ISI - International Statistical Institute
 Newsletter Volume 27, No. 1 (79) 2003 -Sections  

Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability

International Association for Official Statistics

International Association for Statistical Education

 International Association for Statistical Computing
 International Association of Survey Statisticians

Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability

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 Peter G. Hall, Australian National University, Statistics,
Center for Mathematics and its Applications, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Tel: +61–6–2493474 Fax: +61–6–2494675
E-mail: halpstat@fac.anu.edu.au
Website http://isi.cbs.nl/bs.htm
 THIS CONTRIBUTION WAS EDITED BY
ENNO MAMMEN, SCIENTIFIC SECRETARY OF BS.
 

Index Bernoulli

Editorial

2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress: 26-30 July 2004

Committee Work

Committee on Probability and Statistics in the Physical Sciences of the Bernoulli Society (C(PS)2)

The European Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society (ERC)

Journal of Time Series Analysis

Stochastic Processes and Their Applications

Special Rate for Finance and Stochastics

Upcoming Meetings in 2003 and 2004

SPRUCE VI: 15-19 June 2003

3rd Conference on Levy Processes - Theory and Applications: 23-27 June 2003

2003 EAPR Conference: 10-12 July 2003

ISIPTA '03: 3rd International Symposium on Imprecise Probabilities and Their Applications: 15-17 July 2003

12th International Workshop on Matrices and Statistics

7th Tartu Conference on Multivariate Statistics

The Thirteenth International Conference on Quantitative Methods for the Environmental Sciences and The Twelfth General Meeting of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES 2003)

XXIX Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications + VII Brazilian School on Probability

12th General Meeting of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES 2003) and 13th International Conference on Quantitative Methods for Environmental Sciences: 21-24 August 2003

The 13th European Young Statisticians Meeting

Second International Workshop in Applied Probability - IWAP 2004
IX CLAPEM: Congreso Latino Americano de Probabilidad y Estadistica Matematica: 22-26 March 2004
Distribution Theory, Order Statistics and Inference - A Conference in Honor of Barry C. Arnold
2004 Stochastic Networks Conference: 19-24 July 2004
2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress: 26-30 July 2004

Editorial

This edition contains society news and announcements, and reports on upcoming scientific meetings sponsored or co-organised by BS. For more information see also the online version of "Bernoulli News". 

Top

New officers of the Bernoulli Society

For the term 2003 to 2007 the council of the society has the following new members:

Tim Brown, Colleen Cutler, Frank den Hollander, Valerie Isham, Zhi-ming Ma, Mario Wschebor. 

Paul Feigin, Chii-Ruey Hwang, Tom Kurtz, Elisabeth de Turckheim, Ruth Williams and Victor Yohai will continue to act as members of the council until 2005.

From 2003 to 2005 the new President Elect is Peter Jagers. He will take over this office from Don Dawson at the ISI 54th Session in Berlin this August. Then, Don Dawson will start as new president of the society.

Peter Jagers - New President Elect

Peter Jagers was born 1941 in Gothenburg (Göteborg), Sweden. He studied Arts, Mathematics, Physics, and finally Mathematical Statistics (1960-64) and got his Ph.D. at Gothenburg University in 1968. Since 1974 he is Professor at Chalmers University of Technology and Gothenburg University. His activities for the scientific community include:
• Chairman of the Committee for Conferences on Stochastic Processes and their Applications,1983-87;
• Editor of Stochastic Processes and their Applications, 1989-94;
• Programme Director of Chalmers's International Master's Programme in Bioinformatics, 2000-2002;
• President of the Faculty Senate, Chalmers University of Technology, 1993-2002;
• Chair Bernoulli Society Publications Committee.
He is an Elected Member of the ISI, a Fellow of the IMS, a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and of the European Academy of Science.
His research interests include: Applied probability, mainly branching processes and their interplay with biology (stochastic population dynamics), point processes, and statistical inference. Besides some lecture notes in Swedish he has written the following two books:
• Branching Processes with Biological Applications. John Wiley & Sons, 1975.
• Classical and Modern Branching Processes. With K. B. Athreya (ed.) Springer-Verlag, 1997.
Now, he is working on the book Branching and Biology --- Variation, Growth, Extinction, together with Patsy Haccou, Vladimir Vatutin et al., to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2004. One of his most recent papers is: Random Variation and Concentration Effects in PCR. With Fima Klebaner. J. Theoret. Biol. 2003. (due to appear shortly).

2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress: 26-30 July 2004

The 2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress, and IMS Annual Meeting, will be held in Barcelona, Spain, 26-30 July 2004. The Chair of the local organising committee is David Nualart nualart@mat.ub.es . The Scientific Program Committee has now largely finished its work. The members of the committee have been Gerard Ben Arous, David Brillinger, Rainer Dahlhaus, Sara van de Geer, Evarist Giné, Wenceslao González Manteiga, Wilfrid Kendall (chair), Russ Lyons, Enno Mammen (ex officio BS Scientific Secretary), Thomas Mikosch, Susan Murphy (ex officio IMS Program Secretary), David Nualart (ex officio local chair), Yosi Ogata, Chris Rogers, Roberto Schonmann, Michael Sørensen, Simon Tavaré, Anton Wakolbinger, Ofer Zeitouni.

There will be in the order of 6 to 7 special invited lecturers under IMS auspices (1 Wald, 1 Rietz, and 4-5 Medallion); in respect of Bernoulli Society, David Aldous (Kolmogorov Lecture), Wendelin Werner (Levy Lecture, sponsored by Elsevier), Jun Liu (Bernoulli Lecture), Steffen Lauritzen (Laplace Lecture) have agreed to give special invited Bernoulli Society Lectures.

Up to now the following invited paper sessions have been confirmed:
Biological networks - modelling and inference (Marianne Huebner); Inference for dynamical spatial/temporal models (Valerie Isham); Mathematical finance (Nizar Touzi); Modeling spatial and temporal dependence for extremes (Richard A. Davis); Statistical genetics (David Clayton); Statistics in molecular biology (Terry Speed); Statistical methods in brain mapping (Keith Worsley); Statistics in finance and econometrics (Yacine Ait-Sahalia); The interface of insurance and finance (Ragnar Norberg); Brownian motion (Yuval Peres); Coalescents, coagulation and fragmentation (Jean Bertoin); Concentration inequalities (Sergey Bobkov); Conformal invariance and stochastic Loewner evolutions (Wendelin Werner); Large deviations (Erwin Bolthausen); Measure-valued processes and SPDE (Jean Francois LeGall); Metastability (Frank den Hollander); Mixing of finite Markov chains (Dana Randall); Percolation, statistical mechanics, interacting particle systems (Pisztora); Probability on graphs (Jeff Steif); Random Matrices and Related Processes (Alexander Soshnikov); Random walks in random environments and random media (Nina Gantert); Function estimation (A. Tsybakov); Applications of particle filtering in statistics (Arnaud Doucet); Causality and multi-stage decision problems (Jamie Robins); Dimension reduction for high dimensional data (Ker-Chau Li); False discovery rates (Felix Abramovich); Model choice and goodness of fit in nonparametrics (Winfried Stute); Machine learning in complex structures (Peter Bartlett); Nonparametric analysis for time series (Qiwei Yao); Statistical analysis of point processes (Rick Shoenberg); Statistical inference for stochastic differential equations (Mathieu Kessler); Function space valued modeling (Anestis Antoniadis); Biostatistics (Niels Keiding); Graphical models in statistics (Thomas Richardson).

The Programme Committee for the Bernoulli Section (BS) of the 55th ISI Session in Sydney (2005) has started its work. The committee consists of the following members: David Brillinger, Louis Chen, William Dunsmuir, Enno Mammen, Jane-Ling Wang, Ruth Williams, Peter Hall and Leopold Simar (chair).
At the 54th Session of the International Statistical Institute the following Bernoulli Society Committee and General Meetings take place:
• East Asian and Pacific Regional Committee (EAPR): 14 August 11:15-13:00
• European Regional Committee: 14 August 11:15 - 13:00
• Publications Committee: 15 August 07:30-09:00
• Programme Committee: 15 August 11:15 - 13:00
• Council: 18 August 07:30 - 09:00
• Committee for Probability and Statistics in the Physical Sciences: 18 August 11:15-13:00
• General Assembly: 19 August 11:15-13:00

Committee Work

Latin American Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society (LARC)
Forthcoming Events sponsored by LARC:

IX Congreso Latinoamericano de Probabilidad y Estadística Matemática, 
Montevideo- Uruguay, 22 – 26 March 2004.

The program contains the following lectures: 
Opening Lecture: Yuval Peres, 5 Short Courses: de la Peña, van der Vaart, Thorisson, Wermuth and Cox, Tavare.
20 one-hour lectures: Maria Eulalia Vares, Miguel Abadi, Servet Martinez, Dan Rabinowitz, Mark van der Laan, Jose R. Leon, Victor Yohai, Rolando Biscay, Marc Lavielle, Tom Britton, Enno Mammen, Antonio Cuevas, Eustasio del Barrio, Juan Cuesta, Alejandra Cabaña, Georgina Flesia, Jean Bertoin, Michel Ledoux, Laurent Saloff-Coste, Gabor Lugosi.
Special session organisers: Ricardo Fraiman, Ernesto Mordecki, Jan Rosinski, Jean-Marc Azais, Carlos Matran, Luis Raul Pericchi.
All information concerning LARC can be found in the web-site of the committee: http://imerl.fing.edu.uy/larc
In addition, a bulletin in Spanish language is distributed on the web: http://imerl.fing.edu.uy/larc/boletin.htm
Committee on Probability and Statistics in the Physical Sciences of the Bernoulli Society (C(PS)2)

Forthcoming Events sponsored by C(PS)2:

The Thirteenth International Conference on Quantitative Methods for the Environmental Sciences and The Twelfth General Meeting of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES 2003). Due to the SARS epidemic these conferences will not take place in Beijing this year. The conference will now be held in South Africa from Monday 3- Friday 7 November, at Caesars Palace, Johannesburg. The conference will be held as a parallel conference to the South African Statistical Association 50th anniversary conference. 
See http://www.cmis.csiro.au/ties2003/  
For information on other recent committee activities, see also http://oz.berkeley.edu/~brill/cps2/
The European Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society (ERC)
Upcoming events under the auspices of the European Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society include:
The 13th European Young Statisticians Meeting, Ovronnaz, Switzerland, September 21-26, 2003
Chairman of the Local Organising Committee: Reinhard Furrer

The 25th European Meeting of Statisticians, Oslo, Norway, 24. - 29. July 2005

This is the first European Meeting of Statisticians (EMS) following the new ideas of the European Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society. The renewed EMS wants to be a central international event in all areas of statistics and probability, including methodological statistics, applied and computational statistics, probability theory, stochastic processes and applied probability. The scientific programme will be interesting and broad, making the conference appealing for scientists, graduate and postgraduate students in all these areas. The scientific programme will be broader than in past EMS, with more space to important applications of our disciplines. The programme will also aim at cross-fertilisation between the various areas, through special invited speakers and sessions which bridge between theory and practice, inference and stochastic models. We hope to see an increase in terms of participation and contributed talks.

