International Association for Official Statistics

		Editorial Address	Stephen Penneck E-mail: Stephen.Penneck@ons.gsi.gov.uk
		President	Olav Ljones Statistics Norway, P.O. Box 8131, Dep., 0033 Oslo, Norway Tel: +47-21094841, Fax: +47-22864996 E-mail: olav.ljones@ssb.no
		Website	http://isi.cbs.nl/iaos

IAOS and National Statistics Institute (INE) of Chile are pleased to welcome you to the IAOS/Scorus Conference on Official Statistics and the Environment: Approaches, Issues, Challenges and Linkages

October 2010, Santiago, Chile

Introduction

As ever more countries focus on understanding the factors that affect the environment and seek ways to
protect it, they are realizing that a broad range of economic and social activities matter, and more
importantly, that the effects of those activities with the environment are intertwined. Also, greater
consideration is being given to the issue of the measurement of sustainability, with environmental issues
as an important component.

For the statistical community in general and for National Statistics Offices (NSOs) in particular, a first step is to provide the foundation for informed policy decisions by collecting data and releasing statistical products for each environmental area separately. Integrating information from different sources, and perhaps from different countries, is also essential, because of the interdependent effects on the environment from government policies and from the economic and social activities of households, firms, and governments.
The theme of the 2010 IAOS Conference focuses on the environment in the broad sense.

1. Title of the Conference

“Official statistics and the environment: Approaches, issues, challenges and linkages”

2. Date and Venue: October 2010, Santiago, Chile

3. Conference Programme Committee (CPC)

Chair:
Peter Harper, Deputy Australian Statistician, Population, Labour, Industry and Environment Statistics Group, Australian Bureau of Statistics;
Deputy Chair:
Torstein Bye, Director for Department for Economy, Energy and Environment, Statistics Norway;
Members:
Grace Bediako, Government Statistician, Ghana Statistical Service;
Pieter Everaers, Director of Directorate E - Agriculture and environment statistics, Statistical cooperation, Eurostat;
Gabriel Gamez, Head of the EFTA Statistical Office (ESO), EFTA – European Free Trade Association;
Enrico Giovannini, Chief Statistician and Director, OECD, Statistics Directorate;
Hector Maldonado Gomez, Director of El Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística, DANE Colombia
Nancy M. Gordon, Associate Director for Strategic Planning and Innovation, U.S. Census Bureau;
Eszter Horvath, Chief of Environment and Energy Statistics Branch, United Nations Statistics Division;
Dae-ki Kim, Commissioner, National Statistical Office, Korea;
Irena Krizman, Director-General, Statistical Office of the Republic Slovenia;
Dominic Leung, SCORUS, Chair;
Rowena Orok, Director, Environment Accounts and Statistics, Statistics Canada;
Eduardo Pereira Nunes, Director of Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica, IBGE Brasil;
Mariana Schkolnik Chamudes, National Director, National Statistics Institute (INE) of Chile;
Marian Scott, 2008-2012 TIES European regional representative;
Mojca Suvorov, Director of Environment and Natural Resources Statistics, Regional Statistics and Geomatics, Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, Secretary of CPC;
Representative of the IASS, name to be confirmed later;

4. Main Topics

The theme of the Conference is environment in its broader sense. How can statistics measure the impacts of different strategies and policies which have the effect on the environment and life of the people?
Main topics could be ¹:
Theme 1: Compiling environmental statistics – sources, methods and quality. This would include both conventional (i.e. survey based) and non-conventional (e.g. modelling, estimations, remote sensing, forecasting, combination of surveys and administrative records, integration of information of different sources) methods and collaboration between official statisticians and other collectors of information.
Theme 2: Challenges and innovations in the dissemination of environmental and related information. This would include GIS, grids, design of public-use statistical products, indicators, statistical confidentiality vs. the right to know, remote access to data.
Theme 3: Integration of environmental information – frameworks, standards and classifications. This would include GHG emissions, SEEA, NAMEA, UNFCCC concepts, land use and land cover classification, ecosystem services.
Theme 4: Environmental and socio-economic linkages – drivers, impacts, adaptation and instruments, including impacts of energy, transport, agricultural, health and other policies; measuring effects on specific resources – water, forests, how to evaluate the transboundary effects, agro-environmental indicators, consumers’ awareness.
Theme 5: The environment and sustainability, including the conceptual approaches, frameworks, measurement, the role of indicators, etc.

5. Organization of Work

The proposal is to organize the work in 2 Plenary Sessions, 3 Panel Discussions and 5 Parallel Sessions.
Plenary Session 1:
The proposed theme is "Environmental policy on the world level and on the Latin America level".
Plenary Session 2:
The proposed theme is “Official statistics’ role in environmental and related socio-economic information”.

We propose that the papers be grouped under 5 main topics. Every Parallel Session will include 1 main topic session in which invited papers will be presented and 2 sessions in which contributed papers of two other main topics will be presented. The topics will be circulated through 5 Parallel Sessions in the way that the participants will be able to hear all presentations for one main theme. Here follows a colour scheme of the sessions and draft agenda.

The Conference Programme Committee is looking forward to receive your comments and suggestions concerning the Scientific Programme, potential keynote speakers, organisers, authors of the invited papers, discussants, panellists, chairs and authors of the contributed papers, as well as the proposals for some side events such as posters, exhibitions, etc.

Proposals and comments should be sent to: iaos2010.surs@gov.si

PS 1 to PS 5: Parallel Sessions 1 to 5
IP: invited papers
CP: contributed papers
SCORUS TBC: to be confirmed as an independent session

1 This is the latest version of the Conference Programme reviewed by Peter Harper and Torstein Bye (Chair and Deputy Chair of the Conference Programme Committee for IAOS 2010 Conference). The document is currently under discussion in the Conference Programme Committee. The paper was also sent to Latin American NSIs Directors General in order to stimulate the participation of the LA countries in the Conference work. All comments are highly appreciated.

