Newsletter Volume 25 No. 1 (73) 2001 -ISI Sections

		Editorial Address	Enno Mammen, Institut für Angewandte Mathematik, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Im Neuenheimer Feld 294, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany Tel: +49–6221–548981 — Fax: +49–6221–545331 E-mail: mammen@statlab.uni-heidelberg.de
		President	David O. Siegmund, Dept. of Statistics, University of Stanford, Stanford, CA 94305 4065, USA. Tel.: +1–650–723 0598 (office) — Fax: +1–650–725 8977 E-mail: dos@stat.stanford.edu
		Website	http://www.math.uu.nl/bernoulli

This contribution was edited by Enno Mammen, Scientific Secretary of BS, and by Adelchi Azzalini, editor of "Bernoulli News".

In this edition we report on recent changes of BS officers, votes on the new statutes of the Society, meetings sponsored or co-organised by the BS. More information will be provided in the May 2001 issue of "Bernoulli News"; its WWW address is: http://www.stat.unipd.it/bernoulli

The Nominations Committee consisted of
Robert Adler (CCSP),
Ole Barndorff-Nielsen (Publications Committee),
David Brillinger (C(PS)2),
Masatoshi Fukushima (EAPRC),
Peter Hall (President-elect and committee chair),
Lars Holst (ERC),
Luis Raul Pericchi (LARC) and
David Siegmund (President).

Their task was to choose an incoming President-elect, who would take over from Peter Hall on his transition to President in Seoul; and to select six new members of Council, to replace the six who will retire at the time of the Seoul Session.

The committee first drew up a list of 25 candidates for either President or Council, and then, through a series of ballots, selected first a candidate for President and then six members of Council. There was extensive discussion by e-mail at each stage of the process. It ranged over issues such as the need to ensure appropriate representation by both region and subject area. The process began in mid June and concluded in mid October. Then the present Council deliberated on, and approved, the Nominations Committee's choices.

By this process, Don Dawson was chosen as President-elect and Paul Feigin, Chii-Ruey Hwang, Richard Tweedie, Elisabeth de Turckheim, Ruth Williams and Victor Yohai were selected as the new Council members.

Don, who has an exceptional reputation for his wide-ranging and deep contributions to stochastics, is the Society's first President from Canada. In 2000 he retired as Director of the Fields Institute, and is presently a Distinguished Research Professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.

The new Council members, as well as being particularly talented scientists in fields of statistical science covered by the Society, also represent a number of the varied parts of the world from which the Society draws its members. Feigin is from the Middle East, Hwang from Asia, Tweedie and Williams from North America, Turckheim from Europe, and Yohai from South America.

The Bernoulli programme subcommittee for the 54^th ISI Session in Berlin has now started its work. The members are:
Rudy Beran, Berkeley;
Rainer Dahlhaus, Heidelberg (Chair,)
(dahlhaus@statlab.uni-heidelberg.de);
Ursula Gather, Dortmund (ex officio: Fachgruppe Stochastik of the DMV (Deutsche Mathematikervereinigung));
Peter Green, Bristol;
Enno Mammen, Heidelberg
(ex officio: Scientific Secretary Bernoulli Society);
Steve Marron, Chapel Hill;
Dominique Picard, Paris.

Any suggestions on invited paper meetings for the ISI Session in Berlin are most welcome and should be send to one of the members.

The new amended statutes of the Bernoulli Society have been discussed by the Council. The intention of this revision is purely to bring the Statutes into line with the way the Bernoulli Society currently conducts its business. The amended statutes have been prepared by Louis Chen together with his colleague Yu-Kiang Leong. They have been approved last year by the Councils of ISI and Bernoulli Society. The statutes will now be submitted for a mail vote to the membership. For this purpose, the next issue of "Bernoulli News" will publish the amended statutes and ballots will be enclosed.

The results on the elections to LARC members are as follows. Elected to LARC: Pilar Iglesias (Chile),
Bruno Sanso (Venezuela) and
Belem Trejo (Mexico);
they replace: Luis Raul Pericchi
(Outgoing President, (Venezuela)),
Victor Perez-Abreu (Mexico) and
Guido del Pino (Chile).
The selection procedure to select the new President of LARC is in progress.

Since January 2001, Mathisca de Gunst is the new Treasurer of the BS. Mathisca de Gunst works since 1988 as a mathematical statistician in the Department of Mathematics of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She got her Ph.D. in 1988 from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Her research interest is in the area of stochastic modelling and statistical analysis of biological processes. Her e-mail address is (degunst@cs.vu.nl).

• SPA'01:
27^thInternational Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications
Date: 9–13 July 2001
Place: Cambridge, U.K.
Organizer: J.R. Norris
E-mail: spa27@statslab.cam.ac.uk

• The 23^rdEuropean Meeting of Statisticians
Date: 13–19 August 2001
Place: Funchal (Island of Madeira), Portugal
Programme Chair: Anthony C. Davison (Lausanne, CH)
Local Organizer: Dinis Pestana (dinis.pestana@fc.ul.pt)
Web-page: http://www.fc.ul.pt/cea/ems2001/

• VIII Latin-American Congress in Probability and Mathematical Statistics
Date: 12–16 November 2001
Place: University of Havana, Cuba
Web-page: http://www.uh.cu/eventos/clapem/ehome.htm
Contact persons: Gonzalo Perera (Chairman Program Committee) E-mail gperera@fing.edu.uy
Pablo Olivares (Chairman Local Organizing Committee) E-mail clapem@matcom.uh.cu

International Association for Official Statistics

		Editorial Address	Ada van Krimpen, Vice-President IAOS, PO Box 4000, 2270 JM Voorburg, The Netherlands Tel.: +31–70–3374738 — Fax: +31–70–3375991 — E-mail: @cbs.nl
		President	Pilar Martín-Guzmán, Arrieta 4 7°, 28103 Madrid, Spain E-mail: mariapilar.martinguzman@uam.es
		Website	http://www.singstat.gov.sg/IAOS/index.html

Ada Van Krimpen reports:

Recent Activities

• Planning of IAOS activities for the 53^rd Session of the ISI to be held in Seoul, Korea 22–29 August 2001, and related events;
• Initiating preparations for IAOS activities in connection with the 54^th Session of the ISI, to be held in Berlin, Germany;
• Preparations of the Nominations Committee recommendations to determine the next IAOS Executive Committee and President Elect.

IAOS meetings in Seoul

The ISI Permanent Office has done a great job in preparing the administrative meetings programme during the 53^rd Session of ISI in Seoul. For IAOS and SCORUS, four administrative meetings have been scheduled. The tentative schedule for the meetings is as follows:
• IAOS Executive Committee
Thursday August 23, from 7.30–9.00 a.m. (advice: the early bird catches the worm!);
• IAOS Programme Committee
Friday August 24 from 11.45–13.15;
• IAOS General Assembly
Monday August 27 from 11.45–13.15;
• SCORUS meeting
Thursday August 23 from 11.45–13.15.

The invitation and agenda for the IAOS General Assembly will be published in the June issue of the ISI Newsletter.

Nominations for the Executive Committee 2001–2003 and the President Elect for 2003–2005

The Nomination Committee, whose responsibility is to determine the Executive Committee 2001-2003 and the President Elect for 2003-2005 (Tim Holt [Chair], Enrique Ordaz, Sid David) has presented the results of its work. The list of nominations is as follows:
President Elect 2003-2005: Heli Jeskanen Sundström (Finland)

Vice presidents 2001-2003: Siu-Ming Tam (Australia)
Irena Krizman (Slovenia)
Maria Carre (Argentina)
Farhad Mehran (Iran)

Note: Paul Cheung (Singapore) will be president during the period 2001-2003. The list of nominees will be presented to the IAOS General Assembly in Seoul for approval.

The IAOS conference in 2002 ‘Official Statistics and the New Economy’

The IAOS conference in 2002 will be held in the United Kingdom. It was decided to depart from the initial plan to organise the conference in Ivory Coast. The IAOS Executive Committee would like to thank the U.K. for its offer to host the 2002 conference. The theme of the conference is ‘Official Statistics and the New Economy’. It is foreseen that the conference will take place in late August or at the beginning of September 2002.
Tim Holt will chair the Scientific Programme Committee. Len Cook, National Statistician of UK, will chair the Local Organising Committee and Wes Woollard of the ONS will take care of the conference management. We will continue to keep you updated.

IAOS Satellite Meeting on Statistics for an Information Society

The IAOS Satellite Meeting ‘Statistics for an Information Society’ will be held on 30 and 31 August 2001 in Tokyo, immediately after the 53^rd Session of ISI in Seoul. The satellite meeting will be hosted by the Statistics Bureau of Japan in co-operation with the Japan Statistical Society, other academic groups and bodies. The organisers have just opened a web-site:
http://www.stat.go.jp/english/iaos/index.htm
At the beginning of February a preliminary information brochure will be sent out.