We encourage students and young statisticians to join the meeting in Oslo. In order to make this possible we will be offering accommodation near campus (with good standards) at a very good price, for those, students and non, who do not wish to stay in a more conventional hotel. We currently estimate the on-campus accommodation to cost circa 200 Euro for the whole period. (In fact, because of local rules, the rent will be for two full weeks. We are currently working on the possibility to organise a training event during the week preceding the conference, for those who would be interested.) Of course we will offer traditional hotel accommodation too. In summary, we try to organise a conference for each budget.
This is the 25th EMS and we are planning to mark this round number by looking back into the history of the EMS. We wish to collect and publish historical material from the whole series of the EMS. Do you have interesting material, especially from the first 15 EMS? Would you be interested in joining a small group planning this activity? Please contact us if so (Arnoldo.Frigessi@nr.no).

Expected arrival of participants is Saturday 23 July 2005. The meeting starts on Sunday 24th in the morning, because we want to make full use of over-the-weekend low airfares. The conference will close in the afternoon of Thursday 28th. For us "low cost" is an important issue. The reason why the conference is in July, and not in August as is the tradition, is to use the campus facilities in full in absence of regular classes, and to profit from the long warm summer days of July. The Scandinavian summer is a unique experience! 

The scientific programme committee is chaired by Aad van der Vaart (Free University Amsterdam & Eurandom) and includes Ørnulf Borgan (Oslo), Jeffrey Steif (Gothenburg), Gareth Roberts (Lancaster), Sylvia Richardson (Imperial College), Ursula Gather (Dortmund), Tomasz Rolski (University of Wroclaw). The local organising committee includes Arnoldo Frigessi (Norwegian Computing Centre & University of Oslo), chair and Nils L. Hjort (Oslo), deputy.

For more information please see the conference website http://www.ems2005.no/  .
Bernoulli Society members are invited to make suggestions for invited speakers and sessions. Please send an e-mail to the chairman of the Scientific Programme Committee.

For more information on other recent committee activities, see also 
http://www-m4.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/m4/erc/ 

Stochastic Processes and their Applications

As announced in the last issue of ISI Newsletter, Elsevier Science, in conjunction with the Bernoulli Society, is pleased to be able to continue to offer all members free online access to Stochastic Processes and their Applications (SPA).
Members who would like to take advantage of free online access to SPA should visit http://www.elsevier.com/login  and choose a username and password, then enter the following key when prompted to do so:
AntePoleWant(case sensitive)
(If you have already done this, please continue to use the username and password you have created)
Instructions to access the journal online are as follows:
1. Visit www.elsevier.com/locate/spa 
2. In the left-hand frame, under "Content Services", choose the link which says, "IMS and Bernoulli Society Members, full text access here". This will take you to a page containing tables of contents for society members only.
3. Click on the issue you would like to read.
4. You will see a login screen in which you should enter your username and password.
5. This takes you to a screen with a small box, reading "Click here", from where you will access the PDF of your choice.
The final two steps are only necessary once per visit.

Upcoming Meetings in 2003 and 2004

9th International Conference on Applications of Statistics & Probability in Civil Engineering, ICASP9
Date: 6-9 July 2003
Place: Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.
Website: http://icasp9.berkeley.edu/ 

ISIPTA '03: 3rd International Symposium on Imprecise Probabilities and Their Applications
15-17 July 2003
The ISIPTA meetings are one of the primary international forums to present and discuss new results on the theory and applications of imprecise probabilities. At the third symposium three main themes will be emphasised: inference, algorithms and computational complexity, and real applications.

Location. ISIPTA '03 will be held at the University of Lugano, Switzerland.
Tutorial day: 14 July 2003
Symposium: 15-17 July 2003
Program Board:
Jean-Marc Bernard (Universite Paris 5, France)
Teddy Seidenfeld (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Marco Zaffalon (IDSIA, Switzerland)
Questions. If you have any questions about the symposium, please contact: 
Marco Zaffalon, IDSIA, 
Galleria 2
CH-6928 Manno
Switzerland
Tel.: +41 91 610 8665
Fax +41 91 610 8661
E-mail: zaffalon@idsia.ch

12th International Workshop on Matrices and Statistics

Date: 5-8 August 2003
Place: Dortmund, Germany
Contact: Hans Joachim Werner (U. Bonn)
The 12th International Workshop on Matrices and Statistics (IWMS-2003) will be held at the University of Dortmund (Dortmund, Germany) on 5-8 August 2003. This workshop will be hosted by the Department of Statistics at the University of Dortmund. The purpose of the workshop is to stimulate research and, in an informal setting, to foster the interaction of researchers in the interface between statistics and matrix theory. This workshop will provide a forum through which statisticians may be better informed of the latest developments and newest techniques in matrix theory and may exchange ideas with researchers from a wide variety of countries. This workshop will include the presentation of both invited and contributed papers on matrices and statistics; it is expected that many of these papers will be published, after refereeing, in a 'Special Issue on Linear Algebra and Statistics' of Linear Algebra and Its Applications.

International Organizing Committee: R.William Farebrother (Shrewsbury, England, UK), Simo Puntanen (Univ. of Tampere, Finland), George P.H. Styan (McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada; vice-chair), and Hans Joachim Werner (Univ. of Bonn, Germany; chair).
Local Organising Committee: Jürgen Groß (Univ. of Dortmund, Germany), Götz Trenkler (Univ. of Dortmund, Germany; chair), C. Weihs (Univ. of Dortmund, Germany).
7th Tartu Conference on Multivariate Statistics
Date: 8-12 August 2003
Place: Tartu, Estonia
Contact: Tõnu Kollo (University of Tartu)

XXIX Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications + VII Brazilian School on Probability

Date: 3-9 August 2003
Place: Angra dos Reis, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Website: http://www.impa.br/Conferencias/Spa
The program consists of fifty-minute lectures delivered by invited speakers, twenty-minute contributed talks and posters.
Invited Speakers:
A. Bovier (WIAS, Berlin)
R. Burton (Oregon State University, USA)
C. Burdzy (Univ. of Washington, USA)
P. Ferrari (IME/USP, Brazil)
A. Guionnet (ENS, Lyon, France)
F. Den Hollander (EURANDOM, Netherlands)
D. Ioffe (Technion, Haifa, Israel)
J. Norris (Univ. of Cambridge, UK)
H. T. Yau (NYU, New York, USA)
O. Zeitouni (Technion, Haifa, Israel)

Courses:
A. Guionnet (ENS, Lyon)
O. Zeitouni (Technion, Haifa)

Scientific Committee:
E. Bolthausen (Univ. Zurich)
C. Burdzy (Univ. of Seattle)
P. Ferrari (IME/USP, São Paulo)
M. Keane (Univ. of Amsterdam)
C. Landim (IMPA, Rio de Janeiro), Chairman
M. Ledoux (Univ. Paul-Sabatier, Toulouse)
S. Olla (Univ. de Dauphine)
S. R. S. Varadhan (Courant Institute, NYU)
O. Zeitouni (Univ. Technion, Haifa)

Local Committee:
C. Landim (IMPA, Rio)
A. Simonis (USP, Sao Paulo)
S. Volchan (PUC-Rio)

The 13th European Young Statisticians Meeting

Date: 21-26 September 2003
Place: Ovronnaz, Switzerland
Website: http://statwww.epfl.ch/eysm03
The Thirteenth International Conference on Quantitative Methods for the Environmental Sciences and the Twelfth General Meeting of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES 2003)
Date: 3- 7 November 2003
Place: Caesars Palace, Johannesburg
Website: http://www.cmis.csiro.au/ties2003/
The conference will be held as a parallel conference to the South African Statistical Association 50th anniversary conference.

2003 EAPR Conference: 18-20 December 2003

The 2003 conference of the East Asian Pacific Regional (EAPR) Committee will be held at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) on 18-20 December 2003. The conference is organised by HKUST under the auspices of the East Asian and Pacific Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society. The Program Committee comprises David Aldous, Tim Brown, Louis HY Chen, Ching Sui Cheng, Bong Dae Choi, Masatoshi Fukushima, Tze Leung Lai, Albert Lo (Chair), Ryozo Miura and Jia-An Yan.

Keynote Speakers are David Aldous, Friedrich Goetze, Zhi-ming Ma, Kei Takeuchi, Meiji Gakuin, Wing Hung Wong and C.F. Jeff Wu.
For further information, visit the website www.bm.ust.hk/~eapr2003/  or contact Mike So at immkpso@ust.hk

Second International Workshop in Applied Probability - IWAP 2004

It is proposed to hold a four-day International Workshop in Applied Probability (IWAP) on March 22-25, 2004 at the University of Piraeus, Greece. We are planning to have an interdisciplinary conference in the field of probability. Applied probability is a broad research area that is of interest to scientists in diverse disciplines including anthropology, biology, communication theory, computer science, economics, epidemiology, finance, geography, linguistics, medicine, meteorology, operations research, psychology, quality control, reliability theory, sociology and statistics.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together and to foster exchanges among scientists working in the applications of probability to any field, including those listed above. The format of the workshop will be: two plenary speakers (one hour talks, including a 10 minute discussion) each day, followed by four invited sessions (two run in parallel at a time) of four speakers to present 30 minute talks, including a 5 minute discussion. Participants are going to be encouraged to submit their contributions to the journal Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability. Moreover, we are considering publishing a volume of review article based on selected presentations of senior scientists.

The plenary speakers, listed below, are leading researchers in the field of probability with a strong interest in applications. They are world wide recognised scientists that have published many important articles and books in the filed of probability and whose work has been supported by research grants of major agencies and institutions. The Scientific Program Committee includes leading scientists in diverse areas of research in probability from all over the world, that will ensure a strong and a broad program and participation from scientists from all over the world. The workshop chairs are committed to encourage the participation of young scientists, women and minorities at IWAP and have already made progress to achieve this goal.

The proposed workshop will be built on the success of the IWAP 2002 that took place at the University of Simon Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela, on January 14-17, 2002. Seventy researchers from fifteen countries attended that workshop. Eight plenary lectures and fifty-three invited lectures were presented. Selected research publications are going to be published in two special issues of the journal Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability. Selected review articles will appear in a volume "Applied Probability - Recent Advances" to be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. IWAP 2002 was co-sponsored by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Latin American Section of Bernoulli Society. Financial support was provided by several organisations, including the IMS and NSA.

