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Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability
Editorial
This Contribution Was Edited by
In this edition we report on votes on new statutes of the Society, committee
work and meetings sponsored or co-organised by BS. More information will be
provided in the May 2001 issue of "Bernoulli News"; its WWW address is:
http://www.stat.unipd.it/bernoulli Vote on new Bernoulli Society statutesNew amended statutes of the Bernoulli Society have been discussed by the Council. The intention of this revision is purely to bring Statutes into line with the way 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 have now been submitted for a mail vote to the membership, see the last issue of "Bernoulli News" for details. Latin American Regional Committee
Some information about LARC follows. New members elected for four years are
Pilar Iglesias (Chile), Belem Trejo (Mexico) and Bruno Sanso (Venezuela).
By Luis Raul Pericchi Committee for Conferences on Stochastic Processes
The Committee for Conferences on Stochastic Processes (CCSP) is a subject area
committee of the Bernoulli Society. Its objective is the advancement of the
theory and applications of stochastic processes. It organises international
meetings on this subject, and generally plays a role in the activities of the
International Statistical Institute, that is consistent with this aim. Future venues for SPA conferences include: SPA 27 to be held in Cambridge, England, on 9-13 July 2001; the principal organizer is J.R. Norris (Cambridge).
By Mike Keane Committee on Probability and Statistics in the Physical Sciences
The Chairmanship of the Committee passed to David Brillinger, Berkeley, mid
2000. Ed Waymire had done a spectacular job of chairing the Committee before.
The whole ISI owes him a debt of gratitude.
By David R. Brillinger Journal of Time Series Analysis
The Journal of Time Series Analysis is currently in its 21st year of
publication, and continues to maintain the high quality of its papers. The flow
of papers submitted is very encouraging and the throughput time from submission
to publication has been improved.
By M.B. Priestley Bernoulli-sponsored Meetings
• IMS/Bernoulli Regional Meeting in Malaysia
• The 53rd Session of the ISI Proposals Welcomed for Future “Cutting Edge Conferences”
For several years, the ISI has organised several successful “cutting edge
conferences”. These are typically small-scale conferences (involving 30-60
participants) focussing onone specific topic, which would not normally be covered by one the ISI Sections.
The ISI Executive Committee urges members to submit proposals of topics for
possible future cutting edge conferences. International Association for Official Statistics
Ada Van Krimpen reports:Recent ActivitiesRecent IAOS activities have largely focussed on the following events: • Planning of the IAOS activities for the 53rd
Session of the ISI to be held in Seoul, Korea 22–29 August 2001, and related
events; The ISI Permanent Office has done a great job in preparing the administrative meetings programme during the 53rd Session of ISI in Seoul. For IAOS and SCORUS, four administrative meetings have been scheduled. Here the tentative schedule for the meetings is presented: • IAOS Executive Committee Invitation for the IAOS General AssemblyIAOS Members are invited to attend the IAOS General Assembly meeting that will take place on Friday August 24 from 11.45–13.15. The location of the meeting will be announced in the conference bulletin. Agenda for the General Assembly of IAOS in Seoul
Urgent call for proposals for IAOS invited paper meetings during the 54th ISI conference in Berlin, 2003During the ISI conference in Seoul the Programme
Co-ordinating Committee for the next ISI Session in Berlin 2003 will meet to
discuss the Sections’ proposals and decide about the programme elements. The IAOS conference in 2002 ‘Official Statistics and the New Economy’The IAOS conference in 2002 will be held in the U.K. It was decided to depart from the initial plan to organise the conference in the Ivory Coast. The IAOS Executive Committee would like to thank U.K. for its kind offer to host the 2002 conference. The theme of the conference is ‘Official Statistics and the New Economy’. The conference will take place 27-29 August 2002 (it is anticipated that registration will take place on the afternoon of August 26) and will take place in London (the specific site will be announced later). Tim Holt will chair the Scientific Programme Committee, joined by Paul Cheung, Rob Edwards, Peter Bull, Steve Landefeld, Len Cook, Denise Lievesley and Deborah Ashby. Len Cook, National Statistician of the UK, will chair the Local Organising Committee and Wes Woollard of the ONS will take care of the conference management. We will keep you updated on future developments. IAOS Satellite Meeting on Statistics for an Information SocietyThe IAOS Satellite Meeting ‘Statistics for an