Training Course on Advances in Time Series Analysis

In a previous issue of this ISI Newsletter it was announced that a training course on Advances in Time Series Analyses would be organised by IAOS, the Korean NSO and the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP). The training course will be organised prior to the 53^rd ISI Conference in Seoul. Please note the following qualification regarding this conference announcement: due to funding problems, only those candidates from the Asia and the Pacific region who will be funded by SIAP can be accepted. Information can be obtained from Paul Cheung (Paul_Cheung@singstat.gov.sg).

The Montreux Initiative: A quest for a science of human dignity

By Carlo Malaguerra
Director General of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (SFSO)

More than two years ago, Switzerland undertook to launch what has now become known as the “Montreux Initiative”, which major achievement to this day is the IAOS 2000 International Conference on "Statistics, Development and Human Rights", that took place from 4 to 8 September 2000 in Montreux, Switzerland.

The Conference was organised jointly by the SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation) and the SFSO (Swiss Federal Statistical Office), as an original contribution of Switzerland to the promotion of human rights and the assessment of development policies by enhancing the use of quantitative analysis in these contexts.

Even though the Conference, organised in the context of a non-governmental organisation, was not an appropriate forum for adopting official conclusions, there was however a demand for the organisers to summarise the main outcomes of our work, which are presented hereafter.

The Conference intended to launch a process for promoting the setting up of mechanisms, methods and indicators for observing, measuring and assessing progress in the implementation of human rights and the right to development. The Conference was a first step, within a process still in development, “a quest for a science of human dignity”, to quote from the address that Mrs. Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, delivered on the occasion of the Opening Session of the Conference.

We wish to underline here that the dialogue goes on, and we therefore invite our readers to share their reactions with us.

The initiative was based, on the one hand, on the very characteristics of IAOS as a Section of the ISI gathering both producers and users of official statistics and offering a non official, universal and multidisciplinary scientific forum where one may regularly consider the role and contribution of official statistics in a democratic society, and the partnership with users.

On the other hand, the initiative considered the interaction between statistics, development and human rights stemming from the persistent demand on the part of those responsible for national, regional and international human rights and human development policies. Specific reference is to be made in particular to the 1990s’ world summits and conferences on development and human rights, that have in particular called for the development of new or more efficient tools for the measurement of progress in favour of development and human rights, and to the consecutive efforts launched by intergovernmental agencies such as the United Nations, UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, UNESCO, OECD, etc.

The Conference was an effort to bring at the heart of the process those having the statistical know-how to support these efforts of defining a new generation of indicators, and to create conditions for a sustained interaction in future activities.

For the first time, representatives of the diverse communities concerned – statisticians, development specialists and human rights experts – were brought together, to reflect on the issue and to consider ways to better integrate this approach in their respective activities.

Expectations were high, as indicated by the highest level of political participation to the Conference. Ministers and heads of several international agencies delivered addresses claiming for increased efforts and results in developing accurate quantitative information and indicators to support human rights and human development policies.

The attendance and the quality of the debates and of the papers delivered are no lesser demonstrations of the importance of the event. Over 740 persons attended the Conference, from 123 countries, 37 international organisations and numerous non-governmental organisations. More than 300 invited and contributed papers have been delivered on this occasion, that are published on the Conference’s newly up-dated web site at (http://www.iaos2000.admin.ch).

The initiative was unanimously recognised as a breakthrough, and lively debates occurred focusing both on the state of the art and on the need to build up on the innovative experiences identified and presented during the Conference.

We would like to record from the outset that this Conference has confirmed the enormous potential that is contained in statistical information and methods for the reinforcement of the mechanisms for monitoring the achievements of human development and the respect for human rights.

It is not our intention today to make an exhaustive presentation of the Conference results, or to reflect in details on the many particular topics discussed. We would rather like to position the results of our work in the perspective of future action. We will therefore restrict ourselves to recording the major lines of action, which, at the end of the Conference, seem to be the subject of a general consensus between the experts in the fields of statistics, development and human rights.

1. The first line of action concerns the multidisciplinary approach that we have adopted here and which we should maintain and deepen in our future work. In effect, a wide variety of scientific and professional skills are needed for confronting the complexity of the problems that we have to examine and to satisfy the need for information in terms of development policy and the promotion of human rights. This multidisciplinary approach must nevertheless be developed on the basis of a conceptual framework agreed by the experts in the various fields.

2. The second line of action concerns the professionalism of the work of the international institutions and the NGO that are active in the areas of development and human rights. The Conference has in fact demonstrated the need for the use of professional techniques in the analysis of development problems and in the monitoring of the achievement of human rights. In this regard, the Conference has shown that there is considerable need for more effective quantitative methods and analysis instruments. Our debates have also shown that we should pay special attention to scientific rigour and to the impartiality of our observation instruments, and to the monitoring of development and the implementation of human rights. In this context, all here agreed that the quantitative and qualitative approaches are indivisible: the production and interpretation of the figures must be combined with a qualitative analysis of the context.

3. The third line of action is to do with the development of a genuine partnership between experts in the fields of statistics, development and human rights. We should work together to identify and select the existing information, as well as assessing it for its pertinence and quality. We should work together for a better definition of the appropriate expertise in the context of tangible projects for monitoring the implementation of human development and the achievement of human rights. Finally, we should work together for the development of indicators, methods and analysis tools.

4. The fourth line of action is to do with the integration of the human rights dimension as a fundamental reference in the conception and implementation of the information policies of the national statistical institutes. Certainly, the national statistical institutes do not have to produce all the pertinent information and analysis on human rights issues. They can, nevertheless, on the one hand better orient the existing sectoral statistics (in the social area, for example) on the questions and policies related to human rights and, on the other hand, they can provided expertise and technical support for the scientific institutions and non-governmental organisations.

5. This consideration leads us directly to the fifth line of action emerging from this Conference, which constitutes one of the major conclusions of our work. We should take all possible steps for promoting the use of statistical information and methods by governmental and non-governmental organisations in charge of development policies and defence of human rights. This was emphasised not only by the NGO representatives, but also by the members of the national Human Rights Commissions and by members of parliaments: we should in future provide a wider distribution of manuals and information about training programmes intended for the users of the statistical information. Similarly, statisticians should commit themselves with determination to the development of support services and the provision of statistical expertise for the NGO and the national Human Rights Commissions. In this regard, the activity of the “Human Rights Programme” of the American Association for the Advancement of Science constitutes an example that should be followed at the international level.

6. The sixth line of action is to do with the reinforcement of the tissue of co-operation between statisticians and development and human rights experts. Indeed, an international network has just been born in Montreux: it must now be nourished and allowed to grow. Interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge, experience and professional expertise must be pursued. We have two tangible instruments for consolidating this network: the database and the Internet page that have been created for this Conference. It is important for us to set tangible objectives for ourselves: the network should enable any person or institution to have direct access to the information concerning the experts, programmes and technical support services available in the world. But the network instruments must above all serve to reinforce the links of co-operation that we have forged during the course of this week.

7. The seventh line of action concerns the revision and consolidation of the conceptual basis and framework for measuring and analysing progress in the development process and in the implementation of human rights. The Conference has given considerable impetus to the work of developing and implementing indicators of human rights. The idea was issued to construct a coherent framework for measuring all of the factors of incidence and the factors of result in the development process (“development accounting framework”). We must now ensure a coherent and rigorous follow-up of this work and these proposals. Furthermore, the professional groups assembled here should as of now attach themselves to the task of conception and improvement of the definitions and methods enabling pertinent measurement of the implementation of human rights and good governance. Similarly, we should pursue the revision work of the basic statistics and the definitions and methods on which the development indicators are built. In this regard, voices were raised with insistence during the conference to signal that the ranking of countries according to the progress measured by development indicators carried the risks of abusive extrapolation and misinterpretation. On this point, the majority of the experts consider today that we should not be fixated on the method of ranking countries, but that we should above all analyse the evolution of development processes and discern trends. Furthermore, international comparison of development achievements must deal with situations that are genuinely comparable. In this sense, comparative approaches at the regional level should be preferred, dealing with groups of countries that are experiencing similar situations, cultural contexts and development problems.

8. The eighth line of action is to do with the reinforcement of co-operation and technical assistance in the field of statistics. In effect, the Conference has clearly shown that the reinforcement of the statistical capabilities of the developing countries constitutes a prior and unavoidable condition for more rigorous observation of progress in terms of development and human rights. There are therefore grounds for developing responsible partnerships with the most underprivileged countries. There are also grounds for reinforcing the investment in human and financial resources in consistent programmes of technical assistance. International co-operation with countries with precarious statistical machinery should aim not only at supporting the transfer of know-how and the professionalisation of statistical activity, but also at promoting the institutional development of public statistics that are impartial and at the service of society as a whole.