WORKSHOP COMMITTEES
Workshop Chairs: Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Joseph Glaz, Henryk Gzyl, Markos Koutras, Jürg Hüsler, Jose Luis Palacios
Local Organising Committee: M. V. Koutras (Head), mkoutras@unipi.gr , S. Chadjiconstantinidis (vice Head), D. L. Antzoulakos (Secretary), M. Boutsikas (Treasurer).
Scientific Program Committee: N. Balakrishnan, Andrew D. Barbour, Henry W. Block, Louis H. Y. Chen, Noel Cressie, Richard Davis, Pablo Ferrari, Richard Johnson, Claudia Klüppelberg, Tze Leung Lai, Ingram Olkin, Phil Pollett, Allan Sampson, Moshe Shaked, Jozef Teugels.
Organisers of Invited Sessions
Barry C. Arnold, N. Balakrishnan, Andrew D. Barbour, Viktor Benes, Henry W. Block, Philip J. Boland, Louis H. Y. Chen, James C. Fu, Nancy Lopes Garcia, Anant Godbole, George Haiman, Richard Johnson, Claudia Klüppelberg, Nikolaos Limnios, Bo Lindqvist, David Mason, M. Nikulin, Ingram Olkin, Phil Pollett, Moshe Shaked, Jozef Teugels, Bill Woodall, Hisashi Yamamoto.

PLENARY SPEAKERS
Paul Deheuvels, Luc Devroye, Marc Goovaerts, Peter Hall, Holger Rootzen, Sheldon Ross,
Michael Steele, Prasad Tetali.

IX CLAPEM (Congreso Latinoamericano de Probabilidad y Estadística Matemática)

Date: 22 - 26 March 2004
Place: Montevideo, Uruguay
Website: http://imerl.fing.edu.uy/clapem
Contact: lpe@fing.edu.uy
IX CLAPEM, the main event of the Latin American Chapter of the Bernoulli Society will take place in Uruguay on 22-26 March 2004. The scientific committee of IX CLAPEM is Evarist Gine (Chairman, USA), Pablo Ferrari (Brasil), Andrea Rotnitzky (Argentina and USA), Carlos Matran (Spain), Graciela Boente (Argentina), Jean-Marc Azais (France), Victor Perez Abreu (Mexico) and Gonzalo Perera (Uruguay). 
The local organising committee comprises Ernesto Mordecki (chair), Enrique Cabana, Alicia Carriquiry, Ricardo Fraiman, Juan Jose Goyeneche, Gustavo Guerberoff, Gonzalo Perera, Marco Scavino, Maro Wschebor and Andrea Rivero (secretary). See also above for more information.

Distribution Theory, Order Statistics and Inference - A Conference in Honour of Barry C. Arnold

Location: Santander, Spain
Date: June 16 - June 18, 2004
Organisers: 
Prof. N. Balakrishnan ( bala@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca )
Prof. Enrique Castillo ( castie@unican.es )
Prof. Jose-Maria Sarabia ( sarabiaj@unican.es )
Purpose: This International Conference is being organised to celebrate the occasion of Professor Barry C. Arnold turning 65. The areas of Order Statistics, Distribution Theory and Inference, in which Barry Arnold has made fundamental and pioneering contributions, will be the primary areas of focus at this conference. For further details, please contact any of the three organisers at the addresses given above.
International Biometric Conference 2004 and 2004 Australian Statistical Conference
Date: 11-16 July 2004
Place: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Website: http://www.ozaccom.com.au/ibc2004/

Celebrating Statistics: International conference in honour of Sir David Cox on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

This conference will be held in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 14-18 July 2004 and is organised by Anthony DAVISON, Yadolah DODGE and Nanny WERMUTH. The invited speakers include: Ole Barndorff-Nielsen (Aarhus), Sarah Darby (Oxford), David Firth (Oxford), Peter Hall (Canberra), Valerie Isham (University College, London), Peter McCullagh (Chicago), Nancy Reid (Toronto), Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe (Princeton), Andrea Rotnitzky (Harvard), Neil Shephard (Oxford), Nanny Wermuth (Mainz), Scott Zeger (Johns Hopkins). For more information see http://www.unine.ch/statistics/cox/Welcome.html 

2004 Stochastic Networks Conference: 19-24 July 2004

An international Conference on Stochastic Networks will be held July 19-24, 2004, at the Centre de Récherches Mathematiques associated with the Université de Montreal. This week-long workshop will continue a tradition of similar meetings held at irregular intervals over the last 15 years or so, starting with the one organised by Tom Kurtz in Madison in 1987, continuing with conferences in Minneapolis and Edinburgh during the 1990's, then returning to Madison in 2000. The most recent such meeting was the 2002 meeting held at Stanford University. These meetings have brought together mathematicians and applied researchers who share an interest in stochastic network models.

Like its predecessors, the Montreal Stochastic Networks Conference (Sponsor: Centre de Récherches Mathematiques) will emphasise new model structures and new mathematical problems that are motivated by contemporary developments in business and technology, with particular emphasis on data networks and electronic business. We expect to have talks on other application areas too, like manufacturing and supply chain management, and on mathematical methods for stochastic network analysis. There will be invited talks over a six-day period (Monday through Saturday), with plenty of time in the interstices for informal discussion. For queries, please contact Peter Glynn ( glynn@stanford.edu ).
The Program Committee consists of Jim Dai, Peter Glynn, Bruce Hajek, Frank Kelly, Tom Kurtz, Ruth Williams. For details see http://www.stanford.edu/group/stochnetconf/

The 25th European Meeting of Statisticians, Oslo, Norway, 24. - 29. July 2005

2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress: 26-30 July 2004

The 2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress, and IMS Annual Meeting, will be held in Barcelona, Spain, 26-30 July 2004. The location will be the historic building of the University of Barcelona, located in downtown Barcelona. See also above for more information.

It has now been approved by the councils of Bernoulli Society and IMS that the 2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress, and IMS Annual Meeting, will be held in Barcelona, Spain, 26-30 July 2004. Chair of the local organising committee is David Nualart nualart@mat.ub.es . The scientific program committee has started his work under the chair of Wilfrid Kendall wsk@stats.warwick.ac.uk . The members of the committee are Gerard Ben Arous, David Brillinger, Rainer Dahlhaus, Sara van de Geer, Evarist Giné, Wenceslao González Manteiga, Wilfrid Kendall (chair), Russ Lyons, Enno Mammen (ex officio BS Scientific Secretary), Thomas Mikosch,Susan Murphy (ex officio IMS Program Secretary), David Nualart (ex officio local chair), Yosi Ogata, Chris Rogers, Roberto Schonmann, Michael Sørensen, Simon Tavaré, Anton Wakolbinger, Ofer Zeitouni.

Top

Committee Work

Latin American Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society (LARC)

Forthcoming Events sponsored by LARC:

IX CLAPEM (Congreso Latinoamericano de Probabilidad y Estadística Matemática), Montevideo, Uruguay, 22-26 March 2004, http://imerl.fing.edu.uy/clapem 

All information concerning LARC can be found in our website http://imerl.fing.edu.uy/larc 

In addition, a bulletin in Spanish language is edited by Andrea Rivero and by Gonzalo Perera, and it is distributed by e-mail. All kind of information related to probability and statistics that may be of interest for LARC members are welcome.

Top

Committee on Probability and Statistics in the Physical Sciences of the Bernoulli Society (C(PS)2)

Forthcoming Events sponsored by C(PS) 2:

The Thirteenth International Conference on Quantitative Methods for the Environmental Sciences and The Twelfth General Meeting of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES 2003), August 21 to 24, 2003, Beijing, China, http://www.cmis.csiro.au/ties2003/ .

For information on other recent committee activities, see also http://oz.Berkeley.EDU/~brill/CPS2/ 

Top

The European Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society (ERC)

Upcoming events under the auspices of the European Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society include "The 13th European Young Statisticians Meeting" in Ovronnaz, Switzerland, September 21-26, 2003, see http://statwww.epfl.ch/eysm03/  and "The 25th European Meeting of Statisticians", Oslo, Norway, 2005, Chairman of the Local Organising Committee: Arnoldo Frigessi http://www.nr.no/~frigessi/ .

For more information on other recent committee activities, see also
http://www-m4.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/m4/erc/ 

Top

Journal of Time Series Analysis

The Bernoulli Society's new statutes require certain editorial arrangements with the journals with which it is associated, and in particular with those that it sponsors. For example, the position of Editor must be reviewed at least every three years. This has led the Society to correspond with the Editor and Publisher of the Journal of Time Series Analysis 

(JTSA), which currently does not have an arrangement for this kind of regular review of editorial positions. Unfortunately we have not been able to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Therefore, in order not to be in breach of our new statutes, we have had to conclude our sponsorship of JTSA, taking effect from 1 January 2003.

However, the publishers of JTSA, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, and the editor, Maurice Priestley, have kindly agreed to allow Society members to continue to subscribe to JTSA at the current reduced rate. Furthermore, from 2003, a special new rate will be available for our members subscribing to the Scandinavian Journal of Statistics. Further details will be made available as they come to hand.

Peter Hall

Bernoulli Society President

Top

Stochastic Processes and Their Applications

Elsevier Science, in conjunction with the Bernoulli Society, is pleased to be able to continue to offer all members free online access to Stochastic Processes and their Applications (SPA) in 2003.

Members who would like to take advantage of free online access to SPA should visit http://www.elsevier.com/login  and choose a username and password, then enter the following key when prompted to do so:

AntePoleWant (case sensitive)

Instructions to access the journal online are as follows:

Visit www.mathematicsweb.org  and select Stochastic Processes and their Applications. 

Click on the issue and full text paper you would like to read. You will be taken to a page on ScienceDirect access. Halfway down the page there is a link, which reads "If you are a BS or IMS member, you may have access to this article, please follow this link". This will take you to a page containing tables of contents for society members only. Click on the issue you would like to read. You will see a login screen in which you should enter your username and password. This takes you to a screen with a small box, reading "Click here", from where you will access the PDF of your choice.

The final two steps are only necessary once per visit.

Elsevier Science, in conjunction with the Bernoulli Society, will also continue to offer in 2003 the print version of SPA at the rate of 61 to all members. Interested members can contact the Bernoulli Society, c/o the International Statistical Institute, P.O. Box 950, 2273 XZ Voorburg, The Netherlands, or visit www.elsevier.com/locate/spa  for more information and order forms.

Top

Special Rate for Finance and Stochastics

Springer-Verlag has generously offered Bernoulli Society members a reduced subscription to the journal Finance and Stochastics, at the rate of EUR 55 (the same as the special Bernoulli rate to Springer's journal Probability Theory and Related Fields).

Top

Upcoming Meetings in 2003 and 2004

23rd International Seminar on Stability Problems for Stochastic Models: 12-17 May 2003

This workshop will be held 12-17 May 2003 at the Public University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.

The aim is to bring together those working in probability theory, statistics and stochastic models.

See www.unavarra.es/stochastic/  for details or email stochastic@unavarra.es .

Topics to be considered at the seminar will include

Limit theorems in probability theory

Asymptotic methods in mathematical statistics

Characterisations of stochastic models

The Method of Probability metrics

Renewal theory

Insurance and financial mathematics

Reliability theory

Special processes

Teaching of statistics and probability

The organising committee comprises V M Zolotarev (Moscow), F Mallor (Pamplona), V Korolev (Moscow) and E Omey (Brussels).

The organising universities are UPNA - Public University of Navarra (Pamplona), Moscow State University, Steklov Mathematical Institute and Economische Hogeschool EHSAL.