Information Society’ will be held on 30 and 31 August 2001 in Tokyo, right after
the 53rd 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
opened a web-site:
http://www.stat.go.jp/english/iaos/index.htm Pre Seoul ISI Session Training Workshop on Advanced Time Series AnalysisThe Training workshop on advance Time series
analysis will be jointly organised with UNSIAP, KNSO and the IAOS. Due to
administrative constraints, the participants will be from the Asia and the
Pacific region. UNSIAP will extend invitations shortly. International Association of Survey Statisticians
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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 |
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| 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/ |
Report by Adalbert Wilhelm
The 53rd ISI Session in Seoul, which is rapidly approaching, marks the transition to a new Council and Executive. The current President-Elect J.C. Lee will take over Presidency during the IASC General Assembly that will convene during this conference. According to the results of the IASC Elections President Lee will be supported by Wolfgang Härdle and Refik Soyer as Vice-Presidents and Stan Azen will step in as new President-Elect. You can find the names of the newly elected Council Members and Officers below. This issue of the Newsletter repeats the invitation to attend the administrative sessions of IASC and gives the preliminary agendas. One of the founding fathers of IASC, Professor Norbert Victor, celebrated his 60th birthday in the Spring of this year. IASC Council and Executive Committee would like to take this occasion to thank him for all his efforts in fostering computational statistics and statistical computing and they wish him in the name of all computational statisticians all the best for the future. Stan Azen comments on recent changes in the Editorial Board of CSDA, the official journal of IASC, and points towards some future activities, one of them being a special issue related to Computational Econometrics. The Newsletter ends with some information on upcoming IASC (co-) sponsored conferences.
Notice is given to all members of IASC to attend
the IASC General Assembly which will convene during the 53rd ISI Session
in Seoul, Korea, on Tuesday, August 28, 2001 at 7.30-9.00 a.m. Room location
will be announced at the ISI Session.
The preliminary agenda of the meeting is as follows:
1. Approval of the Agenda
2. President's Report
3. Treasurer's Report
4. Secretary's Report
5. Introduction of new Officers/Handing over the Presidency
6. Incoming President’s Statement
7. IASC Membership issues
7A Dues for 2002
7B Other Membership issues
8. IASC Committees and Nominations
9. IASC Publication issues
9A Report from Editors of CSDA and SSN
9B New Editor of SSN
9C Agenda of Publication Committee
10. Report from Regional Sections
11. Forthcoming Meetings
12. Any other business
IASC Executives and all Council Members are invited to join the next IASC
Council Meeting which is scheduled for Monday, August 27, 2001 at 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. Room locations will
be announced at the ISI Session.
On its regular term IASC held 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
On January 15, 2001 the list of nominees was closed by the IASC Election
Committee. The ISI Permanent Office prepared the ballot sheets and sent them to
all members of IASC. On May 1, 2001 the ballot box was opened and the 172 votes
received by then have been counted. The ballot sheets were counted and checked
independently under the guidance of President-Elect J.C. Lee who released the
following results:
President-elect:
Stan Azen (USA)
VicePresidents:
Wolfgang Haerdle (Germany)
Refik Soyer (Turkey/USA)
Treasurer:
Patrick Groenen (The Netherlands)
Scientific Secretary:
Jung Jin Lee (Korea)
Council Members:
John Eccleston (Australia)
Allmut Hoermann (Germany)
Junji Nakano (Japan)
Javier Trejos (Costa Rica)
Maurizio Vichi (Italy)
Adalbert Wilhelm (Germany)
The current Executive and Council joins the IASC
Election Committee in congratulating the newly elected IASC Officers and in
thanking all candidates for their willingness to serve the association.
The new Council and Executive will meet for the first time during ISI Session
2001 in Seoul.
At the scientific symposium on Medical Biometry and Information Processing, an indispensable part of clinical research and medical practice, held in honor of Norbert Victors 60th birthday on February 16th, 2001 in Heidelberg, IASC President Lutz Edler delivered the warmest greetings on behalf of the IASC. In a short laudatio he praised Norbert Victor as a founder of IASC emphasizing his role as a computational statistician in addition to his other functions as a profound biometrician and successful health researcher influential in health policies.