9. The ninth line of action concerns the guarantee of integrity and quality of statistical work that is placed at the service of the monitoring of development processes and of the achievement of human rights. The Conference participants tended to consider that this statistical work should be supervised by ad hoc independent bodies existing or to be established within the scientific and professional associations attached to the ISI. Some also mentioned the possibility of reinforcing the integrity and the quality of the work of the official statistical institutions by means of “peer reviews”. We believe that what is important here is not the choice of the means of supervision, but the respect for the principle of scientific transparency. In this respect, the Conference has shown that one must today proceed with a systematic and independent public reporting on the quality of the information bases that underlie the documents and reports of governmental and non-governmental organisations dealing with development and human rights issues.

10. Finally, the tenth line of action has to do with the need to reinforce the co-ordination of initiatives and international projects seeking to establish indicators and instruments of measurement of development, the achievement of human rights and good governance. It would today be premature to specify the form that such co-operation should take. All the partners were however unanimous about the idea that this should be built on a light mechanism that would work under an institutional umbrella that is universal, solid and respected. In this context, it was stressed that the international institutions in charge of development policies and the promotion of human rights should consult more together on the orientation and priorities of their work, but that it was the duty of the specialists, and the statisticians in particular, to assume the leadership and full responsibility for the organisation and implementation of the tasks relating to the development of definitions, methods and information bases, as well as for the co-ordination and consolidation of indicators and measurement instruments.

Those then are the lines of action that emerged from the Conference. They cover tangible work and objectives. Our summary of the Conference’s conclusions must indeed also reflect the general voice of the participants who have called for a serious follow-up and for the implementation of tangible actions. In this regard, the round table that preceded the Conference’s Closing Session has amply demonstrated that the international institutions are very interested in setting up a common consultation framework for ensuring the follow-up of the work that has been initiated in Montreux. Furthermore, several representatives of the international institutions active in the fields of statistics, development and human rights have for their part expressed the wish that, in the image of what has happened during the Conference, the continuation of the work be built upon the heavy involvement of the national players.

Participants furthermore identified the need for a follow-up process and structure that answer these needs both with timeliness and professionalism, and they therefore called for a focal point gathering and matching the demands and offers of services aiming at strengthening statistical information and capacity relating to human rights and development.

For their part, the Conference organisers, consequent with the responsibility that is emerging from the success of this encounter, have since the Conference’s completion, focussed their efforts on conducting consultations with institutions both at the international and the national levels, to envisage the ways to consolidate such a follow-up scheme.

The current status of these efforts is a proposal to establish an independent unit serving as a methodological competence centre with a multidisciplinary approach in the field of statistics and indicators on human rights and human development. The unit, by nature a facilitating service, would work in a network, and offer to its partners (international agencies, statistical services, NGOs, etc.) clearinghouse services so as to answer their statistical information and statistical capacity needs. One of the first tasks would then include the continuation of the work of “map making“ of relevant indicators and of the capacity/ experiences in developing them, at the international level, but also at the national level.

A meeting, gathering not only the main governmental and non-governmental organisations involved in the fields of statistics, development and human rights, but also representatives of national institutions that have manifested a desire to involve themselves in the follow-up of our work, should be called soon to examine this proposal and to set a timetable of tangible actions.

In conclusion, the Montreux initiative follow-up process should be guided by and should contribute to bring an answer to the following major aspirations:

• The need for a new generation of human rights and human development indicators;
• The need for balanced development indicators fully integrating the human rights dimension;
• The need to strengthen the capacity for producing statistical information relevant for human rights and human development monitoring;
• The need to improve relevant statistical information’s users’ numeracy.

The 22^nd SCORUS Conference, Shenzhen – China, 7–10 November 2000

The 22^ndSCORUS Conference was held at the beautiful, comfortable Whouzhou Guest House of Shenzhen, China, an impressive centre for large conferences and other important cultural events. Shenzhen is situated near Hong Kong and is in an area that, in recent years, has undergone considerable development.

The Conference was hosted by the Shenzhen Statistics & Information Bureau and we are grateful to the Organizing Committee and its sub-committees for the excellent work and preparations for the Conference.

The Conference was well attended. There were almost 250 participants from all parts of the world including representatives from the United Nations, The World Bank, EUROSTAT, various Goverment Departments, Universities, Institutions, local authorities etc. Many of the conference delegates came from distant countries, such as Italy and Germany – (these two represented the biggest delegation) - Spain, Japan, The Nederlands, Finland, India, Hungary, Sweden, Britain, France and Romania. We also had significant contributions from American and Canadian participants, as well as many contributions coming from the high number of Chinese academics and researchers present.

The varied backgrounds of the delegates resulted in a lively and stimulating debate which developed around a wide range of subjects relating to the most current themes in urban and regional statistics.

On the day before the Conference a one-day Special Study Trip was organised to Hong Kong. The Committee is very thankful to Mr. Federick Ho, Commissioner of the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong SAR, China, for having organised this outing. The delegates were received in the Government Secretariat Conference Hall of the Central Government Offices. The study trip began with an interesting lecture given by Frederick Ho on the urban development of Hong Kong and on the phenomenal, structural and economic changes that have taken place in Hong Kong in recent decades. Following this there was a lecture on demographic trends in China in recent decades. After the lecture the delegates were also able to enjoy the wonderul Chinese landscape during their lunch at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant, Shum Wan, Wong Chuk Hang at Aberdeen.

The Opening Ceremony was preceded by a press conference attended by journalists from the international press. The Opening Ceremony then took place in the beautiful salon of the Whouzhou Guest House. Mr. Qio Xiaohua, the Vice-President of the National Bureau of Statistics (NSB) presented the Opening Ceremony address and gave a warm welcome to the Conference participants.

The scientific program was impressive and comprised of the Invited Papers Sessions and Contributed Papers Sessions. The array of topics ranged over the widest possible subject matters, covering the most current and fundamental aspects of urban and regional problems. The programme therefore ensured the presence of researchers coming from different parts of the world with differing backgrounds so as to maximise an exchange of well constructed and stimulating ideas. Many sessions dealt with urban indicators: this seemed to be a very topical issue.

Dealing with the most topical themes in urban and regional statistics, the conference has been particularly relevant to researchers working in these fields in this era of globalisation. It is a well-known fact that the phenomenon of globalisation can make a positive contribution to developing a country’s potential. This contribution can be enhanced by respecting the local contexts from which updated statistics are obtained, thereby preventing a situation in which local contexts are swept away by the same processes of globalisation. Furthermore, they can effectively become part of a constructive dialogue on all levels with other local contexts that then comprise a global reality. Among the experiences shared by the speakers and the audience, one can mention the requests on urban indicators, one of the most interesting areas in the field of urban statistics.

All papers were published and handed out as a volume of Conference Proceedings during the Conference. It was a considerable amount of work and was much appreciated by all the participants.

The participants were entertained in the wonderful Silver Lake Rosort Center by Mr. Zhou Li, Director of Senzhen Statistics and Information Bureau. Another event which was particularly appreciated was the elegant gala dinner given in the wonderful setting of the Wuzhou Hall of the Wuzhou Guest House by the Mayor of Shenzhen, Mr. Yu Youjun.

All the delegates and accompaning persons appreciated the social program which was very well organised and extremely interesting. For example, a visit to the China Folk Culture Villages was included in the program as well as performances of folk dances with a local cuisine dinner. During the Conference, the accompanying persons were able to visit places like the Fairy Lake Botanic Garden, the Shenzhen Museum and the Lanling Village in the company of experienced guides.

After the Conference, numerous post-conference tours were offered to the delegates and accompanying persons.

The SCORUS Shenzhen Conference was indeed a success from all points of view, and we are all much obliged to SSIB, the host organisation, and to SSB, the supporter of the Conference. They did their utmost to secure a very well-organised conference and pleasurable, memorable days in China. We enjoyed great hospitality there and had an unforgettable time in a warm, welcoming atmosphere.

The 22^nd SCORUS Conference has confirmed the growing interest in urban and regional statistics and the request for increasingly reliable and updated statistics. SCORUS began as an attempt to meet this type of demand.

SCORUS is involved in organising two sessions for the next ISI Conference, which will be held in Seoul, Korea from 22–29 August 2001.

• A Standard Regional Reference System as a Prerequisite for Internationally Comparable Regional Statistics,
by Rosa Giaimo and Anna Maria Milito (Italy);
• Measuring Inequalities in Large Urban Areas, by Markandey Rai and Tsutomu Tanaka.