Top

SPRUCE VI: 15-19 June 2003

This conference will be held in Lund, Sweden, 15-19 June 2003. For details see

www.maths.lth.se/conferences/spruceVI/ .

Top

3rd Conference on Levy Processes - Theory and Applications: 23-27 June 2003

This conference will be held at the Institut Henri Poincare in Paris, 23-27 June 2003. For information about the institute see www.ihp.jussieu.fr/ .

The provisional list of speakers is as follows. D. Appelbaum (Nottingham), O. Barndorff-Nielsen (Aarhus), F. Bardou (Strasbourg), L. Chaumont (Paris), S. Cohen (Toulouse), R. Cont (Palaiseau), R. Doney (Manchester), T. Duquesne (Orsay), E. Eberlein (Freiburg), U. Frisch (Nice), T. Huillet (Cergy), N. Jacob (Swansea), Z. Jurek (Wroclaw), D. Khoshnevisan (Salt Lake City), C. Klüppelberg (Munich), H. Kohatsu-Higa (Barcelona), J.-F. le Gall (Paris), Y. le Jan (Orsay), D. Madan (Maryland), M. Marcus (New York), T. Mikosch (Copenhagen), D. Nualart (Barcelona), F. Zkan (Freiburg), J. Picard (Clermont-Ferrand), N. Privault (La Rochelle), Ph. Protter (Cornell), J. Rosinski (Knoxville), G. Samorodnitsky (Cornell), K.I. Sato (Nagoya), R. Schilling (Brighton), N. Shephard (Oxford), M. Taqqu (Boston), W. Woyczynski (Cleveland) and M. Yor (Paris).

For information about this meeting, see: www.proba.jussieu.fr/seminaires/Annonce.html .

9th International Conference on Applications of Statistics & Probability in Civil Engineering, ICASP9

Date: 6-9 July 2003

Place: Berkeley, CA

Website: http://icasp9.berkeley.edu/ 

Top

2003 EAPR Conference: 10-12 July 2003

The 2003 conference of the East Asian Pacific Regional (EAPR) Committee will be held at the University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, 10-12 July 2003. 

The Program Committee comprises David Aldous, Tim Brown, Louis HY Chen, Ching Sui Cheng, Bong Dae Choi, Masatoshi Fukushima, Tze Leung Lai, Albert Lo (Chair), Ryozo Miura and Jia-An Yan.

For further information, visit the website www.bm.ust.hk/~eapr2003/  or contact Mike So at immkpso@ust.hk .

Top

ISIPTA '03: 3rd International Symposium on Imprecise Probabilities and Their Applications: 15-17 July 2003

Overview. The ISIPTA meetings are one of the primary international forums to present and discuss new results on the theory and applications of imprecise probabilities. Imprecise probability has a wide scope, being a generic term for the many mathematical or statistical models which measure chance or uncertainty without sharp numerical probabilities. These models include belief functions, Choquet capacities, comparative probability orderings, convex sets of probability measures, fuzzy measures, interval-valued probabilities, possibility measures, plausibility measures, and upper and lower expectations or previsions. Imprecise probability models are needed in inference problems where the relevant information is scarce, vague or conflicting, and in decision problems where preferences may also be incomplete.

Themes. Although the third symposium will be open to contributions on all aspects of imprecise probability, three main themes will be emphasised: inference, algorithms and computational complexity, and real applications.

Location. ISIPTA '03 will be held at the University of Lugano, Switzerland.

Tutorial day: 14 July 2003

Symposium: 15-17 July 2003

Submissions and Publication. There is a strict limit of 10 pages for papers submitted to the symposium. Submitting papers is now possible. Follow the instructions in the conference web page. Carleton Scientific will publish the conference proceedings.

Program Board

Jean-Marc Bernard (Universite Paris 5, France)

Teddy Seidenfeld (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)

Marco Zaffalon (IDSIA, Switzerland)

Steering Committee

Gert de Cooman (Universiteit Gent, Belgium)

Serafin Moral (Universidad de Granada, Spain)

Questions. If you have any questions about the symposium, please contact

Marco Zaffalon

IDSIA

Galleria 2

CH-6928 Manno

SWITZERLAND

Tel.: +41 91 610 8665

Fax: +41 91 610 8661

E-mail: zaffalon@idsia.ch 

Top

12th International Workshop on Matrices and Statistics

Date: 5-8 August 2003

Place: Dortmund, Germany

Contact: Hans Joachim Werner (U.Bonn)

The 12th International Workshop on Matrices and Statistics (IWMS-2003) will be held at the University of Dortmund (Dortmund,Germany) on 5-8 August 2003. This workshop will be hosted by the Department of Statistics at the University of Dortmund. The purpose of the workshop is to stimulate research and in an informal setting, to foster the interaction of researchers in the interface between statistics and matrix theory. This workshop will provide a forum through which statisticians may be better informed of the latest developments and newest techniques in matrix theory and may exchange ideas with researchers from a wide variety of countries. This workshop will include the presentation of both invited and contributed papers on matrices and statistics; it is expected that many of these papers will be published, after refereeing, in a 'Special Issue on Linear Algebra and Statistics' of Linear Algebra and Its Applications (the 9th Special issue is at the printer with publication expected in early Summer 2002).

International Organizing Committee: R. William Farebrother (Shrewsbury, England, UK), Simo Puntanen (Univ. of Tampere, Finland), George P.H. Styan (McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada; vice-chair), and Hans Joachim Werner (Univ. of Bonn, Germany; chair).

Local Organizing Committee: Jürgen Groß (Univ. of Dortmund, Germany), Götz Trenkler (Univ. of Dortmund, Germany; chair), C. Weihs (Univ. of Dortmund, Germany).

Top

7th Tartu Conference on Multivariate Statistics

Date: 8-12 August 2003

Place: Tartu, Estonia

Contact: Tõnu Kollo (University of Tartu)

Top

The Thirteenth International Conference on Quantitative Methods for the Environmental Sciences and The Twelfth General Meeting of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES 2003)

Date: 21-24 August 2003

Place: Beijing, China

Website: http://www.cmis.csiro.au/ties2003/ 

Top

XXIX Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications + VII Brazilian School on Probability

Date: 3-9 August 2003

Place: Angra dos Reis, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Website: http://www.impa.br/Conferencias/Spa 

The program consists of fifty-minute lectures delivered by invited speakers, twenty-minute contributed talks and posters.

Invited Speakers:

A. Bovier (WIAS, Berlin)

R. Burton (Oregon State University, USA)

C. Burdzy (Univ. of Washington, USA)

P. Ferrari (IME/USP, Brazil)

A. Guionnet (ENS, Lyon, France)

F. Den Hollander (EURANDOM, Netherlands)

D. Ioffe (Technion, Haifa, Israel)

J. Norris (Univ. of Cambridge, UK)

H. T. Yau (NYU, New York, USA)

O. Zeitouni (Technion, Haifa, Israel)

Courses:

A. Guionnet (ENS, Lyon)

O. Zeitouni (Technion, Haifa)

Scientific Committee:

E. Bothausen (Univ. Zurich)

C. Burdzy (Univ. of Seattle)

P. Ferrari (IME/USP, São Paulo)

M. Keane (Univ. of Amsterdam)

C. Landim (IMPA, Rio de Janeiro), Chairman

M. Ledoux (Univ. Paul-Sabatier, Toulouse)

S. Olla (Univ. de Dauphine)

S. R. S. Varadhan (Courant Institute, NYU)

O. Zeitouni (Univ. Technion, Haifa)

Local Committee:

C. Landim (IMPA, Rio)

A. Simonis (USP, Sao Paulo)

S. Volchan (PUC-Rio)

Top

12th General Meeting of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES 2003) and 13th International Conference on Quantitative Methods for Environmental Sciences: 21-24 August 2003

These meetings will be held in Beijing, China, 21-24 August 2003. See www.cmis.csiro.au/ties2003/ .

Top

The 13th European Young Statisticians Meeting

Date: 21-26 September 2003

Place: Ovronnaz, Switzerland

Website: http://statwww.epfl.ch/eysm03 

Top

Second International Workshop in Applied Probability - IWAP 2004

It is proposed to hold a four day International Workshop in Applied Probability (IWAP) on March 22-25, 2004 at the University of Piraeus, Greece. We are planning to have an interdisciplinary conference in the field of probability. Applied probability is a broad research area that is of interest to scientists in diverse disciplines including anthropology, biology, communication theory, computer science, economics, epidemiology, finance, geography, linguistics, medicine, meteorology, operations research, psychology, quality control, reliability theory, sociology and statistics.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together and to foster exchanges among scientists working in the applications of probability to any field, including those listed above. The format of the workshop will be: two plenary speakers (one hour talks, including a 10 minute discussion) each day, followed by four invited sessions (two run in parallel at a time) of four speakers to present 30 minute talks, including a 5 minute discussion. Participants are going to be encouraged to submit their contributions to the journal Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability. Moreover, we are considering publishing a volume of review article based on selected presentations of senior scientists.

The plenary speakers, listed below, are leading researchers in the field of probability with a strong interest in applications. They are world wide recognized scientists that have published many important articles and books in the filed of probability and whose work has been supported by research grants of major agencies and institutions. 

The Scientific Program Committee includes leading scientists in diverse areas of research in probability from all over the world, that will ensure a strong and a broad program and participation from scientists from all over the world. The workshop chairs have are committed to encourage the participation of young scientists, women and minorities at IWAP and have already made progress to achieve this goal.

The proposed workshop will be built on the success of the IWAP 2002 that took place at the University of Simon Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela, on January 14-17, 2002. Seventy researchers from fifteen countries attended that workshop. Eight plenary lectures and fifty-three invited lectures had been presented. Selected research publications are going to be published in two special issues of the journal Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability. Selected review articles will appear in a volume "Applied Probability - Recent Advances" to be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. IWAP 2002 was co-sponsored by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Latin American Section of Bernoulli Society. Financial support was provided by several organizations, including: IMS and NSA.

WORKSHOP COMMITTEES

Workshop Chairs

Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Joseph Glaz, Henryk Gzyl, Markos Koutras, Jürg Hüsler, Jose Luis Palacios

Local Organizing Committee

M. V. Koutras (Head), mkoutras@unipi.gr , S. Chadjiconstantinidis (vice Head), D. L. Antzoulakos (Secretary), M. Boutsikas (Treasurer).

Scientific Program Committee

N. Balakrishnan, Andrew D. Barbour, Henry W. Block, Louis H. Y. Chen, Noel Cressie, Richard Davis, Pablo Ferrari, Richard Johnson, Claudia Klüppelberg, Tze Leung Lai, Ingram Olkin, Phil Pollett, Allan Sampson, Moshe Shaked, Jozef Teugels.

Organizers of Invited Sessions

Barry C. Arnold, N. Balakrishnan, Andrew D. Barbour, Viktor Benes, Henry W. Block, Philip J. Boland, Louis H. Y. Chen, James C. Fu, Nancy Lopes Garcia, Anant Godbole, George Haiman, Richard Johnson, Claudia Klüppelberg, Nikolaos Limnios, Bo Lindqvist, David Mason, M. Nikulin, Ingram Olkin, Phil Pollett, Moshe Shaked, Jozef Teugels, Bill Woodall, Hisashi Yamamoto.