Norbert Victor has laid foundations for the discipline of computational statistics, first in Germany, and subsequently in the international arena. His roots go back to the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies when he headed the legendary DVM-107 on statistical computing and statistical software. This activity lead to the foundation of the working group 'Statistische Auswertesysteme' (Statistical Evaluation Systems) which he chaired for the first 6 years and co-chaired for another two. His next milestone was the foundation of the Statistical Software Newsletter (SSN) in 1975 which is still the direct official IASC news medium and which, in 1990, has been smoothly integrated into the scientific journal CSDA – Computational Statistics and Data Analysis – by a group of IASC executives including Norbert Victor. In total, he was active in the IASC Executive Committee for 15 years including his Presidency from 1991-1993, highlighted by the foundation of the Asian Regional Section of IASC.
The IASC’s congratulations were symbolized in the presentation of a bunch of yellow roses, each wrapped by one of the many birthday addresses from colleagues within IASC. In the hope that he will continue his world wide activities and reach out for the next challenges, IASC wishes Norbert Victor many years of health, happiness and creative power.
Lutz Edler
FIGURE: "Victor sensei shuku kan reki". Collaged addresses on the occasion of Norbert Victors 60th birthday celebration on February 16th, 2001 in Heidelberg.
After 10 years of excellent service and devotion to CSDA, Peter Naeve stepped down as the European Co-Editor of CSDA. I will truly miss my excellent collaboration with Peter, but I am pleased to announce that Peter has continued his involvement with CSDA as a member of the Advisory Board. Also joining Peter on the Advisory Board are David A. Belsley (United States) and Jae Chang Lee (Korea).
At the COMPSTAT 2000 Symposium, the IASC Executive Committee and Council unanimously approved the nomination of Erricos Kontoghiorghes as Peter’s successor. Erricos, who received his Ph.D. in Computer Science with a focus on Computational Statistics from the University of London in 1993, is currently Senior Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Computer Science, University of Neuchatel in Switzerland. Erricos’ research interest include linear models, computational statistics and econometrics, parallel computing, and matrix computations.
Last month, Erricos and I met for three days in Los Angeles to plan future directions for CSDA. We developed various strategies to speed up the review process (including encouraging electronic submissions and reviews), and to expand the international impact of CSDA. With regard to the latter issue, we both agreed that there was a need to identify energetic researchers in various specialty areas, who not only function as Associate Editors, but could also promote the scientific integrity and visibility of CSDA. Specialty areas that we came up with include:
1) Optimization,
2) Numerical Methods,
3) Matrix Computation,
4) Genetic Algorithms,
5) Data Mining and Information Retrieval,
6) Econometrics,
7) Statistical Genetics,
8) Medical Imaging, and
9) Statistical Signal Processing.
At this time, I am pleased to announce that Jan R. Magnus (The Netherlands), Myoungshic Jhun (Korea), Verena Trenkel (France), and W. James Gauderman (United States) have joined the Editorial Board. Areas of expertise include:
statistical methods in genetic research
(Gauderman),
econometrics and matrix methods (Magnus),
computer intensive methods (Jhun), and
population dynamic models (Trenkel).
Erricos and I also discussed the need for Special
Issues on current “hot” topics, as well as Special Issues that include a Review
article. I am pleased to report that there are five Special Issues in progress.
Finally, Nicolette van Dijk and Michiel Kolman (representing the publisher,
Elsevier) have been very cooperative in working with Erricos and me and making
helpful suggestions for increasing the impact and visibility of CSDA. Both
Erricos and I appreciate their helpful suggestions and recommendations. Elsevier
is in the process of arranging a meeting of the Associate Editors at the ISI
meeting in Korea. I will look forward to seeing you all in the near future.
Stanley P. Azen
Editor-in-Chief, CSDA
Special Issue on Computational Econometrics
Econometric techniques are inherently
computational, often substantially so. Existing algorithms, however, do not
always embody the best of computational techniques, either for efficiency,
stability, or conditioning. Likewise, environments for doing econometrics are
inherently computer based. Integrated packages for conducting econometrics have
expanded well over the years, but still have much room for further development.
Computational econometrics, then, is a natural field that is ever ready to
receive new efforts, and a special issue in this area is always welcome.
We therefore invite submissions for a special issue of Computational Statistics
& Data Analysis on Computational Econometrics. We will consider papers
addressing the use of computational and numerical methods for solving
theoretical and practical econometric issues associated with econometric
algorithms, the impact of computing on econometrics, and specific applications
involving computing and econometrics.