At the end of the 22^nd SCORUS Conference, the Chairperson, Rosa Giaimo, thanked the members of the Committee and the Director of the ISI Permanent Office for all the support received in these years during her tenue as President.

The Executive Committee of SCORUS in its meeting on 9.11.2000 in Shenzhen unanimously elected Mr. Markandey Rai, UNCHS (Habitat) Nairobi, to be the SCORUS Chairperson for the next two years term. The members of the SCORUS committee wished him every success and assured him of their full support.

 Markandey Rai
SCORUS Chairperson
 Urban Secretariat
UNCHS(Habitat)
P.O.Box 67553
Nairobi
Kenya
telephone +254–2–623166
fax +254–2–623080
e-mail markandey.rai@unchs.org
raim@unchs.org or from the ISI Permanent Office

Cities and Regions is a biennial journal, published in conjunction with the International Statistical Institute and SCORUS (the Standing Committee on Regional and Urban Statistics). SCORUS is a specialised Committee of IAOS. The aim of SCORUS is to further the international exchange of knowledge and expertise relating to urban and regional statistics, and to stimulate creative analysis of urban and regional issues.

is to publish a continuous series of articles that will cover all main interest areas of urban and regional statistics and related research branches. The Journal provides a forum for the discussion of new developments and achievements in the field of urban and regional statistics and research. The Journal also invites the readership to provide information about recent and future activities in the field of urban statistics and research.

Cities and Regions features papers and articles focussing on a diversity of topics, such as:
• methodological development and harmonization of urban and regional statistics;
• standards (common frameworks, definitions and classifications) concerning urban and regional statistics;
• practical demonstrations of production and usage of comparative city statistics;
• the organisation of producing and disseminating urban and regional statistics;
• current topics in urban and regional statistics or research;
• the emergence of new phenomena and characteristics in cities and urban regions to be captured by statistics and research.

Articles and papers appearing in the Journal are usually solicited by the Editors. Typically, each issue contains 4–6 papers organised around a common theme. The Journal will publish articles by academics and practitioners. It will be international in scope, publishing relevant and appropriate articles throughout the world. The Journal is issued in June and December. Proposals for topics and authors should be directed to Asta Manninen (asta.manninen@tike.hel.fi). The language used is English.

We would welcome suggestions on subjects to be covered in future volumes and possible Guest Editors who would undertake assembling the papers, 4–6 papers in number, and writing an overarching piece. The most recent Special Issue looks at GIS and Statistics, featuring Derek Bond from Ulster University as Guest Editor.

The next issue of Cities and Regions, to be published in June 2001, will concentrate on Urban Development. The plan for future issues after that is as follows: The December 2001 issue will handle with Cultural Statistics, the June 2002 issue welcomes articles on Comparative City Statistics & Indicators and Urban Policy Issues, and the June 2002 issue will enlighten Service Statistics and challenges involved in developing service statistics.

The operating environment of urban statistics has changed a lot lately and have generated new trends affecting statistical work. Among the new trends, you will find the rapid advancement of computer technology and the globalisation of the market place.

The new trends have lead to a need for new statistics and also to a request for new ways and modes of disseminating, communicating and using statistics. Cities and Regions wants to live up to these new challenges. Therefore, Cities and Regions has been renewed and the current Special Issue on GIS and Statistics is the first edition which has been given new shape and design. In addition, this special issue is available on the internet.

A web-based publication enables interactive communication 24 hours daily. We hope to expand the readership of Cities and Regions in this way. Comments and suggestions for improvement of the web-based Journal are welcomed.

The editors invite readers of the Journal Cities and Regions and statisticians, researchers, planners, teachers, students and other parties with diverse perspectives on urban and regional statistics and research to participate. If you would like to contribute to the Journal as an author, commentator, or provide news, contact the Editor at the address below.

 Asta Manninen
 City of Helsinki Urban Facts
P.O. Box 5520
Aleksanterinkatu 16–18
FIN – 00099 CITY OF HELSINKI
Finland
telephone +358–9–169 3190
fax +358–9–169 3200
e-mail asta.manninen@tike.hel.fi

Editors
Asta Manninen, City of Helsinki, Finland
(Content and soliciting papers)
Per Gullström, City of Stockholm
(Text editing work)

Assistant Editors
René Keijser, International Statistical Institute
Gunnar Lindqvist, City of Stockholm
Ank Lepping, International Statistical Institute

The SCORUS Committee
(also serving as Editorial Board of Cities and Regions)
Chair: Markandey Rai (UN, Kenya)
Vice-Chair: Derek Bond (UK)
Members: Per Gullström (Sweden)
Klaus Trutzel (Germany)
Huang Langhui (China)
Leila Lankinen (Finland)
Wendy Treadwell (USA)
Rosa Giaimo (Italy)

Web-masters
(The web-based publication)
Moira Cullen, University of Ulster
Gerda Bolhuis, International Statistical Institute
We are grateful to Eurostat for the financial support during 2001 to Cities and Regions.

International Association for Statistical Computing

		Editorial Address	Adalbert Wilhelm, Institut für Mathematik, Universität Augsburg, 86135 Augsburg, Germany Tel.: +49–821–598 2236 — Fax: +49–821–598 2200 E-mail: adalbert.wilhelm@math.uni-augsburg.de
		President	Lutz Edler, Biostatistik (R0700), DKFZ (German Cancer Research Center), Postfach 101 949, 69009 Heidelberg, Germany Tel.: +49–6221–42 2392 — Fax: +49–6221–42 2397 E-mail: edler@dkfz-heidelberg.de
		Website	IASC website: http://www.stat.unipg.it/iasc/

Editorial

This issue of the Newsletter includes the invitation to attend the administrative sessions of IASC that will take place during the next ISI Session in Seoul. It also provides information on decisions taken by IASC Council since the last Council Meeting held in August 2000 in Utrecht. It includes the list of nominees for the IASC elections, which will start within the next weeks. This submission ends with some information about the upcoming IASC (co-) sponsored conferences.

Administrative Sessions during 53^rd ISI Session 2001, Seoul

All members of IASC are warmly invited to attend the: IASC General Assembly that will convene during the 53^rd ISI Session in Seoul, Korea, on Tuesday, August 28, 2001 at 7.30-9.00 a.m.

IASC Executives and all Council Members are invited to join the next: IASC Council Meeting that is scheduled for Monday, August 27, 2001at 7.30–9.00 a.m. and at 11.45–13.15.

Notice is given to the members of the IASC Program Committee of a meeting of this committee on Friday, August 24, 2001
at 11.45-13.15.

The meeting rooms and the agendas will be announced later, at latest in the final program of the ISI Session.

IASC Council Decisions

IASC Council has unanimously agreed to the following rules for financial assistance for COMPSTAT participants from special circumstance countries (developing and transitional countries according to ISI regulations);
1. The organisers of COMPSTAT should be asked to arrange a special price for participants from special circumstance countries (developing and transitional countries according to ISI regulations): Special Circumstance Country Fee (SCCF).
2. The Special Circumstance Country Fee (SCCF) should be below the regular fee of early registration.
3. The IASC would subsidize this SCCF by up to 50 EURO each for up to 30 participants (i.e. a maximum overall subsidy of 1,500 EURO). The conference organiser should provide at least a matching subsidy for each participant, i.e. the overall reduction in the SSCF should be at least twice that of the IASC subsidy.
4. The ERS would be implicitly subsidizing by a further sum, since these participants would not count as full payers for the purpose of calculating the ERS fees.
IASC Council has also unanimously agreed to act as a scientific co-sponsor of the following events:
• 2^nd International Symposium on PLS and Related Methods to be held on the Island of Capri (Naples, Italy), October 1–3, 2001;
• International Conference on Statistics, Combinatorics and Related Areas and the Eighth International Conference of Forum for Interdisciplinary Mathematics, Wollongong University, Australia, December, 19–21, 2001;
• Workshop on the Future of Statistical Computing and Graphics organised by the ASA Sections Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics to precede the Interface Meeting 2001 on June 12, 2001 in Costa Mesa, Orange County, California. The Interface Meeting itself will run from June 13 to 16, 2001 at the same place.