PLENARY SPEAKERS

Paul Deheuvels, Luc Devroye, Marc Goovaerts, Peter Hall, Holger Rootzen, Sheldon Ross, Michael Steele, Prasad Tetali. 

Top

IX CLAPEM: Congreso Latino Americano de Probabilidad y Estadistica Matematica:
22-26 March 2004

IX CLAPEM, the main event of the Latin American Chapter of the Bernoulli Society will take place in Uruguay on 22-26 March 2004.

The scientific committee of IX CLAPEM is Evarist Gine (chairman, USA), Pablo Ferrari (Brasil), Andrea Rotnitzky (Argentina and USA), Carlos Matran (Spain), Graciela Boente (Argentina), Jean-Marc Azais (France), Victor Perez Abreu (Mexico) and Gonzalo Perera (Uruguay). 

The local organising committee comprises Ernesto Mordecki (chair), Enrique Cabana, Alicia Carriquiry, Ricardo Fraiman, Juan Jose Goyeneche, Gustavo Guerberoff, Gonzalo Perera, Marco Scavino, Maro Wschebor and Andrea Rivero (secretary). For further information, please contact lpe@fing.edu.uy 

Top

Distribution Theory, Order Statistics and Inference - 
A Conference in Honor of Barry C. Arnold

Location: Santander, Spain

Date: June 16 - June 18, 2004

Organizers: Prof. N. Balakrishnan bala@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca 

Prof. Enrique Castillo castie@unican.es 

Prof. Jose-Maria Sarabia sarabiaj@unican.es 

Purpose: This International Conference is being organised to celebrate the ocassion of Professor Barry C. Arnold turning 65. The areas of Order Statistics, Distribution Theory and Inference, in which Barry Arnold has made fundamental and pioneering contributions, will be the primary areas of focus at this conference. For further details, please contact any of the three organizers at the addresses given above.

Top

2004 Stochastic Networks Conference: 19-24 July 2004

This conference will be held in Montreal, Canada, 19-24 July 2004. For details see

www.stanford.edu/group/stochnetconf/ .

Top

2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress: 26-30 July 2004

The 2004 Bernoulli Society World Congress, and IMS Annual Meeting, will be held in Barcelona, Spain, 26-30 July 2004. The location will be the historic building of the University of Barcelona, located in downtown Barcelona. Barcelona represents a change of venue from the originally suggested site of Jerusalem. This announcement is subject to final approval of the Bernoulli and IMS Councils.

Top

International Association for Official Statistics

iaoslogo.gif (4943 bytes) Editorial Address Irena Krizman, Vice- President IAOS, Vozarski pot 12, P.O.B. 3570, 1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia
tel.: +386 1 2415 302 – fax: +386 1 2415 344 – E-mail: irena.krizman@gov.si
President Paul Cheung, Department of Statistics, 100 High Street, The Treasury #05-01,
179434 Singapore
Tel: +65 3327686 – Fax: +65-3327689 – E-mail: Paul_Cheung@singstat.gov.sg
Website http://tilastokeskus.fi/iaos  

Irena Krizman Reports:

Recent IAOS Activities have largely focused on the following events:

Paul Cheung Reports:

IAOS Satellite meetings in conjunction with the 2005 ISI Session 

Preparations are ongoing for the two IAOS Satellite Meetings in 2005, to be held back to back to the ISI Conference, Sydney 2005. New Caledonia will host a satellite meeting before the ISI Sessions on the topic of: "Issues for official statistics for small economies” (especially island economies). This will be held on March 31-2 April in 2005 in Noumea. The second Satellite meeting will be held after the ISI sessions in New Zealand and will be hosted by Statistics New Zealand. More details will be announced at a later date.

Top

Fred Ho (Hong Kong SAR, China) reports:

Making early preparations for the 55th isi session to be held in april 2005 in Sydney

The 55th ISI Session will be held from 5 to 12 April, 2005 in Sydney, Australia. Yes, it is April, and not the usual timing of August for ISI Sessions, in consideration of the weather given that Sydney is in the southern hemisphere.

In accordance with established practice, a number of Invited Papers Meetings will be allocated to subjects recommended by the International Association for Official Statistics.

Views are invited from IAOS members in regard to the subjects which IAOS should recommend. Naturally, the subjects will be on the prime issues of the day in official statistics. However, being a non-intergovernmental forum, an ISI Session also provides a good chance to explore subjects slightly different from the mainstream agenda and to consider themes from somewhat wider view angles.

Moreover, it should be particularly borne in mind that ISI Sessions offer great opportunity for statisticians engaged in divergent branches of statistics to interact. Thus, please also consider suggestions which would potentially interest counter-parties or which would attract their inputs.

Please mark the dates of the Session on your diaries, although they are not so near yet; and forward your views, if any, on the subjects to be recommended by IAOS for inclusion in the Session to Fred HO (Hong Kong SAR, China), whose e-mail address is fwhho@censtatd.gov.hk  and fax number is (852) 2824 1003.

Top

IAOS activities attract the members from many countries in the world. IAOS welcomes new Members! 

To access the letter of invitation and registration form (individual membership), please visit http://tilastokeskus.fi/iaos . The completed registration form should be sent to the ISI Permanent Office.

IAOS is a section of the ISI with the mission of promoting best practices in official statistics among the producers and users. Its membership spans over many countries, including:

Argentina

Armenia

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Benin

Brazil

Bulgaria

Cambodia

Cameroon

Canada

Chile

China

China
(Hong Kong SAR)

China (Macau)

China (Taiwan)

Costa Rica

Côte d'Ivoire

Czech Republic

Denmark

Dominican Republic

Equador

Ethiopia 

Finland

France

Germany

Ghana

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

India

Indonesia

Iran

Ireland

Israel

Italy

Jamaica

Japan

Kenya

Korea, Rep. of

Lao, P.D.R.

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malaysia

Mali

Mauritania

Mauritius

Mexico

Mongolia

Morocco

Namibia

Nepal

Netherlands

New Caledonia

New Zealand

Nigeria

Norway

Pakistan

Panama

Papua New Guinea

Paraguay

Philippines

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Russia

Rwanda

Singapore

Slovak Republic

Slovenia

South Africa

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Thailand

Trinidad and Tobago

Tunisia

Turkey

Uganda

United Kingdom

USA

Virgin Islands (US)

Yugoslavia

Zambia

 

The IAOS membership at present comprises largely of senior official statisticians. For the Association to remain viable for the long term, we need to expand our membership base, particularly to include the younger statisticians. We also need to expand our membership among statisticians in the developing countries and to the community of users of official statistics.

Joining the IAOS will provide opportunities for users and producers of official statistics for networking, and for setting the agenda for best practices and development of official statistics systems. 

Top

IAOS Invited Paper Meetings - ISI Berlin 2003
36. IAOS forum: knowledge and competence management in national statistical offices
Organiser: Heli Jeskanen-Sundström (Finland)
E-mail: heli.jeskanen-sundstrom@stat.fi 
Papers:
“How to recruit skilled and qualified workforce to statistical office?”
Marie Bohata (Czech Republic)
“Knowledge management tools and practices at the ABS”
Jonathan Palmer (Australia)
“Innovative approach to competence management –
Qualification scheme for statistical advisers”
Hans Viggo Saebo (Norway)
“The role of the UN in ensuring best methods of statistics globally”
Willem de Vries (USA)
37. The measurement of economic progress
Organiser: Enrico Giovannini (Italy)
E-mail: enrico.giovannini@oecd.org 
Papers:
“Measuring national progress: can the national accounts help?”
Paul Schreyer (OECD)
“Measuring the use of e-commerce and its impact”
Tony Clayton / Debra Prestwood (UK)
“A stock / flow system approach to the measurement of economic progress”
Steven Keuning (ECB)
Discussant:
Paul Cheung (Singapore)
38. Micro data – managing the dilemma between access, privacy and confidentiality
Organiser: Irena Krizman (Slovenia)
E-mail: irena.krizman@gov.si 
Papers:
“The experience of the Brazilian Statistical Office with micro data”
Carmen Feijo (Brazil)
“Economic research with micro data – practises and experiences in Finland”
Mika Maliranta (Finland)
“Balancing data access and confidentiality: The U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies and Research Data Center Program”
J. Bradford Jensen (USA)
Discussants:
Pilar Martín-Guzmán (Spain)
Tadeusz Toczynski (Poland)
39. Managing and maintaining the independence and integrity of national statistics – experience of developed and developing countries
Organiser: Olav Ljones (Norway)
E-mail: olj@ssb.no 
Papers:
"Statistical independence and political transition: some experiences from Spain"
Pilar Martín-Guzmán (Spain)
“Managing and Maintaining the independence and integrity of national statistics. Uganda’s experience.”
John Male-Mukasa (Uganda)
Title forthcoming
Louis Kincannon (USA)
Discussants:
Brian Pink (New Zealand)
Davaasuren Cultemjamts (Mongolia)
40. New directions in social statistics
Organiser: Romulo Virola (Philippines)
E-mail: ra.virola@nscb.gov.ph 
Papers:
"Social statistics based on micro-integration of different data sources?”
Pieter Everaers / Paul van der Laan (Netherlands)
“Setting the scope of social statistics: New and emerging issues”
Jeremiah Banda / Clare Menozzi
“Measuring poverty in transition countries: the statistical challenges (case of Mongolia)”
Chultemjamts Davaasuren (Mongolia)
Discussants:
Susan Linacre (Australia)
Dalisay S. Maligalig
41. Measuring the performance of National Statistics Offices
Organiser: Frederick W. H. Ho (Hong Kong SAR, China)
E-mail: fwhho@censtatd.gov.hk 
Papers:
"Good, better, best; how to measure performance of national statistical organizations”
Willem F. M. de Vries (Netherlands)
“Competence and human capital at National Statistics Offices: a challenge for performance measurement”
Hilkka Vihavainen / Pirjo Liewendahl (Finland)
“Measuring aspects of the quality performance of important data series published by National Statistics Offices: illustrated by the case of revisions to Gross Domestic Product estimates in the UK”
Craig Richardson (UK)
Discussants:
Richard Barnabé (Canada)
Carmelita N. Ericta (Philippines)
42. Intra-city differentials and their measurement issues
Organiser: Markandey Rai (India)
E-mail: markandey.rai@unhabitat.org 
Papers:
“Sub-city data-led process to good governance: a new approach to urban management”
Vinay D. Lall (India)
“Socio-economic intra-city differential indicators. Their measurement and issues for the city of Karachi“
N. M. Larik (Pakistan)
“Official small area statistics in the United Kingdom”
Jagdev Singh Virdee (UK)
“Subdivisions of an urban region – an observation based on German municipal intra-city statistics”
Uwe Neumann (Germany)
Discussants:
UN-Habitat
Helmut Maier (Germany)
43. Impact of migration on urban areas
Organiser: Klaus Trutzel (Germany)
E-mail: klaus_trutzel@sta.stadt.nuernberg.de 
Papers:
“Impact of black immigration on patterns of residential settlement in New York City”
A. Peter Lobo / Joseph J. Salvo / Edward J. Spar (USA)
“Settlement of migrants in urban areas in China”
Cao ZiWei (China)
"SIKURS projections based on inner city differentials of migration and their effects on population change and population structure in urban areas”
Gustav Lebhart (Austria) / Barbara Lux-Henseler (Germany)
Discussant:
Frederick W. H. Ho (Hong Kong SAR, China)
Top

Standing Committee on Regional and Urban Statistics

SCORUS is organizing two involved paper sessions 42 and 43 during the 54th ISI session in Berlin. The invited paper session 42 entitled ‘Intra-City Differentials and their Measurement Issues’ is organized by Markandey Rai (Markandey.Rai@unhabitat.org ) and the invited paper session number 43 entitled ‘Impact of Migration on Urban Areas’ is organized by Mr. Klaus Trutzel. 

