 

NIMBLE has a post-doc or software developer position open

announcement
The NIMBLE statistical software project at the University of California, Berkeley is looking for a post-doc or statistical software developer. NIMBLE is a tool for writing…
Jan 3, 2018
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.6-8 of NIMBLE released

release
announcement
We’ve released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website a week ago. Version 0.6-8 has a few new features, and more are on the way in the next few months.
Dec 4, 2017
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.6-6 of NIMBLE released!

release
announcement
We’ve just released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. Version 0.6-6 has some important new features, and more are on the way in the next few months.
Jul 29, 2017
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.6-5 of NIMBLE released!

release
announcement
We’ve just released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. Version 0.6-5 is mostly devoted to bug fixes and packaging fixes for CRAN, but there is some new…
Jun 7, 2017
NIMBLE Development Team

Better block sampling in MCMC with the Automated Factor Slice Sampler

announcement
tutorial
One nice feature of NIMBLE’s MCMC system is that a user can easily write new samplers from R, combine them with NIMBLE’s samplers, and have them automatically compiled to…
May 9, 2017
Nicholas Michaud
 

Version 0.6-4 of NIMBLE released!

release
announcement
We’ve just released the newest version of NIMBLE on CRAN and on our website. Version 0.6-4 has a bunch of new functionality for writing your own algorithms (using a natural…
Apr 26, 2017
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Writing reversible jump MCMC in NIMBLE

tutorial
Reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (RJMCMC) is a powerful method for drawing posterior samples over multiple models by jumping between models as part of the sampling.…
Feb 15, 2017
nimble-admin
 

NIMBLE is hiring a programmer

announcement
This position includes work to harness parallel processing and automatic differentiation, to generate interfaces with other languages such as Python, to improve NIMBLE’s…
Jan 11, 2017
Chris Paciorek

Building Particle Filters and Particle MCMC in NIMBLE

tutorial
An Example of Using nimble’s Particle Filtering Algorithms
Jan 9, 2017
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.6-3 released.

release
announcement
Version 0.6-3 is a very minor release primarily intended to address some CRAN packaging issues that do not affect users. We also fixed a bug involving MCEM functionality and…
Dec 15, 2016
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.6-2 released!

release
announcement
Version 0.6-2 is a minor release with a variety of useful functionality for users.
Nov 23, 2016
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE package for hierarchical modeling (MCMC and more) faster and more flexible in version 0.6-1

announcement
release
NIMBLE version 0.6-1 has been released on CRAN and at r-nimble.org.
Oct 31, 2016
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.5-1 of NIMBLE released!

release
announcement
Version 0.5-1 is officially a minor release, but it actually has quite a bit in it, in particular the addition/improvement of a number of our algorithms. In addition there…
May 27, 2016
NIMBLE Development Team

NIMBLE: A new way to do MCMC (and more) from BUGS code in R

announcement
release
Yesterday we released version 0.5 of NIMBLE on our web site, r-nimble.org. (We’ll get it onto CRAN soon, but it has some special needs to work out.) NIMBLE tries to fill a…
Apr 8, 2016
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.5 released!

release
announcement
We’ve just released the next major version of NIMBLE.
Apr 7, 2016
NIMBLE Development Team
 

NIMBLE paper in Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics

announcement
Our paper giving an overview on the rationale and design of NIMBLE has appeared online in accepted manuscript form at the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics.…
Apr 7, 2016
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.4-1 released!

release
announcement
We’ve just released version 0.4-1, a minor release that fixes some logistical issues and adds a bit of functionality to our MCMC engine.
Oct 4, 2015
NIMBLE Development Team
 

We have a post-doc opening

announcement
We have a 1-year opening for a post-doc interested in developing statistical methods in NIMBLE.
Sep 24, 2015
NIMBLE Development Team
 

Version 0.4 released!

release
announcement
In late July we released a major new version of NIMBLE, 0.4. Ok, that’s still a low version number, indicating we have a lot we still want to build and improve, but this…
Aug 31, 2015
NIMBLE Development Team
No matching items