IAOS

Standing Committee on Regional and Urban Statistics

www.scorusnet.com

Submitted by Wendy Thomas

Preparing for ISI Session

Once again the ISI Session provides a wonderful opportunity for individuals interested in SCORUS concerns to meet, talk and plan for the future. SCORUS has been involved in the preparation of two invited sessions sponsored by the IAOS. Bringing Stats Home: Role of the Official Statistical Offices in supporting comparable statistics at regional, urban and local level (IPM 20, Wednesday, 19 August, at 8:15 hours) and Improving comparability of urban and regional data: Standards, harmonization, and sharing metadata resources for survey development (IPM 21, Friday, 21 August, at 9:00 hours) both focus on the relationship between how data is collected at the national level and prepared for distribution at the local level. Because of the need to present local level data in an aggregated format, additional attention needs to be paid to how aggregation is performed, the geographies covered, and topical detail provided. In addition to meeting local analysis needs, we must also be aware that this is the information used to make international comparisons of sub-national regions and urban areas. These two sessions fit well within the overall theme of IAOS sponsored sessions and should provide a basis for interesting dialogue during the  conference week and beyond.

Important meetings to note for those interested in SCORUS activities:
Monday, 17 August, 11:15-13:00 hours
SCORUS meeting
Thursday, 20 August, 7:30-9:00 hours
IAOS General Assembly

SCORUS 2010 – Riga, Latvia

The 2010 meeting of SCORUS is already under development. The conference will be held in Riga, Latvia.
Work is currently being done on program topics and organization. Full information on dates, location, and topic will be available at the 2009 ISI Durban Session.
Local Arrangements: Jolanta Minkvica
Program Chair: Petra Kuncova

SCORUS – The International Network for regional and urban statistics

For information on joining the SCORUS list server or providing suggestions to the leadership group, please contact SCORUS Secretary, Wendy Thomas at wlt@pop.umn.edu.

IAOS
Top

International Association for Statistical Computing

		Editorial Address	Francesco Palumbo, IASC Scientific Secretary Facoltà di Economia, University of Macerata, Via Crescimbeni, 20 – I-62100, Macerata, Italy Tel: +39 07332583242; Fax: +39 07332583205 E-mail: francesco.palumbo@unimc.it
		President	Jaromír Antoch, Matematicko fyzikální fakulta Charles University Prague Sokolovská 83, 186 75 Praha 8, Czech Republic Tel: +420 22191 3275; Fax: +420 222 323 316 E-mail: antoch@karlin.mff.cuni.cz
		Website	IASC website: http://www.iasc-isi.org CSDA SSN website: www.csdassn.org

IASC Elections

We have received and we are pleased to publish this letter from Professor Yutaka Tanaka, Chair of IASC Election Committee and forthcoming President of the IASC

Dear IASC Members,
in these days you receive the ballot papers for the election of the IASC Executive Committee for the period 2009-2011 and six Council Members for the period 2009-2013.
It is important that our Executive Committee and Council represent our entire membership and therefore I would like to ask you to take part in the election. Please return the ballot as soon as possible. The return address is given on the ballot sheet.
IASC Election Committee has done its best to propose a list of distinguished researchers in the various fields of statistical computing, who are willing to serve IASC for the next term. It is now your turn to vote. Taking this opportunity let me invite you to attend the IASC General Assembly to be held during the 57^th Session of the ISI in Durban and to join various future activities of the IASC. The General Assembly is scheduled for Friday August 21, 2009 from 11:15 to 13:00.

Sincerely yours,
Yutaka Tanaka

IASC

Forthcoming events

Compstat 2010, Paris

The COMPSTAT 2010 symposium will take place in Paris. The meeting is scheduled for August 23^rd to 27^th, in the premises of Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM), located in the heart of Paris (http://www.cnam.fr/). 
The conference will be organized by CNAM statisticians with the support of INRIA, the French national institute in computer science and control (http://www.inria.fr/index.en.html). 
Besides the main conference, a satellite meeting or a tutorial will be organized at INRIA Rocquencourt Research Unit, a campus near Versailles at a few kilometres from Paris.
The local organizing committtee is chaired by Gilbert Saporta (CNAM), with Yves Lechevallier from INRIA as vice-chairman.

Scientific Programme Committee (SPC)

Members ex-officio:
COMPSTAT'2010 organizer and Chairperson of SPC:
Gilbert Saporta, CNAM
Past Compstat organizer:
Maria Paula Brito, University of Porto
Next Compstat organizer:
Erricos Kontoghiorghes, University of Cyprus
Incoming IASC-ERS Chairman:
Patrick J. F. Groenen, Erasmus University, Rottterdam

Members:
Ana Maria Aguilera Universidad Granada
Avner Bar-Hen Université René Descartes, Paris
Christophe Croux Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Michel Denuit Université Catholique de Louvain
Gejza Dohnal Technical University, Prag
Georges Hébrail TELECOM ParisTech
Martina Mittlböck Medical University of Vienna
Christian P. Robert Université Paris-Dauphine
Maurizio Vichi Universita La Sapienza, Roma
Peter Winker Universität Giessen

Consultative Members:
Representative of the ARS of IASC:
Moon Yul Huh, SungKyunKwan University, Seoul, Korea
Representative of the IFCS:
Henk Kiers, University of Groningen
Representative of KDD community:
Djamel Zighed, Université Lumière, Lyon

Early Scientific Programme Infos
Three eminent researchers have been invited to give the keynote lectures. They are:
Luc Devroye McGill University, Montreal
Lutz Edler German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg
David Hand Imperial College, London

Invited Sessions:

14 invited sessions with their organizers, have been decided by the SPC:
ABC methods for genetic data (C. Robert & A. Bar Hen)
Algorithm for Robust statistics (C. Croux)
Brain imaging (H. Abdi)
Computational Econometrics (E. Kontoghiorghes)
Computer-intensive actuarial methods (M. Denuit)
Data stream mining (G. Hébrail)
Functional Data Analysis (A. M. Aguilera)
Kernel methods (P. J. F. Groenen)
Monte Carlo methods in system safety, reliability and risk analysis (G. Dohnal)
Optimization heuristics in statistical modelling (P. Winker)
Spatial statistics / spatial epidemiology (M. Mittlböck)

ARS Session (Financial) Time Series (I. Yeo)
KDD Session: Topological learning (D. A. Zighed)
IFCS Session: New developments in two or highermode clustering; model based clustering and reduction for high dimensional data (H. Kiers & M. Vichi)

Three tutorials are planned:
Bayesian computation methods:
Machine learning
Statistical approaches for complex data:
Besides these sessions, contributed papers are welcome: see the website http://www.compstat2010.fr/ for more information.

IASC

IASC-ERS Summer School

Next IASC-ERS Summer School will be organized on “Computational Aspects in Environmental Statistics” and it will be held on 7-11 September 2009 in the picturesque venue of the Gorni Voden Monastery "St. Kirik and Yulita“, District of Plovdiv, BULGARIA.