The speakers and the discussants have been identified and will appear in Information Bulletin #2. 

In addition to these two invited papers, SCORUS is organizing a satellite meeting from 21-23 August 2003 in Potsdam, Germany on ‘Standards for Regional and Urban Indicators’. Four workshops are being organized. The organizers have been identified and the preparations are proceeding well. The following persons have kindly consented to act as organisers: Mrs. Joanna Van Antwerpen, Director of Research and Statistics, the City of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Prof. Eckart Elsner, Director of the Berlin Statistical Bureau; Ms. Wendy Thomas, Data Access Core Director, Minnesota Population Centre; and Derek Bond from the University of Ulster, U.K. For more information about the satellite meeting in Potsdam, please contact Mr. Klaus Trutzel by e-mail: kum.trutzel@t-online.de .

The Cities and Regions issue to be published in February 2003, focuses on internationally comparative urban statistics and indicators. The majority of the papers for this issue have been selected from the last SCORUS Conference held in Lisbon in June 2002. Five papers in the following order are authored by:

a) Wendy Thomas, USA

b) Pilar Martín-Guzmán, Spain

c) Berthold Feldmann, EUROSTAT

d) Vincenzo Spiezia, OECD

e) Seppo Laaksonen, Finland.

SCORUS will take advantage of the opportunities provided by the ISI Session in Berlin and the satellite meeting in Potsdam, to publicise the activities of SCORUS. We have agreed with IAOS to explore the possibilities to promote SCORUS at the level of a full ISI Section for which a membership drive is perquisite. SCORUS is making the appropriate preparations.

Next SCORUS Conference in Minneapolis, May 2004

The next SCORUS Conference will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. from 19-21 May 2004. Preparations are progressing very well. For further information, please visit the website: www.busmgt.ulst.ac.uk/scorus  or contact Ms. Wendy Thomas (wlt@pop.umn.edu ), Data Access Core Director, Minnesota Population Centre, University of Minnesota, 537 Heller Hall, 271 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S.A..

SCORUS webpage: http://www.scorusnet.com.

SCORUS is also supporting the joint IAOS/IASS conference on ‘Poverty, Social Exclusion and Development’. 

For further more information on the activities of SCORUS, please contact:

Dr. Markandey Rai
Chairperson, SCORUS
United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON)
P.O.Box-30030
Nairobi, Kenya
E-mail: Markandey.Rai@unhabitat.org 
Tel: +254-2-623166/622707
Fax: +154-2-622708

Top

First conference on data for social and economic sciences in Germany

To improve the infrastructure of data service between data suppliers (from official statistics on federal, regional and urban level) and data users (from universities and research institutes) under the special legal requirements for data protection (especially micro data) the so-called “Gründungsausschuss des Rates für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten”, an established committee for the Council for Social and Economic Data in Germany (Head: Professor Dr. Karl Ulrich Mayer) organised the first conference on this topic on January 13-14, 2003 in Wiesbaden/Germany, together with the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. 

The aims of this conference were (1) to define the requirements of politicians for the improvement of this infrastructure and to support its execution, (2) to introduce new data centres for research and service of the German Federal Statistical Office, the Statistical Offices of the German provinces (called “Länder”), the Federal Institution for Labour, the Service Centre for Micro Data (GESIS) and the international data service centre of the “future of labour” research institute with their facilities, and (3) to discuss the institutional frame for a future Council for Social and Economic Data in Germany, the latter introduced by the Vice Head: Professor Dr. Hans-Jürgen Krupp. In special workshops devoted to the topics “demography”, “labour markets and income”, “education”, “age securing”, ”metadata” and “Data Protection and Securing” experts referred to actual problems. 

The main priority of this Council for Social and Economic Data will be to clarify to which extent statistical micro data from surveys paid via taxes by society can be used by research institutions and universities in Germany, and to solve the conflict between the data protectors who are subjected to the basic law of data protection and researchers who want to make use of the freedom of research which is a basic right as well. The present idea is that this Council for Social and Economic Data is not a state institution but an independent institution and self-organised, with the members of this Council being appointed by the German Federal President. Future progress and problems will be discussed on further conferences organised by this Council. More than a hundred participants surprised the organisers by indicating interest in such a development.

In the long term, this development opens the possibility of using micro data from different surveys for urban and regional planning in Germany and this not only for the data suppliers involved but also for different institutions and researchers. In the future, the data service centres will also provide a limited number of working places for scientists. 

Helmut Maier, February 3, 2003

Berlin School of Economics, e-mail: oekonom@fhw-berlin.de 

SCORUS Conference Report

Top

“Statistics and the Help for Young People in Big Cities”

20 – 22 January 2003

This conference is organised every year by Statistisches Landesamt Berlin with the help of the Senate’s Administration for Youth and Sports. It has the aim to bring several people together: Planners, scientists from universities, social workers and other employees of administrative bodies responsible for youth activities, politicians etc. Statisticians from different countries come together at these meetings in order to make information and new research results available and to help young people in big cities. Having contacts and learning from each other makes our work more effective and it is necessary to harmonise statistics, to have an exchange of experience and to compare the situation of one’s own city with that of others. Usually 10 to 15 nations are represented in this meeting, in which the English language is used. 

The venue is an educational institution for social pedagogues (in German: Sozialpädagogische Fortbildungsstätte) called “Haus am Rupenhorn”, a beautiful house above the banks of the Havel river in the western part of Berlin-Charlottenburg. 

The above mentioned general title is the same every year, but the focus changes from year to year. It always is fixed for the next year at the end of each meeting. The 2003 meeting was entitled “The Gender Dimension”.

Each of the lectures lasted 20 minutes or less, followed by a most lively discussion. The authors tried to make their part interesting for an international audience by comparing their topics with the situation elsewhere. Most of the speakers tried to deliver their talk – though given in a foreign language - without reading the text. The participants gained a lot of new knowledge, new connections, new impressions and new ideas, and they developed their English skills. 

It is impossible to report in the short space about all of the lectures, but it can be mentioned that the gender dimension in Asia, due to cultural aspects, seems to differ greatly from that in Europe, as Mrs. Vivian Chan from the Statistical Office of Hong Kong in China and Mr. Tsutomu Tanaka from Kyoto’s Ritsumeikan University in Japan indicated in their presentation. As all of us know, the situation in Northern Ireland is very difficult. Mrs. Moira Cullen from Ulster University, Director of the Women’s Opportunity Unit there, reported about their achievements concerning the gender dimension in the computer and high tech sector. The Western European Nordic Countries seem to be relatively similar to each other and quite modern in this respect while the New Nordic Countries are trying hard to catch up with them as we heard from Mrs. Anita Schwartzkopf - working in Statistics Latvia in Riga - and from Prof. Dr. Jonas Jagminas, Director of the Statistical Office of Vilnius. Dr. Marcel van den Broecke, the Director of the ISI Permanent Office, indicated that the gender distribution in the ISI - the world wide association of statisticians - could improve considerably as most ISI members are male (90,4 %).

There were many interesting aspects featured in each of the other reports. They will be published at a later date. Germany was represented by the report presented by Mrs. Gabriele Cüppers, a former member of Statistisches Landesamt Berlin, now working in the Senate’s Administration for Economy, Employment and Women and by Mrs. Ulrike Hagemeister, coming from the Institute of Applied Demography.

Several social activities were organised in conjunction with the conference. In the evening of the first day those who were interested could take part in a guided evening tour through the old historical parts of Spandau (220,000 inhabitants, a borough of Berlin since 1920, mentioned for the first time in 1232). On the second day, a visit of the newly built German Chancellery was offered. It is situated in the new city centre, which still is under construction, in the area between the former eastern and western parts of Berlin. Finally, in the evening of the third day the team of the conference venue “Haus am Rupenhorn” invited all participants to take part in a Farewell Dinner.

1 In the meeting of the year 2004 the focus will be on “The family situation”.

2 If data for a comparison e.g. with Berlin are needed, they can be received from the internet (http://www.statistik-berlin.de  or http://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de) or from 
Statistisches Landesamt Berlin directly (Tel. +49-30-90213434).

Top

 

International Association for Statistical Education

iase1.gif (1817 bytes) Editorial Address Susan Starkings, Learning & Development Centre, South Bank University, Borough Road,
London SE1 0AA, United Kingdom.
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7815 7455
Fax: +44 (0)20 7815 6464
E-mail: starkisa@vax.sbu.ac.uk
President Carmen Batanero, Department of Mathematics Education, Faculty of Education,
University of Granada, Campus de Cartuja, 18071 Granada, Spain.
Tel: +34 958 243950
Fax: +34 958 246359
E-mail: batanero@ugr.es
Web site: www.ugr.es/local/batanero
Website http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/

 

Index

IASE Elections
IASE Activities at the 54th Session of the ISI, Berlin, Germany, August 13-20, 2003
IASE Activities at the 55th Session of the ISI, Sydney, Australia, 2005
ICOTS-7 Brazil, August 2006
IASE Statistical Education Research Journal (SERJ)
Inter-American Meetings on Teaching of Statistics
Forthcoming Conferences with Statistics Education Components

 

IASE Elections 

The IASE Elections are now organised and the nominations committee worked very hard to get the final list of candidates. We were glad to perceive that within the IASE there are many experienced people who are willing to invest part of their time on behalf of statistics education. The selection of candidates was then difficult, given so many possibilities. Below is the final list. 

We are very grateful to these IASE friends, who, in spite of being very busy are generous enough to offer their time and knowledge to serve the association. 

Also a big thank you to those who after spending two or more years at the IASE Executive, still have enough energy to continue supporting us. Thanks are also due to those who will be leaving the committee next year after spending a period of their professional life in shaping the IASE. I am sure they will continue to help the new Executive from a distance.