The Deadline for submissions is December 1, 2001.
The focus of the papers submitted for this special
issue must contain both computational and econometric components. Authors who
are uncertain as to the suitability of their papers for the special issue should
contact the special issue editors. All papers submitted must contain original
unpublished work that is not being submitted for publication elsewhere.
Manuscripts submitted to this special issue will be refereed according to
standard procedures for Computational Science and Data Analysis. Information
about the journal can be found at:
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/csda
Electronic submissions are encouraged. Please e-mail a postscript or PDF file of
your manuscript to one of the special issue editors:
David A. Belsley Erricos John Kontoghiorghes (CSDA)
Department of Economics Institut d'informatique
Boston College Université de Neuchâtel
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Emile-Argand 11, Case Postale 2
USA CH-2007 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
david.belsley@bc.edu
erricos.kontoghiorghes@unine.ch
The IASC Council has unanimously agreed to act as a scientific co-sponsor of the Second Conference on Complex Statistical Models and Computational Intensive Methods for Estimation and Forecasting organised by the Universities of Padua, Venice, and Trieste under the auspices of the Italian Statistical Society.
The conference will take place in Bressanone, Italy, from September 24–26, 2001. The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers from academia and industry who are working on modeling complex structures, to discuss recent developments and explore new approaches and issues on estimation, monitoring and forecasting with emphasis on environmental and economic applications. Further information can be found on the web at: http://www.dst.univie.it/sco2001
Adalbert Wilhelm
Dear IASC member,
Almost one year has passed since the last Compstat conference in Utrecht and the
next is already in preparation.
"Compstat 2002" is scheduled to be held from 24th (Saturday) to 28th
(Wednesday) August 2002 in Berlin, the multicultural capital of Germany. We
invite you to have a look at our conference site
http://www.compstat2002.de to obtain
information about the scheduled topics, speakers and the scientific and cultural
programme.
We are sure you will enjoy the conference and our beautiful cosmopolitan city. We are looking forward to seeing you in Berlin!
Sincerely
Uwe Ziegenhagen, Benjamin Schüler
Local Organizing Committee
For more details, please contact us:
info@compstat2002.de
 |
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 Joan Garfield
As this is my last message in this Newsletter as IASE President, I wish to
thank all those I have worked so closely and intensely with on IASE matters
since I first took my place on the Executive at its inception in 1993, and
especially over the past two years during my term as President. I will not
attempt to list all the achievements and activities of the Association over that
time, but they have been very extensive and a credit to the small group of
extremely busy, devoted people who so readily and freely give of their time and
abilities to help with the improvement of statistics education around the world.
We are now busy preparing for several meetings including the SRTL2 in Australia
in August, the Statistics literacy Satellitte meeting and the ISI statistics
education sessions in Seoul, and of course ICOTS-6 in Durban in July next year.
We also produce a number of newsletters and articles on a regular basis to keep
members informed of the Association's activities, all of which take considerable
time and energy. Some recent IASE highlights for me have included the ICME10
statistics education sessions and the IASE Round Table on Training Researchers
in the Use of Statistics in Tokyo followed by the Golden Jubilee of the
International Statistical Education Centre (ISEC) in New Delhi and Calcutta.
This April I represented the Association at the Symposium in honour of one of
the founders of the IASE, Emeritus Professor David Vere-Jones, see report below.
Being involved in these and other events have strengthened my belief in the
importance of not only belonging to the IASE, but also being actively involved.
I recommend that all members take an active part in the Association and to
encourage their colleagues to join since it is critical for the long-term
survival of the Association to have a strong and active organisation.
I particularly wish to thank all the executive members over the past two years
for the terrific support they have given me and all the effort they have put
into the Association's activities. It was most pleasing to see the general
interest in the Association when about 150 members voted for the incoming
executive, see results below. All candidates received strong support and it is
unfortunate that not all could be successful. Congratulations to those elected,
there are many exciting projects for them to work on as reported in this
newsletter. I wish Carmen, Chris and the rest of new committee very best wishes
and hope they have as rewarding a time as I have in working for the IASE and I
look forward to my future role in this great Association.