IASC Elections – List of Nominees

On its regular term IASC will hold elections during the first months of 2001 for
IASC Council Members (6) 2001-2005
IASC President Elect 2001-2003
IASC Vice Presidents (2) 2001-2003
IASC Treasurer 2001-2003
IASC Scientific Secretary 2001-2003

With the help of active IASC members the Election and Nomination Committee has succeeded in a list of candidates that tries to balance the regional structuring of IASC across continents and countries as well as the diversity of scientific areas in which IASC members are involved. The list of nominees is as follows:
For President-elect: Stan Azen (USA)
For VicePresident: Wolfgang Haerdle (Germany)
Refik Soyer (Turkey/USA)
For Treasurer: Patrick Groenen (The Netherlands)
For Scientific Secretary: Jung Jin Lee (Korea)
For the Council: John Eccleston (Australia)
Wing Kam Fung (China)
Allmut Hoermann (Germany)
Moon Yol Huh (Korea)
Junji Nakano (Japan)
Carey Priebe (USA)
Javier Trejos (Costa Rica)
Maurizio Vichi (Italy)
Adalbert Wilhelm (Germany)

Past experience has shown that candidates coming from countries with a large number of IASC members are more likely to be elected. The current Executive especially welcomes the willingness of candidates coming from regions with low presence of IASC and particularly supports their candidature.

The new Council and Executive will meet for the first time during ISI Session 2001 in Seoul.

Upcoming Conferences

The Interface Foundation of North America will convene for its 33^rd Symposium on the Interface of Computer Science and Statistics from June 13 to 16, 2001 in Costa Mesa, Orange County, California. The conference theme is:
Frontiers of Data Mining and Bioinformatics
Contributed papers can be submitted until March 31^st, 2001. Online submission and further information on the conference can be found on the web: http://www.ics.uci.edu/interface/

The University Computing Centre from Zagreb, Croatia, is organising the 23rd International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces ITI 2001, a meeting of researchers in computer science, information systems, operations research, and statistics. The Conference will be held from June 19 to 22, 2001 in Pula, Croatia. Further Information can be found on the web:
http://www.srce.hr/iti

The International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC) is co-sponoring the ICNCB, a satellite meeting to the ISI session 2001 in Seoul. The ICNCB is organized under the auspices of the Organizing Committee of the ICNCB and the Japanese Society of Computational Statistics (JSCS), and is also co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Engineering Science of Osaka University.
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is April 6, 2001
Contact: ICNCB@jscs.or.jp http://www.jscs.or.jp/ICNCB/

The series of IASC Summer Schools for young researchers will continue in 2001, this time as a joint venture with IASS, the Survey Statistician's section of the ISI. The 6th Summer School is entitled Knowledge Discovery & Large Surveys: Design and Analysis, and will take place June 20–30 2001, on the island of Capri. The summer school hosted by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Naples (Italy) will be devoted to the methodological, computational and application aspects of integrating questionnaire design and data collection with data mining/knowledge discovery techniques in large surveys with a particular attention to marketing research and customer satisfaction analysis.

The design phase will emphasise data quality issues and cover the following topics: intelligent questionnaires, missing data, internet data collection, survey sampling, combining data from different sources. The lectures devoted to the knowledge discovery phase will address both the classical and the most recently developed methods within the framework of exploratory and confirmatory multivariate analysis, latent variable soft modelling, visualisation tools and techniques, symbolic data analysis, descriptive and predictive techniques for temporal data. Differing from a classical approach, the phases of design and analysis of large marketing surveys will be combined with the database/ datawarehouse structure so as to integrate the data quality aspects with the knowledge extraction ones.

All lectures will be complemented by solutions of real problems and case studies from the field of marketing research. A fully equipped computer laboratory will be available. English will be the official language of the School. A maximum of 30 young people will be selected for participation on the basis of submitted CV’s and time of application. The registration and lodging expenses of a limited number of selected participants from “in transition” and other countries will be supported by the European Regional Section (ERS) of the International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC), by the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS), and by the Association for Survey Computing (ASC).

Deadlines: Submission of applications + CV March 30, 2001.
Results of the selection and scholarships announced by: April 16, 2001.
Final registration and payment of selected participants: May 4, 2001.
For additional information:
 Dr. Vincenzo Esposito
telephone +39 081 67 5112
e-mail binci@unina.it
website http://www.dms.unina.it/School2001.html

International Association for Statistical Education

	Editorial Addresses	Joan B. Garfield, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Tel.: +1-612-625-0337 — Fax:+1-612-624-8241 E-mail: JBG@maroon.tc.umn.edu Website: http://education.umn.edu/EdPsy/faculty/Garfield.html
	President	Brian Phillips, School of Mathematical Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn 3122, Australia Tel: +61–3–9214–8288 — Fax: +61–3–9819–0821 — E-mail: bphillips@swin.edu.au Website: http://www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/
	Website	http://www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/

Report from the IASE President, Brian Phillips

As reported in the IASE Review, see www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/newsletters.html, 2000 was a very busy year for the IASE. The work of the ICOTS-6 IPC is going very well and has reached a stage where most of the sessions and organizers are in place. The results from the general call for papers have been processed and invitations are being sent out. Full details are available on the ICOTS-6 IPC web site http://www.beeri.org.il/icots6/.

It is now up to all those involved with statistical education to spread the word to their colleagues, so that we have a record participation at a really special conference.

Following the events reported in the Review, I was involved in two further very successful statistical education activities in 2000. These included the International Statistical Education Centre, ISEC, Jubilee celebrations held in India during October and the Australian informal “OZCOTS3” which attracted some 80 participants, including over 20 school teachers. These are reported elsewhere. The IASE Executive are now concentrating on preparing for future IASE events over the next two years. In particular these include the Second International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking and Literacy, SRTL-2, the IASE Satellite meeting on Statistical Literacy, the Statistical Education Sessions at the 53^rdof the ISI and ICOTS-6 in 2002. See below and the web page www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/conferences2.html for details of these and other meetings of interest to statistics educators.

The biennual elections for the IASE Executive who will carry on the important tasks of the organisation will be held soon. Please show your interest in the association by returning the ballot papers as soon as you receive them. Also please encourage anyone interested in statistics education at any level to join the IASE; see www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/ for an application form, as it is only possible to provide these activities by having a large and involved membership.

IASE SERN and SERG

Statistical Education Research Newsletter and Statistical Education Research Group

This is the second year this group has been a special interest group within the IASE. It is also open to all who share our common interest in carrying out research into the teaching and learning of statistics and probability. The main activity in 2000 was producing the IASE Statistical Education Research Newsletter, SERN. It is the most comprehensive report on what is going on in statistical education around the world and is a wonderful resource to anyone involved in research in the teaching and learning of statistics.

Carmen Batanero (batanero@goliat.ugr.es), Joan Garfield (jbg@tc.umn.edu), M. Gabriella Ottaviani (ottavian@pow2.sta.uniroma1.it) and John & Kath Truran (truranjk@camtech.net.au) are members of the editorial committee. Their aim is to make SERN a tool of potential interest to researchers, and, therefore they are publishing short notes, summaries of papers, dissertations and research works, information about internet resources of interest, past and future conferences and bibliographies on particular research topics. The extent to which a research newsletter is useful depends of the quality and completeness of the information published. We need your collaboration and we encourage you to send any type of information about your research projects and results that you consider of interest for other colleagues to one of the editors listed above.

Statistics Education for the Information Age

Richard L. Scheaffer, President, American Statistical Association (scheaffe@stat.ufl.edu)

It is an exciting time to be a statistician! Data are everywhere. Technology to produce and analyze data is advancing faster than most of us can comprehend (perhaps even faster than we desire). Leaders in business, industry, government, and education are beginning to see that statistics and statisticians can make important contributions to society (although not faster than we desire). More students than ever before are taking statistics courses – even at the school level.

In the United States, the increased emphasis on statistics in the K-12 curriculum, the strong interest in the high school Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics courses, and the increased need for statistics in a wide range of occupations, prompted the American Statistical Association, in conjunction with other statistical societies, to begin promoting the enhancement of undergraduate education in statistics. To this end, it organized working groups to write background papers on this issue in preparation for a Symposium on undergraduate statistics education held in conjunction with the 2000 Joint Statistics Meetings (see http://amstat.org/education/usei.html). The Symposium drew 150 enthusiastic participants, and led to expanded efforts on establishing guidelines for undergraduate programs in statistics.

The Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Programs in Statistical Science (http://amstat.org/education/Curriculum_Guidelines.html) approved by the Board of Directors, along with supporting documents (http://amstat.org/education/usei.html), set the stage for exciting advances in statistics education that can be built around the key points of flexibility, innovation, and experimentation. The one-size-fits-all introductory statistics course is no longer sufficient for most undergraduate students; breadth and depth must both be expanded and teaching styles must change if statistics is to add real value to a student’s undergraduate program. There are many types of undergraduate programs in the mathematical sciences and statistics is flexible enough to fit into all of them. We have a rather small research base in statistics education, so teachers should be encouraged to do their own experimentation. Once students clearly see the value added by taking more statistics, some will decide to major in the subject and the strength of the field could be noticeably improved.