Organizing Committee:

Prof. N. Neykov, (chair)
National Inst. of Meteorology and Hydrology
Prof. M. Bojkova, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ochridski"
Prof. K. Prodanova TU of Sofia
Prof. P. Neytchev National Inst. of Meteorology and Hydrology
Prof. V. Noncheva Plovdiv University "St. Kiril and Metodii“
Prof. N. Yanev Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Scientific Program and Lecturers:

1. P. Filzmoser - Applied environmental statistics;
2. N. Neykov and R. Gueorguieva - Modelling of environmental time series using Generalized, Linear and Mixed Models;
3. F. Leisch and B. Gru?n-Flexible mixture modelling of environmental data and some computational issues;
4. D. Jaruskova and E. Pancheva - Modelling environmental extremes;
5. J. Antoch and D. Jaruskova - Change points detection in environmental time series data.

All lectures will be given in English and the work material will be in English, too. Case studies application and training in the PC room will be in R.
More information will be available on the IASC web site.
Refer to the school WEB site for more and more detailed information http://info.meteo.bg/conferences/iasc09/.

Conferences endorsed or sponsored by the IASC

In the spirit of co-operation with other scientific communities and/or ISI Sessions, and aiming at having an even wider horizon of scientific relationships, the IASC Council – according to the IASC statute - may deliberate the sponsorship of conferences that are organized (or co-organized) by distinguished IASC members on topics close to the Computational Statistics.

IASC

PLS’09 – 6^th International Conference on Partial Least Squares and Related Methods

The 6^th International Conference on Partial Least Squares and Related Methods (PLS'09) will take place in Beijing (China) on September 4^th-7^th, 2009. PLS'09 focuses on research in Management, Engineering and Life Sciences. This conference is a unique event through which outstanding experts in PLS methods, from all over the world, can meet and communicate.
Prof. Esposito-Vinzi, who co-chairs the Program Committee, is an extremely active member of the IASC. Two IASC past-Presidents are in the Program Committee: prof. Carlo Lauro (Italy) and prof. Gilbert Saporta (France).

Program Committee is co-chaired by
Prof. Michel Tenenhaus (France)
Prof. Xiangdong Chen (China)
Prof. Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi (France)
Prof. Huiwen Wang (China)

Members:
A. Morineau, C. Lauro, F. L. Bookstein, G. Saporta, H. Martens, H. Hwang, M. Martens, N. Kettaneh-Wold, R. Rosipal, T. Naes, W.W. Chin.

Computational and Financial Econometrics 3^rd International Conference,
29-31 October 2009

Grand Resort Hotel, Limassol, Cyprus
http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/cfe09 
This conference invites presentations that contain computational or financial econometric components. Papers containing strong computational statistical or econometric components or substantive data-analytic elements will be considered for publication in a special peer-reviewed (6^th special issue on Computational Econometrics), or regular, issue of the journal Computational Statistics & Data Analysis.

The conference is endorsed by the IASC and takes place jointly with the ERCIM working Group meeting on Computing & Statistics.
For further information please contact matrix@dcs.bbk.ac.uk.

2^nd International Workshop of the ERCIM Working Group on Computing & Statistics,
29-31 October 2009

Grand Resort Hotel, Limassol, Cyprus
http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/ercim09/

The Workshop considers for presentation all topics within the interface of Computing & Statistics. The organization of tracks and suggestion of possible sessions within the framework of the Working Group are strongly encouraged.
The meeting is endorsed by the IASC and will take place jointly with the 3^rd International Conference on Computational and Financial Econometrics (CFE09).
For further information please contact matrix@dcs.bbk.ac.uk.

IASC
Top

International Association for Statistics Education

	Editorial Addresses		Andrej Blejec, National Institute of Biology, Vecna pot 111 POB 141, Sl-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. Tel: +386 1 423 33 88, Fax: +386 1 2412 980 E-mail: andrej.blejec@nib.si  Website: http://ablejec.nib.si and K. Laurence Weldon, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6 Tel: +1 604 291 3667, Fax: +1 604 291 4368 E-mail: weldon@sfu.ca   Website: http://www.stat.sfu.ca/~weldon
	President		Allan J. Rossman, Department of Statistics, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA Tel: +1 805-756-2861, Fax: +1 805-756-2700 E-mail: arossman@calpoly.edu Website: http://statweb.calpoly.edu/arossman/
	Website		http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/

SRTL-6: The Sixth International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking, and Literacy

The Role of Context and Evidence in Informal Inferential Reasoning
University of Queensland, Australia, July 10-16, 2009
The Sixth International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking and Literacy (SRTL-6) will be held in Brisbane, Australia from July 10 to July 16, 2009. The Forum is sponsored by The University of Queensland’s Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, The American Statistical Association (Section on Statistics Education), and Springer Publishers. The School of Education and School of Mathematics and Physics at The University of Queensland will host the Forum.
The Forum’s focus will build on the work presented and discussed at SRTL-5 on informal ideas of statistical inference. Recent research suggests an important role for developing ideas of informal types of statistical inference even at early educational levels. Researchers have developed instructional activities that encourage students to infer beyond samples of data and use technological tools to support these informal inferences.
The findings of these studies reveal that the context of the data and the use of evidence may be important factors to study further. The role of context is of particular interest because in drawing (informal) inferences from data, “students must learn to walk two fine lines. First, they must maintain a view of data as ‘numbers with a context’ (Moore, 1992).” At the same time, “they must learn to see the data as separate in many ways from the real-world event they observed” (Konold & Higgins, 2003, p. 195). That is, they must abstract the data from that context. The role of evidence is also of particular interest because in learning how to make data-based claims (argumentation), students must consider the evidence used to support the claim, the quality and justification of the evidence, limitations of the evidence and finally, an indication of how convincing the argument is (Ben-Zvi, Gil, & Apel, 2007).
Based on SRTL-5, we characterize Informal Inferential Reasoning (IIR) as the cognitive activities involved in drawing conclusions with some degree of uncertainty that go beyond the data and having empirical evidence for them. Three principles appear to be essential to informal inference: (1) generalizations (including predictions, parameter estimates, and conclusions) that go beyond describing the given data; (2) the use of data as evidence for those generalizations; and (3) conclusions that express a degree of uncertainty, whether or not quantified, accounting for the variability or uncertainty that is unavoidable when generalizing beyond the immediate data to a population or a process (Makar & Rubin, 2007).
An exciting Scientific Program includes a keynote address by former IASE President Professor Chris Wild, nine extended presentations by internationally recognized researchers from four continents, an interdisciplinary discussant panel, four poster presentations from promising early career scholars, and a series of formal and informal small and whole group discussions. The extended presentations address the role of context and evidence when reasoning about informal inference from the Early Years through to Tertiary levels, including the professional development of teachers. We look forward to a stimulating and enriching gathering.
The Forum is co-chaired by Dani Ben-Zvi (University of Haifa, Israel) and Joan Garfield (University of Minnesota, USA), locally organized by Katie Makar and Michael Bulmer (The University of Queensland), and planned by a prestigious international advisory committee. Conference attendance, by invitation only, has now been finalized. For more information, visit the SRTL website at: http://srtl.stat.auckland.ac.nz/ or email SRTL2009@gmail.com.