As a result of the election of all IASE members, the IASE Executive for
2001-2003 will be:
President: Carmen Batanero
<batanero@goliat.ugr.es>
(Spain)
President-Elect: Chris Wild
<wild@stat.auckland.ac.nz>
(New Zealand)
Past President: Brian Phillips
<bphillips@swin.edu.au>
(Australia)
Vice-Presidents: Susan Starkings
<starkisa@vax.sbu.ac.uk>
(UK)
Gilberte Schuyten
<gilberte.schuyten@rug.ac.be>
(Belgium)
Lisbeth Cordani
<lisbeth@ime.usp.br>
(Brazil)
Dani Ben-Zvi
<dani.ben-zvi@weizmann.ac.il>
(Israel)
Carol Joyce Blumberg
<cblumberg@winona.edu>
(USA)
Brian Phillips, Australia
This most successful meeting was held at Victoria University of Wellington, 19-21 April 2001, in honour of David Vere-Jones on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. It acknowledged David's many far-reaching contributions across a broad spectrum including probability, statistics, education and the mathematical sciences around the world. In a special session, Joe Gani presented David with a Festschrift written in his honour. Broad themes for the Symposium included: probability and stochastic processes; history, statistics education; and applications of statistics.
The meeting was attended by over 100 people from many countries including Australia, USA, UK, Japan, China, Italy and New Zealand. This demonstrated the respect and affection of the many people whose lives David had so influenced. As David was one of the leading figures involved in the establishment of the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) in the early 1990's, I was invited to present a paper on his influence on Statistical Education. This turned out to be a very interesting and stimulating project as I explained in the paper:
"I first met David Vere-Jones at an International Statistical Institute (ISI) round table conference near Budapest in 1988. That wonderful occasion was superbly organised by Anne Hawkins, but it soon became clear that David was also very much involved behind the scenes. The meeting was about Training teachers to teach statistics, something that was obviously dear to David's heart. The group of statistical educators that Anne and David had drawn together were to become seminal in the formation of the International Association for Statistical Education, IASE. The next occasion I met David was in 1990 at the Third International Conference on Teaching Statistics, ICOTS-3, in Dunedin, another wonderful event in which David played a pivotal role. In 1993 we crossed paths in Perugia at the First Scientific Meeting of the IASE, a landmark event for the IASE another of David's initiatives. However, despite having the pleasure of getting to know David at these and other conferences, I now know that I really knew very little about this remarkable man. So, when I was asked if I would write about David's contribution to statistics education and started to research his life, a most interesting story emerged. His is a story not just of an academic mathematician and statistician; it is one of a life intertwined in some of the world's major historical events of the second half of the twentieth century."
Then later: "In his formative years he experienced life in restricted war time Britain as a young child, spent his secondary education years in relaxed New Zealand, went on to study under the guidance of David Kendall as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University in the late 1950's, then during the height of the Cold War spent a year in the Soviet Union where he met and worked with some of the world's greatest probabilists. Since the middle 1960's he has been based in New Zealand but has also travelled and worked in a number of countries including Australia, India, Japan and China, as well as making numerous trips back to England and Russia."
David wrote: "These opportunities have come to me not as an explorer, a
journalist, an interpreter even, but through being a mathematician, and that at
a modest level. Whatever dreams of adventure I may have had as a child, I never
thought that some opportunities could come, of all things, from a career in
mathematics."
David's extensive influence on so many people from many parts of the world was
clearly seen at the meeting. In recent years he has been involved in a number of
projects on studies of earthquakes, especially in China and Japan where, as
elsewhere, he is held in very high esteem. This symposium partially overlapped
with the 2nd International Workshop on Statistical Seismology. Abstracts of the
papers presented can be seen on the website
http://www.statsresearch.co.nz/fest/index.html
Papers from the Symposium and Workshop will be published together in a special issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics.
There was also a most enjoyable social program associated with the Symposium, including a Conference Dinner where many dignitaries talked about their experiences with David, a "mandatory" tour of a nearby wonderful wine district and a walking tour of a unique island bird reserve. A photograph record of the event is available on http://www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/dvj1.html
The IASE owes a big debt of David Vere-Jones along with others including Joe Gani and Lennart Råde for having the vision and perseverance to see that our Association came to fruition.