The undergraduate initiative is just one of many being planned for the ASA’s Center for Statistics Education (CSE). This Center should be positioned to play a leading role in the unfolding emphasis on statistics throughout the K-12 mathematics and science curriculum, as well as in the undergraduate curricula of colleges and universities. To accomplish this, the CSE is attempting to establish clear goals and guidelines for promoting statistics education at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, and at various levels of undergraduate activity, including the preparation of future teachers of mathematics and science.

At all these levels, improving the skills of teachers is the overarching goal, although the undergraduate initiative goes beyond that. Objectives toward these goals should include intensive workshops for teachers at all levels, sessions at professional meetings of statistics and allied societies, special conferences on aspects of statistics education, innovative use of the web, and serious networking among educational and scientific groups. It is hoped that the CSE, working with various committees and sections of the ASA and through programs originating in many colleges and universities around the country, can be the spearheading and co-ordinating agency for effecting educational programs, projects, and events in statistics education. There is much work to be done – but it is an exciting time to be a statistician!

Mathematics Association of America’s New Special Interest Group for Statistics Educators

About 10 years ago in August of 1991, a group of “Isolated Statisticians” met for the first time at the Atlanta Joint Statistical Meetings (JSMs). This meeting was primarily for statisticians who were isolated from other statisticians by nature of their being the only, or one of two, statisticians in a mathematics department. The 'IsoStaters' have continued to meet at the JSMs, usually with 40 attendees discussing issues related to teaching statistics and to being an isolated statistician. Since then there have also been many regional conferences for isolated statisticians. The benefits reaped by the isolated statisticians at their annual and regional meetings were so positive that Tom Moore of Grinnell College and Don van Osdol of the University of New Hampshire decided to have a meeting of the mathematicians who teach statistics courses, or who are interested in statistics education, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMMs) in January of each year.

In the summer of 1997, Dex Whittinghill was asked to organize and moderate such a meeting, and at the JMMs in Baltimore in January of 1998, the first Isolated Teachers of Statistics Meeting (ITSM) was held. Over 40 attendees discussed issues related to being the only, or one of very few, instructors in the department who cares about statistics education. The 'IsoTeaStaters' met again in January of 1999 at San Antonio. At about this time the MAA was developing the concept of Special Interest Groups (their counterpart to an ASA Section). There were other interest groups meeting regularly at the JMMs as well. Involved with this task force was Allan Rossman of Dickinson College, Chair of the ASA/MAA Joint Committee on Undergraduate Statistics). Before the January 2000 JMMs the concept of a SIGMAA became official, and Allan drafted a charter for a SIGMAA on Statistics Education. It was presented to the IsoTeaStaters at the 2000 ITSM. At that meeting the IsoTeaStaters discussed whether to become a SIGMAA (and voted 'yes') and made suggestions to improve the draft charter.
Last June saw the end of the 'IsoTeaStaters' and the beginning of the official SIGMAA on Stat Ed. There are now 170 official members. There are officers, and a web page and a newsletter in development. Leaders in this group may be credited with the growing number of sessions on statistics education at the annual JMMs. This year there were two sessions on innovations in introductory statistics as well as a panel on the new ASA Undergraduate Statistics Education Initiative. For more information, please contact SIGMAA chair, Dex Whittinghill (whittinghill@rowan.edu).

Information on Past Conferences

Further information on the papers which were presented at these conferences are given in the Statistical Education Research Newsletter, Volume 2 Number 1 January 2001, see www.ugr.es/local/batanero/sergroup.htm 9^thDidactic Conference On Modern Methodology Of Teaching Quantitative Methods, Poland, 5-6 June 2000

Information reprinted from Statistics in Transition, 4(5), 905-909 with permission of Jan Kordos, (j.kordos@stat.gov.pl).

The 9^th annual didactic conference on Modern Methodology of Teaching Quantitative Methods was held in Łódź (by the Institute of Econometrics and Statistics, University of Łódź), 5-6 June 2000, and dedicated to Professor Wladysław Welfe to celebrate his fifty years of scientific and didactic activity. Representatives of the Polish academic centres, among others, from Czestochowa, Katowice, Kraków, Łódź, Poznań, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Warszawa and Wrocław took part in the conference, as well as those of non-public universities.

IASE Teaching and Learning Statistics topic group at ICME 9, Japan, July 31-August 6, 2000

The IASE organised the topic group 4 (TSG4) entitled ‘Teaching and Learning Statistics’ at ICME 9. The aim of this topic group was to elucidate problems, with potential solutions, involved in the teaching and learning of statistics at all levels of education.

Many issues were brought to light regarding teaching statistics in various countries, with possible methods of teaching proposed. The questions participants raised were not only interesting and the replies informative but showed that the delegates at ICME9 have a real concern over the way students learn statistics. Two sessions did not appear to be enough time for all the issues raised to be fully explored, however, many delegates carried on discussions well after the sessions had ended. Common questions raised at the sessions focused on the following areas:
1. the mathematics needed to be able to do statistics,
2. the need of developing and transitional countries to move into the realm of statistical education being advocated by developed countries,
3. the use of appropriate technology to enhance students’ understanding of statistics,
4. co-operation between educational institutions in the exchange of ideas and resources, and
5. the joint presentation of research from various countries.
It was agreed by all that further research into how students learn statistics would be advantageous and that new innovative ways of teaching statistics is desirable.

It is planned that a booklet of the statistics education papers will be available soon. We are pleased to say that Joe Wisenbaker of University of Georgia, USA has agreed to co-ordinate our efforts at ICME-10 that will be held in Copenhagen in 2004. Hopefully we will have more sessions in this area. Please contact Joe, email: (joe@coe.uga.edu) or the IASE Executive with any suggestions on themes for statistics education topics at ICME-10.

Working Group on Statistics, Probability and Combinatorics at the SEIEM
Antonio Estepa, (aestepa@ujaen.es)

The Spanish Society for Research in Mathematics Education met at the University of Huelva, Spain in September 2000, where speakers from Spain, Brazil and Argentina spoke on issues concerned with the teaching of Statistics, Probability and Combinatorics.

Pilar Loreto Iglesias Zuazola, Departamento de Estadistica, Facultad de Matematicas, Universidad Catolica de Chile, (pliz@mat.puc.cl) and Irma Molina, Universidad Austral, (imolina@uach.cl).

The Chile Statistical Society (SOCHE), in collaboration with The Institute of Statistics at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Universidad Austral, Chile organised the 27^thNational Statistics Conference, which was held in Valdivia, October, 9–11. The activities, aimed to exchanging knowledge and experience were mainly oriented towards the role of Statistics in Science, Education, Business and Economy.

Dr. Carmen Batanero, IASE President-Elect emphasised in her plenary lecture the role of national and international associations, in particular IASE, in improving statistics education, to thus benefit research, science and technique and offer promising perspectives to future generations.

Three short courses were offered to participants:
• Teaching statistics and probability at secondary school level (Dr. Carmen Batanero, Spain)
• Reliability methods in the analysis of product life-time data (Dr. Luis Escobar, USA)
• Statistical methods forest monitoring and research (Dr. Sylvia Mori, USA).
Association of Statistics Lecturers in Universities Annual Conference: Statistical Education at the Beginning of the Millennium (20 September, 2000)

In September, I attended the Association of Statistics Lecturers in Universities Annual Conference, which was held in conjunction with the Royal Statistical Society Education Section, and was entitled Statistical Education at the Beginning of the Millennium. This interesting one-day conference involved a variety of presentations relating to areas in statistics education. These talks raised a range of concerns, such as the use of ICT in the teaching of statistics, assessment in undergraduate statistics teaching and factors that might influence the effective transfer of statistical training from the university to the workplace.

For example, Peter Holmes’s (Nottingham Trent University) talk looked at current issues in undergraduate statistics teaching, and emphasised the need to use innovative methods of assessment in teaching which should be tied to teaching strategies that encourage a deep approach to learning. Professor Deborah Ashby (Queen Mary and Westfield College) presented work on developments in evidence-based medicine and provided an overview of The Cochrane Collaborative, and looked at how parts of the Cochrane Library could be used as a resource in the teaching of statistics. The Cochrane Collaborative is an international organisation that prepares, maintains and promotes the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions, and thus aims to help people make informed decisions about healthcare (www.cochrane.org/).

Flavia Jolliffe (University of Greenwich) provided an interesting report on the IASE Round Table (August, 2000) which focused on Training Researchers in the Use of Statistics.