Katie Makar

IASE
Top

Innovative Approaches to Turn Statistics into Knowledge

Washington, D.C, USA, 15-16 July 2009
The OECD, the US Census Bureau and the World Bank are pleased to invite you to attend a jointly sponsored seminar on "Innovative Approaches to Turn Statistics into Knowledge" to be held on 15-16 July 2009 in Washington, D.C. The seminar builds on the progress made in the successful seminars held in 2007 and 2008 in Rome (Italy) and Stockholm (Sweden). As you can see in the attached outline, the seminar is about the art of making statistics understandable and appealing to modern audiences. Leading-edge products will be showcased. A review of technical solutions (e.g. Flash, video) are expected to be made and participants will have the opportunity to participate in discussions on how to select, develop and implement excellent solutions, as well as engaging and thought-provoking applications of statistics.
Recent years have seen a growing awareness worldwide of the importance of new techniques to communicate data and to interact with audiences. This is one of the themes of the Global Project on “Measuring the Progress of Societies”. It is expected that the best outcomes of the workshop will flow through to inform the next OECD World Forum, 27-30 October 2009 in Busan, Korea, when a second international exhibition on Transforming Information into Knowledge is foreseen.

For more information visit a web page www.oecd.org/progress/ict/statknowledge or contact Julie.branco-marinho@oecd.org

Adapted by the Editors from the invitation letter

IASE
Top

ICOTS 8
Data and Context in Statistics Education: Towards an Evidence-Based Society

Ljubljana, Slovenia, 11-16 July 2010 icots8.org
ICOTS is held every four years. Its main purpose is to give statistics educators and professionals around the world the opportunity to exchange information, ideas and experiences, to present recent innovation and research in the field of statistics education, and to expand their range of collaborators.

An Update

Planning is moving ahead at a fast pace for what promises to be another successful international conference on statistics education. The ten invited paper topics are listed below. Each topic is divided into sessions. There are 75 sessions of three or four invited speakers. A total of 240 invited speakers from 34 countries have been confirmed to present in these sessions. Details of sessions, their organizers and the invited speakers can be viewed on the website (icots8.org).

Invited Paper Topics

1. Data and context in statistics education: Towards an evidence-based society
2. Statistics education at the school level
3. Learning to teach statistics
4. Statistics education at the post secondary level
5. Assessment in statistics education
6. Statistics education, training and the workplace
7. Statistics education and the wider society
8. Research in statistics education
9. Technology in statistics education
10. An international perspective on statistics education

Contributed Papers

Contributed paper sessions will be arranged in a variety of areas. Those interested in submitting a contributed paper should contact one of the three Convenors:

Flavia Jolliffe F.Jolliffe@kent.ac.uk
John McKenzie mckenzie@babson.edu
Gilberte Schuyten gilberte.schuyten@ugent.be

The authors of contributed papers can decide whether their paper should be refereed or not. If a contributed paper is to be refereed, an abstract should be submitted by 31^st August 2009 with the final version of the paper due by 31^st October 2009. If the contributed paper is not to be refereed, the abstract should be submitted by 30^th November 2009 with the final version of the paper due by 15^th December 2009.

Posters

Those interested in submitting a poster should contact the poster Convenors:
Mojca Bavdaz mojca.bavdaz@ef.uni-lj.si
Alesa Lotric Dolina alesa.lotric.dolinar@ef.uni-lj.si

The poster abstracts are due by 15^th January 2010 with the abstracts to be finalised by 15^th March 2010.

Keynote Speakers

I am happy to report that the keynote speakers are:
* Anuska Ferligoj, University of Ljubljana
* Gerd Gigerenzer, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
* Cliff Konold, University of Massachusetts
* Hans Rosling, Karolinske Institute
* Jessica Utts, University of California
There will also be a Plenary Panel Debate organised by Chris Wild, University of Auckland.
Abstracts for the plenary papers and the plenary debate can be viewed on the Conference website (icots8.org).

International Programme Committee Executive

John Harraway (New Zealand)
IPC Chair jharraway@maths.otago.ac.nz
Helen MacGillivray (Australia)
Scientific Coordinator h.macgillivray@qut.edu.au
Roxy Peck (USA)
Programme Chair rpeck@calpoly.edu
Chris Reading (Australia)
Editor of Proceedings creading@une.edu.au
John Shanks (New Zealand)
Information Manager jshanks@maths.otago.ac.nz
Andrej Blejec (Slovenia)
Local IPC Representative andrej.blejec@nib.si

Local Organising Committee
Andrej Blejec (University of Ljubljana)
Chair andrej.blejec@nib.si
Irena Krizman (Statistical Office of Slovenia)
Katja Rostohar (Agriculture Institute of Slovenia)
Irena Vipavc-Brvar (University of Ljubljana)

Venue

The 2010 Conference will be in the city of Ljubljana, Slovenia, in conjunction with the Statistical Society of Slovenia (SSS). It will be held at the Ljubljana Cultural and Congress Centre at Cankarjev Dom, a first-class conference venue providing many halls and meeting rooms and excellent facilities.
Due to its compact size, the capital city of Ljubljana is a walking and environmentally-friendly city. It has one of the best-preserved Baroque quarters in Europe that blends harmoniously with the younger Art Nouveau buildings. Bridges abound, and it is blessed with the talent of Joze Plecnik who created the cosmopolitan image of the city with his eclectic architecture.
Easily accessible from abroad and conveniently located in the centre of the country, Ljubljana is also an ideal departure point to discover all the amazingly diverse features of Slovenia. The unique Karst region, the Adriatic coast, the Alps and lakes region, the hilly wine-growing areas, the 15 natural spas and several historic towns are all within a two-hour drive.
If you go to the Conference website (icots8.org) and select the option About Ljubljana on the home page, you will be able to access a series of photos of Ljubljana and will be able to inspect Google Maps of the city, the country and the surrounding countries as well as locating three tourism links.