IASE ELECTIONS: LIST OF CANDIDATES

PRESIDENT- ELECT

Gilberte Schuyten (Belgium)

VICE-PRESIDENTS

Five to be elected:

• Andrej Blejec, Slovenia

• Carol Joyce Blumberg, USA

• Lisbeth Cordani, Brazil

• Joachim Engel, Germany

• Susan Starkings, UK

• Christine Reading, Australia

• Larry Weldon, Canada

Top

IASE Activities at the 54th Session of the ISI, Berlin, Germany, August 13-20, 2003

Our programme for the 54th Biennial Session of the ISI to be held in Berlin, Germany in August 2003 is now complete. Gilberte Schuyten (gilberte.schuyten@rug.ac.be ), our IASE representative on the ISI Programme Co-ordinating Committee for Berlin has organised a wide and varied list of topics for Invited Paper Meetings, both those organised by the IASE alone and in conjunction with other ISI Sections and Committees. There is still time to propose contributed papers.

Furthermore, we are organising an IASE Satellite Conference on Statistics Education and the Internet in co-operation with the German Statistical Society, the Section on Stochastics of the German Mathematics Education Association, the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development, and the Probability and Statistics Interest Group of the German Mathematical Association. The conference is going to be held at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development, Berlin. Larry Weldon (weldon@sfu.ca ) is Chair of the Scientific Committee and Joachim Engel (engel_joachim@ph-ludwigsburg.de ) is Chair of the Local Organising Committee. Guidelines and information are provided at the web page (http://www.ph-ludwigsburg.de/iase/). 

For further information see the ISI 54th Session Web Page http://www.isi-2003.de/ 

Top

IASE Activities at the 55th Session of the ISI, Sydney, Australia, 2005

Chris Wild is the IASE representative at the ISI Programme Co-ordinating Committee for ISI-55th Session, to be held in Sydney, Australia, April 5-12, 2005. There is still time to propose an Education Session. If you would like to run one please contact Chris Wild at c.wild@auckland.ac.nz  in the near future.

Top

ICOTS-7 Brazil, August 2006

ICOTS-7 will be held in August 2006 in Brazil. Pedro Alberto Morettin will chair the local organising committee and the International Programme Committee Executive will consist of Carmen Batanero (Chair), Allan Rossman and Beth Chance (Editors of Proceedings), John Harraway (Scientific Secretary), Susan Starkings (Programme Chair) and Lisbeth Cordani (local representative at the IPC). IASE is now in the process of appointing the Topic Convenors and creating a website for the conference. Those of you interested in organising a session at this important statistical education conference should contact Carmen Batanero at (batanero@ugr.es ) for further information.

Top

IASE Statistical Education Research Journal (SERJ)

The editorial board of the SERJ is pleased to announce that the second issue of volume 1 was published in December 2002. This is the electronic research journal of the IASE and initially it is being published twice a year. The board is also pleased to announce that the Executive Committee and Council of the ISI have approved its request that SERJ is to be a joint publication of the ISI and the IASE. 

The URL for the SERJ web-site is http://fehps.une.edu.au/serj  Access to issues of SERJ is currently free, so please do visit the site and see what is on offer. 

Contents of volume 1, issue 2:

Refereed papers – 

• Beth Chance and Joan Garfield - New approaches to gathering data on student learning for research in statistics education;

• Maxine Pfannkuch and Amanda Rubick - An exploration of students’ statistical thinking with given data;

• Maria Meletiou-Mavrotheris and Carl Lee - Teaching students the stochastic nature of statistical concepts in an introductory statistics course;

• Nigel Smeeton - Undergraduate courses in dental statistics in Britain and Ireland.

Other features such as reports and announcements of meetings of relevance to statistical education research. Peter Holmes form the UK has also included some basic references for the teaching of undergraduate statistics.

If you are interested in and/or involved with statistics education you are encouraged to contribute to SERJ and to join IASE see the website http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/  if you are not already a member. Full information about the journal, including its aims, guidelines for referees and contributing authors, and a template are available at the website.

International Statistical Literacy Project (ISLP) Website Now Available

The ISLP homepage is now accessible to the public and is located at http://course1.winona.edu/cblumberg/islphome.htm . As part of the ISLP, webpages have been developed on resources for enhancing the statistical literacy of various groups at all age levels, including the primary and secondary school levels. An index to these resource pages is at http://course1.winona.edu/cblumberg/islplist.htm  For further information contact Carol Joyce Blumberg at cblumberg@winona.edu  or at Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Winona State University, Winona MN 55987-5838, USA, Fax: +1-507-457-5376.

The International Research Forums on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking, and Literacy (SRTL)

The growing interest in research on the interrelated and often poorly defined topics of Statistical Reasoning, Statistical Thinking, and Statistical Literacy, has led to the emergence of a series of international research forums focusing on these themes. The first research forum (SRTL-1) was held in July 1999. Sixteen statistics educators from six different countries met for five days at Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel to lay the foundations for the definitions, distinctions and interrelations of statistical reasoning, thinking and literacy. The second research forum (SRTL-2) was held at the University of New England, in Armidale, Australia in August 2001. Twenty researchers from six countries met for six days to focus on the challenges in describing, learning, teaching, and assessing statistical reasoning. 

One unique feature of these research forums is the use of videos of classroom work or interviews with students, as a way to present, discuss and argue about research related to these topics. In addition, the small size of the forums allows for plenty of time for interaction and discussion. One outcome of the first two forums is a book on “The Challenge of Developing Statistical Literacy, Reasoning, and Thinking”, edited by Dani Ben-Zvi and Joan Garfield, that will be published by Kluwer in 2003.

The third in the series of research forums (SRTL-3) will be held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln USA in July 2003. The topic of the third forum will be reasoning about variability. Few of the questions we wish to investigate are: Why is variability important? When and how do children begin to develop the preliminary idea of variability? How does reasoning about variability develop? What are instructional tasks and technological tools that promote the understanding of variability? What are the common misconceptions regarding variability? What are ways to assess understanding of variability? 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. One outcome of the third forum will be the publication of a proceedings book summarising the work presented, discussions conducted, and issues emerging from this gathering. Bill Mickelson (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA) and Chris Reading (University of New England, Australia) are organising and co-ordinating SRTL-3.

The research forums were initiated by and are co-chaired by Joan Garfield (University of Minnesota, USA) and Dani Ben-Zvi (University of Haifa, Israel). Various academic institutions and statistics education associations, including the IASE, support the SRTL research forums. 

For further information see the SRTL-3 Forum Website: http://tc.unl.edu/srtl  

Top

Inter-American Meetings on Teaching of Statistics

The Inter-American Meetings on Teaching of Statistics (Jornadas Interamericanas de Enseñanza de la Estadística-JIEE), jointly organized by IASI and the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero of Argentina, were held in Caseros, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina on October 28-November 1, 2002. These Meetings were held under the auspices of the IASE and of the ISI.

The Meetings were held jointly with the Fifth Latin American Congress of Statistical Societies organized by the Argentine Society of Statistics, the Argentine Group of Biometry, the Chilean Society of Statistics, and the Uruguayan Society of Mathematics and Statistics. Some 500 persons, from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Honduras, Italy, Spain, Panama, United States, and Uruguay, participated in these events. The programme for JIEE included 9 conferences, 4 round tables, 6 short courses, 30 orally presented contributed papers, and 10 posters.

The symposium attracted over 500 participants from many Latin-American countries, the United States, Spain and Italy. This large number of participants together with the high level of many presentations under the form of keynote speeches, invited lectures, round tables and invited papers, made of this statistical conference a major success and, thus, reflected the great interest of our statistical community in the topic.

For more information, please contact Lic. Roberto Muiños, Assistant Technical Secretary of IASI. His e-mail address is rmuin@indec.mecon.gov.ar .

IASE Invited Paper Session on ‘Using the History of Statistics to Improve the Teaching of Statistics’ to be held at the Joint Statistical Meetings

This invited session represents the first time that IASE will have an Invited Paper Session at the Joint Statistical Meetings of the American Statistical Association (ASA), The International Biometric Society, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the Statistical Society of Canada. The session will be co-sponsored by the ISI, the ASA Section on Statistical Education, and the ASA Section on Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences.

The organiser of the session is Carol Joyce Blumberg (Winona State University, USA, (cblumberg@winona.edu). The speakers will be Herbert A. David (Iowa State University, USA) on “The History of Statistics in the Classroom”, David R. Bellhouse (University of Western Ontario, Canada) on “Statistical Ideas in the Classroom – Lessons from History” and Fred Bookstein (The University of Michigan, USA) on “Learning from the Coercive Power of Numerical Evidence: Three Classical Examples”. The two discussants will be Jay Devore (Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, USA) and Jeff Witmer (Oberlin College, USA). The IASE wishes to thank ISI President-Elect Stephen Stigler for his help in organising this session.

The abstracts of the talks in this session can be found at http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2003/ . Copies of the papers and discussants’ remarks will be published in the 2003 Proceedings of the American Statistical Association.

The new home of the ICOTS-6 IPC Website is at the University of Haifa

The ICOTS 6 website is now up and running again. Its new home is at the University of Haifa. The new website address is http://icots6.haifa.ac.il/icots6.html .

Top

Forthcoming Conferences with Statistics Education Components

Hawaii International Conference on Statistics and Related Fields June 5-8, 2003.

Sheraton Waikiki Hotel, Honolulu Hawaii, USA

The Second Hawaii International Conference on Statistics and Related Fields will be held at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii. The conference will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals from statistics and related fields to interact with members inside and outside their own particular areas of specialisation. Cross-disciplinary submissions are welcome. The Hawaii International Conference on Statistics and Related Fields encourages the following types of papers/abstracts/submissions:

Research Papers - Completed papers.

Abstracts - Abstracts of completed or proposed research.

Student Papers - Research by students.

Poster Sessions/Research Tables - informal presentation of papers or abstracts.

Work-in-Progress Reports or Proposals for future projects.

Reports on issues related to teaching.

Panel Discussions, Practitioner Forums and Tutorials.

Workshop Proposals.

For more information about submissions see the website http://www.hicstatistics.org/cfp_stats.htm  or e-mail statistics@hicstatistics.org 

The Mathematics Education into the 21st Century Project 

The Mathematics Education into the 21st Century Project has just completed its fifth successful international conference in Sicily, following conferences in Egypt, Jordan, Poland and Australia. 

The next conference will be in Brno, Czech Republic from September 19-25, 2003. The conference will be held in the heart of the historic city of Brno, the regional capital of Moravia, famous for its beautiful countryside, its castles and its wines and food. Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic and is easily accessible in Europe by plane, car, bus and train.

The Chairman of the Local Organising Committee is Professor Ivan Meznik of the Technical University of Brno. The title of the conference is "The Decidable and the Undecidable in Mathematics Education", a tribute to Kurt Godel who was born and educated in Brno. Plenary Speakers will include Nicolina Malara and Filippo Spagnolo.