Professor Manoranjan Pal, ISEC, Calcutta and Brian Phillips, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

The International Statistical Education Centre, ISEC, was founded in 1950 and is operated jointly by the International Statistical Institute and the Indian Statistical Institute, under the auspices of the UNESCO and the Government of India. The Centre provides training in theoretical and applied statistics at various levels to selected participants from countries in the Middle-East, South and South-East Asia, the Far East and from the Commonwealth countries in Africa. Last October, the ISEC Jubilee celebrations consisted of two meetings:

I. Delhi Conference.
Theme "Policy Issues in Demography, Health & Education, and Economics"
at India International Centre, New Delhi,13, 14 October 2000.
II. Calcutta Conference.
Theme "Contemporary Issues in Statistical Education"
at Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta on 17, 18 October 2000.
The summaries of the papers are available from www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/conferences1.html

In December 1998 the first AusIcots was held. This gave locals the opportunity to hear Australians who presented at the ICOTS-5 meeting held in Singapore. A similar meeting was held in 1999 and this year a third meeting, more aptly called OZCOTS, continued to give the opportunity for those interested in statistical education to learn about the latest developments. In all over 80 people attended the two-day workshop which comprised both teachers of statistics at post-secondary level, as well as a group of school teachers. An innovation this year was the very successful introduction of several workshops, these included two "on-line" workshops, two Excel workshops on Teaching and Learning Statistics and one on the Fathom software. Also in addition to the regular conference sessions, there was a special session devoted to Statistics in Psychology and a forum discussion session on assessment. Details of the meeting can be found on www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/ausicots3.html that includes Powerpoint files of a number of the presentations. The feedback showed that the opportunity to hear teachers of statistics from a wide spread of disciplines was appreciated as was the opportunity to discuss the papers and the chance to be involved in a relaxing discussion group. The success of conferences such as this suggest that there is a real need for local low key meetings. It is intended that a further informal meeting will be held next December.

Upcoming conferences

The Second International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking, and Literacy

The second in a series of International Research Forums, being offered under the umbrella of the Statistical Education Research Group of the IASE (SERG), is to be held in The University of New England (UNE) in Armidale Australia from Aug 15 to Aug 20, 2001.This gathering offers an opportunity for a small, interdisciplinary group of researchers from around the world to meet for a few days to share their work, discuss important issues, and initiate collaborative projects. The topic of the Forum will be statistical reasoning, thinking and literacy, with an emphasis this time on statistical reasoning. One outcome of the Forum will be the publication of a book summarizing the work presented, discussions conducted, and issues emerging from these gatherings.

Preparations for SRTL-2 are now well under way. Abstracts have been reviewed and a diverse group of researchers has been invited to give presentations, while others will serve as discussants for the intensive small group discussions. The scientific program will focus on the following themes: Reasoning about data and distributions, reasoning about variability, reasoning about sampling distributions, and reasoning about bivariate data. For up-to-date information about SRTL-2 visit the website at www.beeri.org.il/srtl, or for specific queries email the local organiser Chris Reading (creading@metz.une.edu.au).

This satellite conference on statistical literacy is jointly organised by the IASE and the Korean Statistical Society and will immediately precede the ISI session in Seoul. The approach will be non-technical, suitable for a non-specialist audience who would like to learn how to make better use of probability and statistical ideas in their everyday and working lives in areas in which chance and risk is involved. This meeting is intended to be of interest to a wide cross section of society including teachers, educational administrators, researchers in statistical education and in probabilistic reasoning and others who want to gain a better grasp of statistics in general and who would like to broaden their knowledge of statistics applications.

Contacts:
Professor Yong Goo Lee (leeyg@cau.ac.kr), Brian PHILLIPS (bphillips@swin.edu.au)
International Statistical Institute, 53^rdBiennial Session Seoul, Korea, 22–29 August, 2001
IASE Invited Paper Meetings Lionel Pereira-Mendoza (lpereira@nie.edu.sg)

Planning for the IASE sessions and Seoul is reaching the final stages. The speakers and discussants are from many countries and provide an international perspective on the many issues associated with the teaching of statistics at all levels, school and post-secondary. For example, consider just two sessions. The teaching of statistics in non-statistics degrees is an ever-expanding concern for statistical educators and this session will explore the issues associated with the health sciences. The Internet is an increasingly important tool for all educators, and statistics educators are no exception. This session will include papers on on-line access, distance learning and classroom experiences of using the net for teaching.

The ISI meeting provides an opportunity for colleagues interested in the issues of statistics education to attend sessions both designed for statistical educators as well as sessions geared to issues associated with statistics, per se. The IASE Executive is looking forward to an exciting conference. Some additional details on the speakers for the IASE sections can be found at www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/isi53.html and general details on the conference at www.nso.go.kr/isi2001/.

January 2001 has seen another important stage in the building of a successful ICOTS-6. As we have already advertised, all the topics and sessions of the Conference are in place. Most of the Session Organisers have succeeded in suggesting many excellent speakers for their sessions. These “teams” of Organizers and speakers will develop their session’s theme. Abstracts of most sessions are presented in the Scientific Program section of the ICOTS-6 Website (http://www.beeri.org.il/icots6).

The provisional list of invited speakers is now in place, and the majority of the session lists contain well-known specialists from the different fields of research on teaching and learning statistics. After the IPC approve the Invited Speaker's list in early February, the Session Organisers will officially invite the speakers and provide guidelines for authoring the manuscripts. The option to have papers refereed is being considered. We plan to publish the invited and contributed papers of ICOTS-6 as a CD-ROM and on the Internet. The proceedings will be available in print upon special request and additional fee.

There are still some sessions where we would like to have more colleagues presenting papers on the teaching of statistics in their countries and on related research. These include sessions in the important topic: “An International Perspective on Statistics Education”. In this regards, we ask colleagues from:
the African Countries to contact:
Prof. Fayez Mina, Egypt (fmmina@link.com.eg),
Portuguese-speaking countries contact:
Prof. Helena Bacelar-Nicolau, Portugal, (hbacelar@fc.ul.pt),
Spanish-speaking countries contact:
Prof. Teresita Teran, Argentina, (teresitateran@hotmail.com).

We also invite colleagues from East Europe to join the Conference, giving us a picture of the teaching of statistics in their countries at all levels.

Expression of interest for contributed paper sessions are to be submitted to Susan Starkings (starkisa@sbu.ac.uk) ASAP and papers are due no later than by December 1, 2001. Papers not accepted for an invited speaker session will also be considered for these sessions. Abstracts of posters, software demonstration and other special sessions should be submitted to the IPC Executive by February 1, 2002.

If you are not yet involved – now is the time! Visit the attractive ICOTS-6 IPC Website (http://www.beeri.org.il/icots6), learn more about our plans, and suggest your contribution to the organizers. For more information please contact the Conference Chair or the IPC Scientific Secretary. We hope to see you in beautiful Durban in July 2002!

International Association of Survey Statisticians


	President	Kirk M. Wolter, N.O.R.C., 55 East Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60603, USA. Tel.: +1–312–759–4086 — Fax: +1–312–759–4090 E-mail: wolter@norcmail.uchicago.edu
	Secretariat	c/o Mme Claude Olivier, CEFIL (INSEE), 3 rue de la Cité, 33500 Libourne, France. Tel.: +33–5–5755–5600 — Fax: +33–5–5755–5620 — E-mail: claude.olivier@insee.fr
		Mr. Christophe Lefranc, Department of International Relations & Cooperation, INSEE, 18 Boulevard Adolphe Pinard, F-75675 Paris 14, Cédex, France. E-mail: christophe.lefranc@insee.fr
	Website	http://www.cbs.nl/isi/iass.htm

Workshop on Small Domain Estimation in Labour Force Surveys

This workshop will take place April 3–6, 2001 in Libourne, France. It will be hosted by Cefil, the INSEE facilities in Libourne where the Secretariat of IASS is located. The 3-day workshop will give experts on labour force surveys the opportunity to discuss issues related to small domain estimation. Estimates for small areas will be considered, as well as estimates for small population sub-groups.

The detailed program is being put together under the guidance of Farhad Mehran (mehran@ilo.org), IASS Vice President. It will be finalised on the basis of the submission of contributed papers, but a preliminary programme is already available:

1. Labour force survey - based estimates for small areas:
• Role of administrative records
• Estimation methods (the notion of "borrowing strength")
• Assessment of bias
• Uses and risks in allocation of government funds
• Presentation of results to the public
• Special issues in countries with low coverage of unemployment insurance systems or low use of employment offices as a method of job search

2. Labour force survey - based estimates for small population subgroups:
• Relevance of small area estimation techniques
• Foreigners and immigrants
• Low-wage workers
• Disabled workers
• Child labour
• Home workers
• Street vendors.

For practical matters related to the workshop, which will gather no more than 60 participants, please contact Claude Olivier (claude.olivier@insee.fr).

IASC-IASS Joint European Summer School. Knowledge Discovery and Large Marketing Survey: Design and Analysis

The 6^th Summer School of the European Regional Section of IASC, organised jointly with IASS, will take place June 18–30, 2001, and will be hosted by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Naples (Italy). It will be devoted to the methodological, computational and application aspects of integrating questionnaire design and data collection with data mining/knowledge discovery techniques in large marketing surveys.