John Harraway

IASE
Top

2009 IASE Satellite Conference Next Steps in Statistics Education

14-15 August 2009, Durban, South Africa
Continuing the successful tradition of satellite conferences coinciding with each ISI Session, the International Association for Statistics Education is pleased to announce that the sixth IASE Satellite Conference will be held in Durban, South Africa, on the 14^th and 15^th of August 2009. The IASE Satellite Conferences have proven to be a very popular component of the Statistics Education calendar. These Conferences are smaller and more personal in nature than the ICOTS conferences providing a wonderful opportunity for establishing new professional relationships and cementing existing ones. The format of this year’s Conference will follow that of the 2007 Satellite Conference: plenary sessions will be supplemented by two parallel breakaway sessions. The theme of the Conference is Next Steps in Statistics Education. All submissions addressing this theme will be welcome. This theme has been chosen to particularly attract papers under the following headings:

1. What constitutes best practice for the curriculum beyond the “Introductory Statistics” course? What courses should follow on for those wishing to major in Statistics and what additional training should we offer to those in other disciplines?
2. What elements of our undergraduate curriculum specifically prepare our students for their careers post-graduation, either in the workplace or as masters/doctoral students? How can we improve these elements?
3. Since the 1949 formation of its precursor, the ISI Statistical Education Committee, the IASE has matured as an organisation. As we move towards ICOTS 8, we note that great progress has already been made in the field of Statistics Education, but the challenge we face now is to consider the next steps that we must take. How can we build on past progress to raise the profile of our field so that it becomes a more visible and vibrant pursuit?

We hope that you will be able to join us in Durban on the 14th and 15th of August 2009, so please put these dates in your diary.
For more information, visit the Conference website http://www.sastat.org.za/iase/ or contact Patrick Murphy (Chair of the IASE Satellite Conference), School of Mathematical Sciences, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-7167641, E-mail: Patrick.Murphy@ucd.ie

Adapted by the Editors from the IASE web page

IASE Sessions at the 57^th Session of the International Statistical Institute

16-22 August 2009, Durban, South Africa
This is the main conference of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and will be held in Durban, South Africa, 16-22 August 2009. As it does at each major ISI conference, the IASE will be organizing about 10 statistics education sessions for the 57^th ISI Session. For more information, visit the Conference website http://www.sastat.org.za/iase/.

IASE
Top

International Statistical Literacy Project

Looking forward to the ISIBALO International Statistical Literacy Competition, August 20, 2009.

The Statistical Literacy Competition of the ISLP has reached an end in most countries. You may see the names of the winners, their schools, teachers, and national committees in the front page of the ISLP web site at http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/islp/. More details can be found by clicking on the country's name in that list.

Phase 2 was entirely managed by the national committees to select the students who will represent their countries in South Africa's ISIBALO International Statistical Literacy Competition. While each committee has managed its competition autonomously, in its own creative way and with country specific exams, all have shared the same high standards and similar contents for the 5 levels of students tested. We thank all the volunteers that made the event possible. They are too many to list here, but they can be seen in our web site. The IASE and ISI contributed some prizes for the students.
What now? National Committees are working to raise funds to support the travel of students and teachers to Durban to participate in the ISIBALO International Statistical Literacy Competition on August 20^th and events organized around it.

Nominations Received for the Best Cooperative Project Award in Statistical Literacy

The ISLP has received 4 nominations for the Best Cooperative Project Award. They are:
* “EarlyStatistics: Enhancing the Teaching and Learning of Early Statistical Reasoning in European Schools” (Cyprus)
* “New Zealand Certificate on Official Statistics” (New Zealand)
* “Statistics for School:E-school” of Statistics Lithuania (Lithuania)
* “Maths4stats project of Statistics South Africa” (South Africa)

A panel of international judges evaluated these projects and selected a winner. From June 1^st, all the materials in support of the projects, including their Internet locations, were made available on our ISLP website. Voting was open to all via the website. The popular vote was taken into account by the judges in the final selection.

ISLP Lottery

The ISLP is holding a lottery to help raise funds to defray the costs of traveling and many other expenses of the students and teachers participating in the ISIBALO International Statistical Literacy Competition.
Items for prizes include:
(1^st prize) A one night hotel stay in South Africa during the ISI meeting, http://www.statssa.gov.za/isi2009/default.aspx 
(2^nd prize) One day safari in South Africa during the ISI meeting.
(3^rd prize) Dinner for two at a fancy restaurant in Durban during the ISI meeting.
(4^th-100^th prizes) Zulu jewellery from Kwazulu Natal, Fashion designers' donated garments and accessories, ipods, graphics calculators, computers, software, art pieces, origami decorations, and many other items donated by friends of the ISLP.

We welcome donations for other prizes.

The draw for prizes took place on July 16^th, 2009.
To participate, visit the ISLP website: http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/islp/

Juana Sanchez
International Statistical Literacy Project

International Association of Survey Statisticians

	Editorial Address	Leyla Mohadjer, Scientific Secretary IASS E-mail: MOHADJL1@WESTAT.com
	President	Pedro Luis do Nascimento Silva, President, IASS, Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, U.K. Tel: +44-23-80597169 Fax: +44-23-80595763 E-mail: pedronsilva@gmail.com
	Secretariat	Michel Péronnet, Executive Director Claude Olivier, Secretary INSEE/CEFIL, 3 rue de la Cité, 33500 Libourne, France. Tel.: +33 5 5755 5600 Fax: +33 5 5755 5620 E-mail: peronnet.michel@orange.fr  E-mail: claude.olivier@insee.fr
	Executive Secretary	Anna Maria Vespa, INSEE, Timbre H 230, 18 Bd. Adolphe Pinard, 75014 Paris Cedex 14, France. Tel: +33 1 5368 5571, Fax: +33 1 5368 5501 E-mail: annavespa@yahoo.fr
	Website	http://isi.cbs.nl/iass

Message from the IASS President

Registration is now open for the IASS Short Courses to be offered before the main ISI conference in Durban, South Africa. An exciting programme with top class instructors in a fantastic venue makes this an opportunity for personal development not to be missed.