Carmen Batanero, Spain
The aim of this Newsletter, which is located at the web site: http://www.ugr.es/local/batanero/sergroup.htm is to encourage research activity and collaborative projects by IASE members and to facilitate the exchange of information. We will be glad to receive short papers, bibliographies on specific topic and summaries of publications related to research in statistics education.
The latest edition, SERN v2(2), includes:
• a paper by Richard SCHEAFFER, currently President of the American Statistical
Association and a former Vice President of the IASE, which provides an excellent
perspective on the history and future of statistics education.
• a response to reactions in SERN 2(1) "Building a Research Agenda for
Statistics Education" in which statistics educators with varied research
experience and backgrounds gave their priorities to research questions in
statistics education.
• an article on the Research group at the University of Granada which has been
funded to develop a 3-year Research Project by the Spanish Ministry of Education
and Culture. The aim is to improve and develop the group’s Internet page
http://www.ugr.es/local/batanero/
in order to produce survey works in the Spanish language about research in
statistics education and to make these materials available to teachers and
researchers. Hipótesis Alternativa, a new statistics education newsletter
written in Spanish language and produced by Audy Salcedo, Venezuela is now also
available from the same server.
• a bibliography of the emotional dimension in mathematics education by Inés
Gómez-Chacón, Mathematics Education, Instituto de Estudios Pedagógicos
Somosaguas, Madrid, Spain, ines@ieps.es.
• information about past and forthcoming conferences, summaries of Publications
by IASE Members and Recent Dissertations in Statistics Education.
Carmen Batanero, Spain
The Round Table Conference on The Training of Researchers in the Use of Statistics was held at the Institute of Statistical Mathematics in Tokyo, August 7-11, 2000 and was sponsored by the IASE and the ISI, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and the Japan Statistical Society.
This book is a part of an international collaborative process, which started in 1997, when the IASE Executive Committee decided the topic for this Conference and asked the Scientific Committee to produce a Discussion Document describing the aims of the conference. The conference was announced through the IASE and ISI publications, and through a number of statistics and mathematics education journals. The IASE organised a refereeing process to assure fairness and quality in the process of selecting the papers and invited some reviewers for every set of related papers.
The 48 participants, included professional and official statisticians,
lecturers, researchers and statistics educators, and represented different
countries of the five continents, consisting of developed and developing
countries. After the conference, the authors were given some additional time to
produce a revision of the papers, taking into account the discussions held.
We hope this book will serve as a starting point for other lecturers,
researchers and statistics educators to reflect on the statistical training of
researchers in empirical sciences, to change their teaching approaches, to
improve the interest to collaborate in applied research and to start new
didactical research on some of the problems described.
Book reference:
Training Researchers in the Use of Statistics
IASE Round Table Conference, Tokyo 2000
Edited by Carmen BATANERO
ISBN 90-73592-19-4
Published by:
International Association for Statistical Education,
International Statistical Institute
Available from:
ISI Permanent Office
428 Prinses Beatrixlaan
PO Box 950
2270 AZ Voorburg
The Netherlands
Henrik Dahl, Norway
The Norwegian Statistical Association has recently become more involved in questions concerning the teaching of statistics. A committee for teaching was established in 1989. The Scandinavian Conference on Mathematical Statistics at Røros 1992 arranged by the Norwegian association had a special session on teaching statistics.
The Teaching committee with the members: Jostein Lillestøl (Norwegian School of Economics) Ivar Heuch (University of Bergen) Henrik Dahl (Agder College) were engaged when probability and statistics was introduced in Norwegian schools (16–19 years) in 1994 by a reorganization named Reform 94. The committee gave advice to publishers of textbooks.
Subsequently several Norwegian statisticians have been engaged in issues of teaching. On August 16, 2000, a meeting was arranged in Kristiansand sponsored by the Statistical Society of Norway with the following participants: Elinor Ytterstad (University of Tromsø) Tore Wentzel-Larsen and Rolf Wolden (Bodø College) Ivar Heuch (University of Bergen) Ørnulf Borgan (University of Oslo) Torfinn Torp (Norwegian Agricultural University, Ås) Henrik Dahl (Agder College) and Hege Therese Syvertsen (Kristiansand)
Elinor had a presentation about further education being relevant in northern Norway. Tore and Rolf had a presentation about teaching statistics to business students. Ivar discussed how to make best use of computers in statistical education. Ørnulf had a presentation about the last revisions of teaching plans for students about 16 years of age. He has recently contributed a chapter to one of the textbooks for that level.