The design phase will emphasise data quality issues and cover the following topics: intelligent questionnaires, missing data, internet data collection, survey sampling, combining data from different sources. The lectures devoted to the knowledge discovery phase will address both the classical and the most recently developed methods within the framework of exploratory and confirmatory multivariate analysis, latent variable soft modelling, visualisation tools and techniques, symbolic data analysis, descriptive and predictive techniques for temporal data. Differing from a classical approach, the phases of design and analysis of large marketing surveys will be combined with the database/datawarehouse structure so as to integrate the data quality aspects with the knowledge extraction ones.

All lectures will be complemented by solutions of real problems and case studies from the field of marketing research. A fully equipped computer laboratory will be available.

About 40 persons will be selected for participation. IASC, IASS, and the Association for Survey Computing (ASC) will provide a limited number of scholarships to allow students from transition and developing countries to attend the School.

More information about the School can be obtained from the organisers, Simona Balbi and Vicenzo Esposito (Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy, binci@unina.it).

International Seminar on Methods for Household Sample Surveys

The International Seminar on Methods for Household Sample Surveys will be organised June 25–27, 2001 in Rio de Janeiro by the Brazilian Central Statistical Office (IBGE) and the Interamerican Statistical Institute (IASI), with the sponsorship of IASS. For more information, please contact Pedro Silva (pedrosilva@ibge.gov.br).

IASS short courses at the 2001 ISI Session

Dan Kasprzyk (daniel_kasprzyk@ed.gov), Scientific Secretary of IASS, is the organiser of the well-known IASS short courses that will take place before the 2001 ISI Session at the Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul, Korea. The courses, led by international experts in their fields, will be useful to practitioners, researchers, and students in statistics and survey methodology. All courses will be presented in English and participants should have the ability to work in this language. Course registration is required before May 1, 2001.

• Workshop on Survey Sampling, presented by Graham Kalton (Westat, Rockville, Maryland, USA) and Colm O’Muircheartaigh (National Opinion Research Center and Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, Illinois, USA): August 18, August 19, August 20 (morning);
• Variance Estimation in Complex Surveys, presented by Wayne Fuller (Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA), Kirk Wolter (National Opinion Research Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA), F. Jay Breidt (Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA) and Jae-Kwang Kim (Westat, Rockville, Maryland, USA) : August 20 (afternoon), August 21, August 22 (morning);
• Introduction to Small Area Estimation, presented by Jon N. K. Rao (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada) : August 20 (afternoon), August 21, August 22 (morning);
• Nonsampling Error Research, presented by Clyde Tucker (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, D.C., USA): August 20 (afternoon), August 21, August 22 (morning);
• Editing and Imputation of Survey Data, presented by John Kovar (Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Canada) and Eric Rancourt (Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Canada): August 20 (afternoon), August 21, August 22 (morning).

The courses on sampling and variance estimation are aimed especially at statisticians working with surveys in developing countries, but past experience has shown that the courses have been very helpful to those from developed countries as well. The small area estimation course will provide an introduction to the methods of developing small area statistics. The nonsampling error course will focus on the mechanics and practice of research on nonsampling error, illustrated by current research studies at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The editing and imputation course will provide an overview of methods in the field, illustrated by practical examples.

The IASS program for the 53^rd Session of the ISI in Seoul, Korea (August, 22–29, 2001) has been finalised by the IASS Program Committee, chaired by David Binder (binddav@statcan.ca), after discussion with the ISI Program Co-ordinating Committee. From an original list of 90 possible topics for the invited program, 13 topics were finally selected: 7 for sessions solely organised by IASS, 4 for joint sessions for which IASS is the main organiser, and 2 for joint sessions in which IAOS is the main organiser. The final list of invited paper meetings sponsored by IASS, as well as the names of the meetings organisers, are the following:

• The Role of Survey Sampling in the 21^stCentury
(John Cornish, New Zealand)
• Response Errors (Cathryn S. Dippo, USA)
• Standardised Survey Interviewing: is it a Good Thing? (Barbara Bailar, USA)
• Linked Employer-Employee Data
(Cynthia Z. F. Clark, USA)
• Multilevel Models for Survey Design and Analysis
(Chris Skinner, United Kingdom)
• Price/Production Indices (Dennis Trewin, Australia)
• Edit and Imputation Techniques (John Kovar, Canada)

• with IAOS: Internet Data Collection (Warren Mitofsky, USA)
• with IAOS: Disclosure Control and Data Access
(Luigi Biggeri, Italy)
• with ISI/Korea: Multiple Frame Surveys
(Alvaro Gonzalez-Villalobos, FAO)
• with IAOS and ISI/Eurostat:
Combining Data from Different Sources (Tim Holt, UK)
joint sessions being mainly organised by IAOS :
• Quality Programmes in Statistical Agencies
(Gordon Brackstone, Canada)
• Measurement of E-commerce
(Paul Cheung, Singapore).

In addition to these scientific meetings, the IASS General Assembly will meet on Thursday, August 23, 11:45–13:15. Plan to attend.

Sponsorship of events in 2002

Three events are already on the list of conferences that IASS will support in 2002:
• the International Conference on Improving Surveys (Copenhagen, Denmark, August 25-28, 2002):
for more information, please contact Hans Bay (hb@sfi.dk),
• the Third Francophone Conference on Sampling (Grenoble, France, October 17-18, 2002):
for more information, please contact Benoît Riandey (riandey@ined.fr),
• the International Conference on Questionnaire Development, Evaluation and Testing Methods
(United States, tentatively November 13-17, 2002):
for more information, please contact Jennifer Rothgeb (jennifer.m.rothgeb@census.gov).

ISI - INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL INSTITUTE

Newsletter Volume 25 No. 1 (73) 2001 -ISI Sections

Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability

International Association for Official Statistics

Ada Van Krimpen reports:

Recent Activities

IAOS meetings in Seoul

Nominations for the Executive Committee 2001–2003 and the President Elect for 2003–2005

The IAOS conference in 2002 ‘Official Statistics and the New Economy’

IAOS Satellite Meeting on Statistics for an Information Society

Training Course on Advances in Time Series Analysis

The Montreux Initiative: A quest for a science of human dignity

The 22^nd SCORUS Conference, Shenzhen – China, 7–10 November 2000

International Association for Statistical Computing

Editorial

Administrative Sessions during 53^rd ISI Session 2001, Seoul

IASC Council Decisions

IASC Elections – List of Nominees

Upcoming Conferences

International Association for Statistical Education

Report from the IASE President, Brian Phillips

IASE SERN and SERG

Statistics Education for the Information Age

Mathematics Association of America’s New Special Interest Group for Statistics Educators

Information on Past Conferences

Upcoming conferences

International Association of Survey Statisticians

Workshop on Small Domain Estimation in Labour Force Surveys

IASC-IASS Joint European Summer School. Knowledge Discovery and Large Marketing Survey: Design and Analysis

International Seminar on Methods for Household Sample Surveys

IASS short courses at the 2001 ISI Session

Sponsorship of events in 2002

ISI - INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL INSTITUTE

Newsletter Volume 25 No. 1 (73) 2001 -ISI Sections

Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability

International Association for Official Statistics

Ada Van Krimpen reports:

Recent Activities

IAOS meetings in Seoul

Nominations for the Executive Committee 2001–2003 and the President Elect for 2003–2005

The IAOS conference in 2002 ‘Official Statistics and the New Economy’

IAOS Satellite Meeting on Statistics for an Information Society

Training Course on Advances in Time Series Analysis

The Montreux Initiative: A quest for a science of human dignity

The 22nd SCORUS Conference, Shenzhen – China, 7–10 November 2000

International Association for Statistical Computing

Editorial

Administrative Sessions during 53rd ISI Session 2001, Seoul

IASC Council Decisions

IASC Elections – List of Nominees

Upcoming Conferences

International Association for Statistical Education

Report from the IASE President, Brian Phillips

IASE SERN and SERG

Statistics Education for the Information Age

Mathematics Association of America’s New Special Interest Group for Statistics Educators

Information on Past Conferences

Upcoming conferences

International Association of Survey Statisticians

Workshop on Small Domain Estimation in Labour Force Surveys

IASC-IASS Joint European Summer School. Knowledge Discovery and Large Marketing Survey: Design and Analysis

International Seminar on Methods for Household Sample Surveys

IASS short courses at the 2001 ISI Session

Sponsorship of events in 2002

The 22^nd SCORUS Conference, Shenzhen – China, 7–10 November 2000

Administrative Sessions during 53^rd ISI Session 2001, Seoul