The IPMs organised or co-sponsored by IASS during the 2009 ISI Session in Durban under the leadership of council member Leyla Mohadjer are now complete. The full list of topics, authors and discussants for IPM sessions is available from the website: http://www.statssa.gov.za/isi2009/ScientificProgramme/Ipms.aspx. It’s time to register, complete your travel arrangements for the trip to South Africa, and make sure that you do not miss the impressive scientific and social programme that is lined up for you in Durban.

The IASS established the Cochran-Hansen Prize in celebration of its 25^th anniversary. This prestigious prize is to be awarded every two years to the best paper on survey research methods submitted by a young statistician from a developing or transitional country. Participation in the competition for the Prize was open in 2009 to nationals of developing or transitional countries who are living in such countries and who were born in 1967 or later. The Prize Committee lead by Paul-André Salamin (Switzerland) has now reached a unanimous decision to award the 2009 Cochran-Hansen Prize to Dr. Hukum Chandra, from India, for his paper "Small Area Estimation Under Transformation To Linearity". Dr. Chandra will present his paper in an IPM session in Durban, together with the winners of the Jan Tinbergen Award.

The consultation process for the preparation of the Invited Paper Meetings for the 2011 ISI World Statistics Congress in Dublin has now started. Geoff Lee (geoff.lee@abs.gov.au) chairs the IASS Programme Committee for Dublin. If you have any ideas for challenging, innovative topics, do not hesitate to let Geoff know of your ideas.

Over the last couple of months, the IASS Executive and Council have debated and agreed on a “Policy on the use of IASS funds to provide financial support to relevant international workshops, conferences and similar events of which it is not an organiser or co-organiser”. The policy document has been approved and will shortly appear on the website of the IASS. A longer news item detailing this policy will appear on the next issue of The Survey Statistician. Anyone who would like to know more can contact Vice-President Pierre Lavallée at pierre.lavallee@statcan.gc.ca.

IASS Executive and Council are also debating a report prepared by an ad hoc committee lead by Council Member Don Royce on “Improving IASS Services to Members”. This report will form the basis of a document to be presented to the IASS General Assembly in Durban. If you would like to contribute anything to this debate, please e-mail the Chair of the ad hoc committee at Don.Royce@statcan.gc.ca.

Finally, IASS has been approached by the organising committee in charge of the next International Conference on Establishment Surveys (ICES IV) and has agreed to co-sponsor this conference, which is planned to take place in North America during the spring/summer of 2012. You will hear more about this exciting event in the coming months.

The IASS is keen to welcome new members, both individual and institutional. The registration form for individual members can be found on our website (http://isi.cbs.nl/iass/). For organizations wishing to join, please contact our Executive Director, Michel Péronnet (see address above).

Best wishes,
Pedro Silva
pedronsilva@gmail.com

IASS

Message from the IASS Scientific Secretary

Greetings. The 2009 ISI Session’s meetings are now less than three months away. As reported in issue 1 of the ISI Newsletter, the IASS has organized seven short courses to be offered prior to the start of the 57^th Session of the ISI. The seven short courses will be offered over two two-day sessions, August 12-13, 2009 or August 14-15, 2009. The following table lists the sessions, course topics and the instructors who have volunteered to present each short course.

Registration for the IASS short courses is now open and registration information and materials can be found on the official website of the 57^th Session of the ISI, http://www.statssa.gov.za/isi2009/. On the conference home page, select the Short Courses menu button. This will direct you to the short course page where you can click the “read more” link to see a description of the short courses and biographical sketches of the instructors.

The course fee schedule can be accessed through a link on the ISI 2009 short course page. To register you will need to download a PDF registration form from the website. The completed form should be faxed along with your payment information to the Local Organizing Committee using the fax number that is provided on the website.

The ISI and IASS members who are planning their travel itinerary for the 2009 ISI meetings in Durban should note that the IASS short courses will now be offered at a Durban venue, the Hotel Southern Sun Elangeni. Short course participants may choose to arrive early and stay on-site at the Southern Sun Elangeni or at their regular conference hotel or lodging. The ISI Session Organizers are arranging shuttle transportation between the Hilton (and nearby conference hotels) and the Southern Sun Elangeni venue.

As IASS Scientific Secretary, I will be coordinating this activity in close liaison with the ISI short course coordinator and the Local Hosts in South Africa. If at any time you have questions or concerns about the 2009 IASS short courses, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at sheering@isr.umich.edu.

Regards,
Steve Heeringa
sheering@isr.umich.ed

IASS
Top

Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics (IFC)

Regional workshops on CPI measurement

Two regional central banking groups have expressed an interest in sponsoring a workshop with the IFC in 2009. The South East Asian Central Banks Research and Training Centre (SEACEN) is an institutional member of the IFC. The topic would be on CPI measurement (headline, core, inflation perception, inflation expectations). The workshop with SEACEN will take place on 12-16 October 2009 in the Philippines. Participation will be by invitation only.

Training event on National Accounts methodology

The National Bank of Belgium (NBB), one of the founding members of the IFC, will organise a training event for IFC members on National Accounts methodology in October 2009. It will build on its expertise in compiling the national accounts for Belgium, but will also draw on support of other IFC member institutions. Participation will be by invitation only.

IFC publications

The 29^th and the 30^th issues of the IFC Bulletin, which will contain the results of IFC organised workshops on “Challenges to improve global comparison of securities statistics” and “The use of surveys by central banks” will be published shortly.

The IFC also encourages the publication of analytical work on topical statistical issues of interest to the international central banking community, other than that presented at various IFC meetings. Analysis by experts of the Committee's institutional members as well as by other analysts, including outside the central banking community, can be submitted for publication in the IFC Working Paper series. Working Paper number 3 on “Design and evaluation of core inflation measures for Turkey” was published in March 2009. More information on the criteria and review process is available on the IFC website http://www.bis.org/ifc/publications.htm.

The IFC's contribution to the ISI Session in Durban

The IFC will sponsor or co-sponsor 7 IPMs and 3 STCPMs for the 57^th ISI Session in Durban. The Committee will also organise a seminar with the South African Reserve Bank prior to the start of the ISI Session. The topic of the seminar is “Economic and financial convergence en route to regional economic integration: Experience, prospects and statistical issues amidst global financial turmoil”. The seminar is aimed at IFC members and central banks from the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Participation will be by invitation only.