Papers are invited on all innovative aspects of mathematics education including Statistics Education, Gender & Equity, Ethnomathematics, Rich Learning Tasks, Problem Solving, Applications, Research on Teaching and Learning, Technology in the classroom, Computer Graphics and Teacher Education. For further conference details please contact Alan Rogerson, e-mail: arogerson@vsg.edu.au 

International Conference on Creativity in Mathematics Education and the Education of Gifted Students August 3 – 9, 2003 Rousse, Bulgaria

This conference is to be held at the University of Rousse. The main aim of the conference is to formulate the problem and globally define the direction of the development of creative mathematics education of gifted students. The basic issues to be discussed are (i) how to stimulate mathematical creativity in students and their teachers; (ii) what areas, methods and problems in mathematics are appropriate for stimulating the creative activity of students and (iii) who the gifted students are and how can they be identified. For further information see the websites www.cmeegs3.rousse.bg  or www.ami.ru.acad.bg/conference2003  or e-mail conf_orgcom@ami.ru.aced.bg  

Top

International Association for Statistical Computing

iasc.jpg (5447 bytes)

    

Editorial Address Jung Jin Lee, Department of Statistics, Soongsil University,
Dongjak-ku, Sangdo-dong, Seoul, Korea 56-743
Tel.: +82-2-820 0443; 
Fax: +82-2-823-1746
E-mail: jjlee@stat.soongsil.ac.kr 
President  Jae Chang Lee, Department of Statistics, Korea University, 
Seongbuk-ku, Anam-dong, Seoul, Korea 136-701 
Tel.: +82-2-3290 2232;
Fax: +82-2-924 9895
E-mail: jaeclee@korea.ac.kr 
Website http://www.stat.unipg.it/iasc/
Top

Jung Jin Lee Reports:

In this issue we have an announcement for IASC members about our CSDA delivery policy for the beginning of the year. We also provide a report about an IASC cosponsored conference and information regarding upcoming conferences. More detailed information can be found via the IASC homepage listed above.

Announcement for IASC members about the CSDA delivery

All IASC members who have processed their registration payments in 2002 will automatically have received the first two issues of CSDA for 2003. This arrangement, which has been in place the last few years, will continue in order to accommodate the fact that the first issues of CSDA are published in November and December of 2002 for January and February of 2003. No member will receive CSDA issue 3 until the ISI Permanent Office has received their registration fee payment for 2003.

Report of IASC Co-sponsored Conferences

Report of the 14th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management

The Fourteenth International Conference on Scientific and Statistical database management was held in Edinburgh from 24-26th July 2002. The conference had two priority themes: Bioinformatics and Statistical Metadata. Forty-six papers were submitted, and nineteen full papers were accepted together with four demonstration papers, one short paper and three poster papers. There were fifty-three registered attendees and certain sessions also attracted a number of local students.

Each theme had an Invited speaker; Professor Susan Davidson from the University of Pennsylvania introduced the first theme with a talk entitled ‘A Tale of two Cultures: Are there Database Research Issues in Bioinformatics?’. Jostein Ryssevik of the Norwegian Social Science Data Services introduced the second presentation with a paper entitled ‘Metadata for Travelling Statistics – The World of Statistics meets the Semantic Web’. Professor Davidson identified two areas of biology and computer science and asked whether bioinformatics was merely the servant of biology, or whether there were places where the subject could identify real issues of interest to computer science. She then identified a number of new database issues that had arisen from bioinformatics, including data models, data transformations and exchange, data provenance, annotation systems, data cleansing and many more.

Mr. Ryssevik argued that the Web was the very first really global information system, with the very first “many to many” communication technology, that was truly multi-media, decentralized and scalable. The future was in the Semantic Web (“The Semantic Web is an extension of the current Web in which information is given well defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.” Tim Berners-Lee), and metadata is the glue of the semantic web. He introduced an extended definition of metadata, suitable for this global world, where metadata includes not only descriptions of data but also knowledge products derived from the use of data. It is a dynamic concept, as metadata are constantly developing throughout the life-time of a dataset, which has a variety of authors, many who are not data producers but users and analysts.

The submitted papers were divided into six subject areas: Distributed Scientific databases, Scientific metadata management, Scientific Query Optimisation, Spatio-Temporal Data, Scientific Multimedia Data Management and Statistics. In addition, there was a panel session on ‘Developing Scientific Database Applications in a grid Environment‘. The Panel members were: Professor Peter Buneman, Professor Ian Foster, Professor Alex Gray and Professor Norman Paton.

What emerged from three days of interesting and stimulating presentations was the shared issues coming from apparently heterogeneous topics. Professor Foster introduced the idea that most data are not simple “measurements”; but have been ‘calculated’ in some way. The management of the transformations that map between datasets is an important problem. The sharing of data and algorithms, the provenance of data and contextual information are necessary for scientists to use data. Professor Gray said that, for the grid, ‘data is the real challenge, not high performance’. These sentiments were echoed in presentations about virtual data systems, managing and querying heterogeneous data, managing the lineage of scientific data, annotating scientific data, as well as many others.

The emerging themes from the conference can therefore be identified as the grid, the semantic web, data provenance, annotation, complex models, standards transformations and exchange. Moreover these themes are identified for both statistical and scientific data.

Further details of the conference can be accessed from the SSDBM2002 web site, http://www.ssdbm2002.ed.ac.uk/ . Further copies of the proceedings are available via the Website. The next SSDBM meeting will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 9-11 July, 2003. More details are available at http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~ssdbm03/ 

Top

 Report of the 4th Conference of the ARS of IASC 

The 4th ARS conference of the ARS of IASC took place in Busan, Korea from December 5 to 8, 2002. The conference was organized by the Statistical Computing Section of the Korean Statistical Society and supported by the Korea National Statistical Office, the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies, the Korea Science and Engineering foundation, etc.

Nearly 170 participants from 10 nations came to the conference: one half of them were from Japan, 40 percent from Korea and 10 percent from China, Thailand, the United States, Germany, Australia etc. There were 8 invited lectures and 72 contributed papers. The theme of the conference was ‘E-Statistics for Information Society’ and the conference provided a forum for the discussion and exchange of ideas, new concepts and recent methods in statistical computing for information society. Issues such as Stimulation of Research on Statistical Computing for Data Mining, Customer Relations Management, E-Commerce, Computational Finance were also addressed during the conference.

The invited lectures were given by:

Several social events were organised during the conference such as welcome reception, a guided excursion and banquet hosted by Jong Nam Oh, the commissioner of the Korea National Statistical Office. Traditional Korean music performed by the Busan City Orchestra at the banquet helped to create a pleasant atmosphere and was much appreciated by the participants.

Professor Yutaka Tanaka (Okayama University, Japan) became the president of the Asian Regional Section of the IASC at the General Assembly for three year term and Professor W. K. Fung (Hong Kong University, China) was elected as the president-elect of the ARS at the BoD meeting.

Further details of the conference can be accessed from the web site, http://ars.ssu.ac.kr 

Top

Upcoming IASC Conferences

A short course on Computational and Statistical Aspects of Microarray Analysis

May 26th-30th 2003, University of Milan, Milan, Italy, http://www.eco-dip.unimi.it/marray/ 

This one week intensive course is intended to provide a clear view of current statistical and computational problems linked to microarray data along with some solutions. This self-contained course will touch on many aspects of genome biology as it applies to microarray analysis.

Topics include preprocessing, estimating gene expression levels, microarray data and hybridization, experimental design, dimension reduction and pattern recognition techniques including boosting, bagging and other recent statistical techniques for microarray data analysis.

The course is primarily intended for Ph.D. students and researchers in the areas of statistics, biology and related fields. A background in data analysis is required. The course is computationally intensive and laboratory sessions are associated with methodological ones. 

The computational aspects are a relevant part of the course. During the labs the software used will be R (http://www.R-project.org ) and tools from the Bioconductor project ( http://www.Bioconductor.org ). 

A small knowledge of statistical software is welcome but not necessary. The course will be given by:

• Anestis Antoniadis, Laboratoire de Modelisation et Calcul, Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France, editor-in-chief of ESAIM: Probability and Statistics;

• Robert Gentleman, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Usa, co-author of R environment system and founder of the Bioconductor research project.

The maximum number of participants is 30. Fees will be required upon registration. Up to 10 fellowships are available for Ph.D. students and graduates upon decision of the Scientific Committee based on candidates CVs. Each fellowship covers registration fees and lodging expenses (travel expenses are not included). We will take care of room reservations for these candidates. 

For further information, either look at http://www.eco-dip.unimi.it/marray/  or contact Stefano M. Iacus, Department of Economics, Via Conservatorio 7, I-20122 Milan. Tel.: +39 02 50321 461 Fax: +39 02 50321 515 E-mail: stefano.iacus@unimi.it 

Top

3rd International Symposium on PLS and Related Methods

September 15th-17th, 2003, Lisbon , Portugal

PLS’03 is the third international symposium for interested parties in Partial Least Squares and related methods. The main objectives of PLS’03 are:

The symposium is addressed to people who are interested in either the methodological aspects or the application potentialities of PLS methods. Therefore, it is very suitable for actual and potential users such as managers, researchers and decision-makers working in the most diverse fields: management, economics, marketing, publicity, consumer behaviour, psychology and information systems. In the three days, you will specifically see the application of PLS methods and its potentiality and competitive advantages in the fields of: Multivariate modelling with independent factors, Perform the multivariate modelling of a process, PLS Path modelling, Evaluation of Customer Satisfaction and related issues, Strategic Management, Information System, PLS regression, Economics and Management and Chemometrics. 

Prospective authors are invited to submit an extended (2 page) abstract of their paper to Prof. Pedro Coelho no later than May 1, 2003. The same deadline applies to prospective organisers of specialised sessions (with a maximum of three speakers). The contents of the abstract should clearly contain the following information about the paper: Relationship with literature, Original contributions with main formulas, Methodological, computational and/or application relevance, Main references. Authors will be informed about the acceptance of their papers by June 1st, 2003. The final versions of accepted papers (maximum 12 pages) have to reach Prof. Pedro Coelho by July 1, 2003.

For further information, either view http://www.isegi.unl.pt/pls03  or contact Prof. Pedro Simões Coelho (psc@isegi.unl.pt) , Dr. Alexandra Machás (alexandra@isegi.unl.pt) Instituto Superior de Estatística e Gestão de Informação - PLS’03, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Campolide, 1070-124 Lisboa, Portugal, Tel.: +0351 213870413, Fax:+0351 213872140

The 4th International Conference of the Association for Survey Computing

The 4th International Conference of the Association for Survey Computing will be held from Wednesday 17th to Friday 19th September 2003, at Warwick University in England. For further information, please see www.asc.org.uk 

Top

 International Association of Survey Statisticians

iass_bw.gif (6326 bytes) President Xavier Charoy, 9, rue Max Blondat, 92100 Boulogne, France
Tel. & Fax : +33 1 46 03 29 30
E-mail : xavier.charoy@libertysurf.fr
Executive Director Mr. Alain Charraud, INSEE, 18 Boulevard Adolphe Pinard, 
F-75675 Paris 14, Cédex, France.
E-mail: alain.charraud@insee.fr
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
Website http://isi.cbs.nl/iass/index.htm
Top

 Back to Home Page

Back to Previous Newsletters

Back to the other content of the Newsletter Volume 27, No. 1 (79) 2003