Michael A. Seaman, USA
The Educational Statisticians Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) is a group of over 200 researchers interested in statistics as applied to educational, behavioral, and social problems. Members of the SIG include statisticians, academics in departments affiliated with education, psychology, or statistics, measurement experts from testing companies, publishing houses, and research organizations, researchers from a variety of educational organizations, and others interested in the promotion of sound statistical practice in education and other settings.
This year the Educational Statisticians SIG sponsored nine sessions as part of the annual meeting of AERA, held from April 10 to 14 in Seattle. Four of the sessions featured short paper presentations highlighting current research in the areas of experimental design, multiple-comparison procedures, equivalency testing, effect size analysis, statistical modeling, factor analysis, survey research, and bootstrapping. Two symposiums offered participants a chance for more in-depth learning and discussion of highlighted topics. One of these symposiums focused on issues in handling missing data in statistical analysis and the other highlighted perspectives on teaching applied statistics. Two roundtable discussion sessions on teaching educational statistics and issues in statistical methodology allowed participants a chance for small-group discussions with the authors of papers.
A highlight of the meeting was the invited address given by Erich Lehmann. Professor Lehmann spoke on the topic of nonparametric methods in a presentation titled, “The Assumption of Normality: Should We Trust It? Do We Need It?” For more information on the Educational Statisticians SIG, visit the SIG website at http://orme.uark.edu/edstatsig.htm.
• 25th PME conference
12–17 July, 2001
Utrecht
The Netherlands
Following the PME25 Conference, a SUMMER SCHOOL will be organized by the
Freudenthal Institute.The theme for the PME 25 Conference will be “25 years of
PME: Past and Future Challenges”.
Further information:
http://www.fi.uu.nl/pme25
or contact Marja van den Heuvel-Panhuizen University of Utrecht, Freudenthal
Institute Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Email: m.vandenheuvel@fi.uu.nl
SRTL 2
The Second International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking, and
Literacy
University of New England, Armidale, Australia, August 15-20, 2001
SRTL-2 Website:
http://www.beeri.org.il/srtl
The Second International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking and
Literacy (SRTL-2) will meet from 15 August to 20 August 2001 at the University
of New England, Armidale in Northern New South Wales Australia. The research
forum is being organized following the resounding success of the first SRTL
which was held at Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel in July 1999. The SRTL-2 gathering is
sponsored by The IASE Statistical Education Research Group (IASE SERG); The
Centre for Cognition Research in Learning and Teaching (CRiLT) at the UNE; The
School of Curriculum Studies (SCS) at the UNE; the Faculty of Education, Health
and Professional Studies (FEHPS) at UNE; and The University of Minnesota, USA.
The STRL-2 Forum offers an opportunity for a small number of researchers from around the world to meet for a few days to share their work, discuss important issues and initiate collaborative projects. The researchers attending are: Arthur Bakker, Don Bentley, Dani Ben-Zvi, Rolf Biehler, Beth Chance, Jose Luis Cortina, Bob DelMas, Mark Earley, Joan Garfield, Sharon Gunn, Ruth Heaton, Graham Jones, Katie Makar, Bill Mickelson, Jonathon Moritz, John Pegg, Maxine Pfannkuch, Chris Reading, Mike Shaughnessy, Pat Thompson and Jane Watson.
Sessions will be held in an informal style, with small groups of participants
meeting together to share the details of their work. The focus of the Research
Forum this year will be the Reasoning aspect of SRTL. Presentations within the
five small groups will centre around Reasoning about: Data and Distribution,
Variability and Sampling, Comparing Distributions, Bivariate Data, and Sampling
Distributions. Discussants will then react to each of the presentations. This
format allows participants to validate their interpretations, as well as reflect
and expand on their conclusions, which are then presented to the large group in
a briefer format. Session plans and background readings are now being submitted
by the participants. The Research Forum will conclude with a Panel discussion:
What We Can Learn From Mathematics Education.
For up-to-date information about SRTL-2 visit the website at
www.beeri.org.il/srtl,
or for specific queries email the local organizer Chris Reading
<creading@metz.une.edu.au>.