IFC
Top

International Society for Business and Industrial Statistics

		Editorial Address	Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi Department of Information Systems & Decision Sciences (SID) ESSEC Business School Paris Avenue Bernard Hirsch, B.P. 50105 95021 Cergy-Pontoise Cedex, France Tel: +33-1-3443-3656; Fax: +33-1-3443-3691 E-mail: vinzi@essec.fr
		Chairman	Nicholas Fisher ValueMetrics Australia Suite 251, 184 Blues Point Road McMahons Point NSW 2060 Australia Tel: +61 2 9922-1623; Fax: +61 2 9922-1635 E-mail: nif@valuemetrics.com.au
		Website	ISBIS website: www.isbis.org ISBIS official Journal - Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry (ASMBI): http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/66002616

Message from the ISBIS President

Revision of Statutes: Vijay Nair chaired a small ad hoc committee comprising himself, Yves Grize and Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi to develop recommendations for updating the ISBIS Statutes. The original Statutes were developed some years ago from a basic template used by other groups seeking Section status, as indeed was ISBIS at that time. Now, with a Strategic Plan in place, ISBIS is much better placed to know what sorts of structures are needed to support the development and growth of the Section. This committee completed its work expeditiously, with some very good recommendations for change that were subsequently approved by the Society at large and have now been adopted. As a consequence, the ISBIS elections were held under the new Statutes. Each person elected will have interesting and defined responsibilities … in other words, the opportunity to contribute uniquely to the growth of ISBIS.

Young Statistician activities: y-BIS, the Young Statisticians’ group within ISBIS, has now been established. A small team of enthusiastic young statisticians developed specifications for what they would like the group to do, and for products and services they want to have available, to support their progress in their professional lives. Their proposals were accepted by the ISBIS Council. Under the new ISBIS Statutes, y-BIS will have a representative on the Executive Committee (Paulo Canas from Portugal has been recently elected as the ISBIS Vice President for y-BIS members till 2011), and y-BIS will have an important contribution to make in our biennial conferences – to both the scientific and the social aspects. If you define yourself as a Young Statistician and would like to be involved in either the setting up of y-BIS or planning for ISBIS 2010, or both, please contact y-BIS Chair Paulo (paulocanas@gmail.com)!

Speaking of conferences, 2009 will be a busy year: we have major involvement in three Regional meetings, as well as a significant amount of the Invited Paper program at the ISI in Durban. You’ll find more details below, and also on the ISBIS web site. We very much hope to see you at as many of these events as you can attend … starting in Cagliari in Sardegna, at the end of May and then in Stellenbosch in South Africa at the end of August!

Nick Fisher

Past conference activities: CAPS2008 in Hanoi

The ISBIS Mission is to facilitate the advancement and exchange of knowledge in business, financial and industrial statistics. A key strategy in pursuing this mission is to hold regional conferences, where host region provides a lot of the organisational effort and ISBIS provides significant assistance with developing the scientific program. This is a brief report on CAPS2008 (Hanoi, December 2008), the first regional meeting since the strategy was adopted in July 2008. Considerable effort was devoted to attracting people from the South-east Asian region to attend, as well as ensuring the participation of some international leaders in the field.

Vietnam was selected as a place for a regional meeting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, there was someone local, Dr Nam-Ky Nguyen, who was keen to ‘make it happen’. Secondly, Vietnam has a very large population (some 86 million people) yet has very few statisticians, and with little formalised communication between them. One key goal for ISBIS was to catalyse intra-regional cooperation between statisticians, particularly within Vietnam itself.
The Organising Committee was chaired by Nam-Ky Nguyen with members Pham Gia Thu (University of Moncton, Canada), Vijay Nair (University of Michigan, USA) and Dennis Lin (Pennsylvania State University, USA). Chairs of the Scientific Program Committee were: Sudhir Gupta (Northern Illinois University, USA), Pham Gia Thu and Nicholas Fisher (University of Sydney & ValueMetrics Australia).

There were some 115 delegates from 22 countries, including 28 from Vietnam and representatives from 8 other South-East Asian countries.
Four Keynote addresses were presented:
“How can Statisticians Help Vietnam Prosper?” – Nick Fisher, University of Sydney
“The Sample Size Determination Problem: Frequentist vs Bayes?” – Thu Gia Pham, University of Monckton
“Recent Developments in Degradation Modeling and Applications to Reliability and Maintainability” – Vijay Nair, University of Michigan
“Process Mining and RFID” – Dennis K.J. Lin, Pennsylvania State University
The other 8 Invited Paper sessions covered areas such as Financial Statistics, Biopharmaceutical Studies, Discrete Choice Modelling in Business, Design of Experiments, Hydrological Statistics, and Statistics and the Environment, and there were a further 10 sessions containing over 40 contributed papers.

Detailed reports on this and previous meetings can be found at: http://www.isbis.org/pastconferences.html

Nick Fisher

ISBIS

ISBIS Elections

New Officers for ISBIS August 2009 – August 2011
ISBIS has now completed the process of electing an Executive and Council for 2009 – 2011. The final slate of candidates proposed by the Nominating Committee has been accepted by the Executive and Council Members with no additional nomination. Since there is only one nomination per position, the nominated persons shall be declared elected without vote from the membership.
The new officers for the period 22^nd August 2009 - 26^th August 2011 are:

For the Executive Committee:
President-Elect: Vijay Nair (USA/Malaysia) Vice President
Scientific Program:Nick Fisher (Australia) Vice President
Communications: Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi (France) Vice President
Membership & Outreach:Yulia Gel (Russia/Canada) Vice President
y-BIS Members:Paulo Canas (Portugal)The incoming President is Yves Grize, Switzerland.