Convention and Exhibition Center (COEX) – Seoul, Korea
• IASE Satellite Conference on Statistical Literacy
Convention and Exhibition Center (COEX)
Seoul, Korea,
21-22 August, 2001
Plans for the satellite conference on statistical literacy which immediately
precedes the ISI session in Seoul are now in place. It includes a number of
international speakers and two workshops designed for teachers. 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. It should also be of interest to people wishing to
understand more about risks in making investments and gambling, by those
concerned with interpreting sociological, economical, political, scientific or
educational reports, predicting sports results, by policy makers, journalists,
health professionals and others from the general population.
More information: See web page:
http://www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/statlit.html
Contacts:
Professor Yong Goo Lee
Department of Applied Statistics
Chung Ang University, Seoul
Fax : +82-2-816-8079
<leeyg@cau.ac.kr>
or
Brian Phillips
School of Mathematical Sciences
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Fax: +61 3 9819 0821
<bphillips@swin.edu.au>
• International Statistical Institute
53rd Session Seoul
Korea
22–29 August, 2001
IASE Sessions for ISI-53 are now in place and can be seen at http://www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/isi53.html
Lionel Pereira-Mendoza <lpereira@nie.edu.sg> is co-ordinating this section of the ISI programme. IASE members and others interested in statistics education should make a special effort to attend these sessions and the IASE general assembly which will be held during the congress.
The Sixth International Conference on Teaching Statistics
Durban, South Africa, 7 – 12 July 2002
IPC Website: http://www.beeri.org.il/icots6
LOC Website: http://icots.itikzn.co.za/
The preparations for the Sixth International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS-6) are well under way. The Conference is organized by the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE), the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and the South African Statistical Association (SASA). ICOTS-6 will take place in Durban (South Africa) from July 7–12, 2002. As the conference theme for ICOTS-6 is ‘Developing a statistically literate society’, special sessions on statistical literacy are planned. The keynote speakers are given below and there will be special sessions on statistics literacy and the role of statistics in a number of everyday contexts as well as special sessions designed for local teachers. Most of the invited speakers are in place and their abstracts posted in the ICOTS-6 IPC Website http://www.beeri.org.il/icots6/.
The second announcement with full registration details, fees, accommodation, travel and tours is due in July 2001.
For ICOTS-6, there is the option of a full paper refereeing process for those
who desire it. The refereeing process provides a mechanism for peer review and
critique and so contributes to the overall quality of statistics education
research and teaching. More details about the refereeing process, as well as the
general authors’ instructions, can be viewed in the ICOTS-6 IPC Website under
Announcements.
The keynote plenary sessions are:
1. Opening Address: Professor Volmink (South Africa)
2. Iddo Gal (Israel) and Scott Murray (Canada)
3. Joan Garfield (USA)
4. Peter Holmes (UK)
5. International Forum: Panel including Jessica Utts (USA)
6. Closing speaker: Maria-Gabriella Ottaviani (Italy)
7. After Dinner Speaker: George W. Cobb (USA)
Important deadlines
Proposals/papers can still be submitted for the following:
For contributed papers: refereed – until Oct. 1, 2001; non-refereed until Jan.
1, 2002 (contact: Susan Starkings, starkisa@sbu.ac.uk).
For posters, until Feb. 1, 2002
(contact: Andrew I. Dale, dale@scifs1.und.ac.za).
For demonstrations, forums and special sessions,
until Feb. 1, 2002 (contact: Maria-Gabriella Ottaviani,
mariagabriella.ottaviani@uniroma1.it).
For full details see ICOTS-6 IPC Website
http://www.beeri.org.il/icots6/.
IPC Chair
Maria-Gabriella
Ottaviani ottavian@pow2.sta.uniroma1.it
International Organizer
Brian Phillips bphillips@swin.edu.au
IPC Scientific Secretary
Dani en-Zvi dani.ben-zvi@weizmann.ac.il
ISI-54 Berlin 2003
Proposals Welcome for the IASE Scientific Programme
The IASE Programme Committee for ISI-54, under the chair of Gilberte Schuyten,
has started their work in preparing the scientific programme for the Berlin 2003
ISI Session. Proposals for invited paper meetings are being considered for
approval in Seoul. These proposals should be sent to <Gilberte.schuyten@rug.ac.be> and posted on the IASE Upcoming conferences site,
http://www.swin.edu.au/maths/iase/conferences2.html
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Bernoulli 
IASC