For the Council:
Council Members with voting rights:
Riaan De Jongh South Africa
Eugenio Epprecht Brasil
Alberto Ferrer Spain
Dennis Lin USA
P. G. Sankharan India
Stephan Steiner Canada
Fugee Tsung China (Hong Kong)
Shu Yamada Japan

Council Members without voting rights:
ISBIS Web master George Michailidis (USA/Greece)
Editor in Chief ASMBI Fabrizio Ruggeri (Italy)
Editor ISBIS News Werner Müller (Austria)

Yves Grize

ISBIS Invited Sessions at ISI Conferences

57^th ISI Session in Durban, South Africa
(16-22 August 2009)
ISBIS has a significant share of the Scientific Program at the 57^th Session of the International Statistical Institute in Durban, South Africa, 16-22 August, 2009. http://www.statssa.gov.za/isi2009/

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

58^th ISI Session in Dublin, Ireland (20-27 August 2011): Call for Proposals

This is a call for proposals for ISBIS invited paper sessions for the 58^th Biennial Session of the ISI to be held in Dublin, Ireland, August 20^th-27^th 2011.
As usual, a competitive procedure for determining the invited sessions has been started. Candidate proposals from the various ISI sections will be discussed at the upcoming Durban meeting in August 2009.
Therefore, we solicit receiving proposals for invited sessions to be held under the auspices of ISBIS (or perhaps jointly with another ISI-section).
If you feel your topic meets (at least some of) the guidelines given e.g. in ISBIS News 1(1) available at the ISBIS website: http://www.isbis.org/newsletter/NEWSLETTER1_1_08.pdf, please do not hesitate to contact our member of the Program Coordinating Council Werner Müller (werner.mueller@jku.at) with your suggestions, providing as much detail as possible, including purpose of session, and some names of of possible presenters and discussants.

Werner Müller

ISBIS

Forthcoming ISBIS Regional Conferences

EURISBIS’09: May 30 – June 3, 2009
Cagliari, Sardinia Island, Italy
http://www.eurisbis09.it

The European Regional Meeting of the International Society for Business and Industrial Statistics (EURISBIS’09) will take place in Cagliari (Sardinia Island, Italy) on May 30 - June 3, 2009.
The International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC, a section of ISI) will be a Participating Organization in this meeting.
EURISBIS’09 themes will be related to Quantitative Methods for Banking and Finance, Environment, Quality of Services for SMEs, Transport and Tourism.
EURISBIS’09 will provide a varied and stimulating scientific program of invited and contributed papers, and excellent opportunities for formal and informal exchanges. Authors will have the opportunity to submit extended versions of their papers for publication in the ISBIS Society's journal, Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, in the Springer’s journal Advances in Data Analysis and Classification (ADAC) and in the Italian Journal of Applied Statistics (Statistica Applicata).
The keynote speakers will be:
Bill Cleveland, Purdue University, USA
Alessandro Fassò, University of Bergamo, Italy

Moreover, there will be about 25 Invited Sessions focusing on topics such as: On-Line Methods for Quality Control, Models and Quantitative Methods in Finance and Insurance, Statistics for Health and Environment, Statistical Process Control, Case Studies in Business and Industrial Statistics, Improving financial ratings through XBRL balance sheet analysis, Statistical Methods for Tourism, Applications in Transports, Mathematical Instruments in Decision-Making Processes, Statistical Methods for Transport Analysis, Banking, Statistics and Finance, Control Charts for Quality Improvement, E-data Mining, Computer Experiments for Innovation, Visual Data Exploration in the Business Process.
Finally, 45 contributed papers will be presented in parallel sessions. More than 120 delegates have already registered for EURISBIS’09.
The EURISBIS’09 International Scientific Program Committee is co-chaired by:
Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi, ESSEC Business School of Paris, France – vinzi@essec.fr
Nicholas Fisher, ValueMetrics, Australia
nif@valuemetrics.com.au
Francesco Mola, University of Cagliari, Italy
mola@unica.it

Useful information can be downloaded from: www.eurisbis09.it

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

ISI Satellite Meeting

Stellenbosch, South Africa August 24-26, 2009
ISBIS is organizing a Regional Meeting in Stellenbosch (South Africa) as a Satellite Meeting of the 57^th Session of the International Statistical Institute. For further enquiries, please contact Tertius De Wet at: tdewet@sun.ac.za.
This meeting is being held in one of the most beautiful areas in South Africa, and a lot of fine organisational work has been done to make it a delightful conference experience in the spectacular university town of Stellenbosch, which is in the heartland of the South African wine industry.
This Satellite Meeting will be hosted by the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science of Stellenbosch University and will focus on quantitative aspects of the Banking, Insurance, Manufacturing and Engineering Industries of South Africa and abroad. The emphasis will be on important statistical issues relating to productivity improvement and decision-making at all levels of Business and Industry.
Many world leading quantitative business analysts and industrial statisticians will participate and the organisers hope to attract a significant number of delegates from South African Business and Industry.
The following 4 plenary speakers are confirmed at this stage:

Jac Laubscher – SANLAM, Bellville, Western Cape - South Africa
“The South African Economy in an African and Global Context: Opportunities and Obstacles”

Yves-Laurent Grize - BALOISE INSURANCE, Basel, Basel-Stadt - Switzerland
“Title to be announced”

David L Banks - Duke University, Durham, North Carolina - United States of America
“The Business side of Information”

There will also an ASMBI Discussion session organized by Fabrizio Ruggeri (Editor-in-Chief of the ASMBI Journal) and 8 invited sessions on the themes of: Statistical Process Control and Process Understanding, Design of Experiments, Cost Effectiveness in Medical Research and Delivery, Financial Statistics, Energy Engineering in South Africa, Contemporary Approaches to Problems in Business and Industrial Statistics, Statistics in Industry, The SAS System.

More information can be downloaded from: www.sastat.org.za/sss2009

Register soon at: http://www.sastat.org.za/sss2009/registration.htm

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

ISBIS

International Symposium on Business and Industrial Statistics (ISBIS-2010): Portorož (Portorose) - Slovenia, July 6-9, 2010

The next biennial International Symposium for Business and Industrial Statistics (ISBIS-2010) will now be held at an excellent venue in Slovenia, rather than Croatia, due to the unavailability of a suitable venue in Croatia.
ISBIS-2010 will be held at St. Bernardin Adriatic Resort & Convention Center located in lovely little coastal town Portorož (Portorose) in Slovenia, during 6-9 July, 2010, preceded by a Workshop day on 5 July. Apart from its broad coverage of topics, ISBIS-2010 will feature two particular areas of activity: industrial applications of Image Analysis (for which Professor Jean Serra, co-founder of Image Analysis and Mathematical Morphology is already confirmed as a Keynote Speaker), and current and future developments in handling large and complex data sets. There will also be sessions of particular interest to younger members of the statistical profession, organised by the ISBIS Young Statisticians group, y-BIS.
Stefan Steiner (shsteine@uwaterloo.ca) from the University of Waterloo (Canada) will chair the scientific program committee.
More details are available on the conference website: www.action-m.com/isbis2010

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

ASMBI Special Issue on ISBIS-6

This special issue of Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry (ASMBI) reports on the 6^th International Symposium on Business and Industrial Statistics (ISBIS-6) and will appear in autumn.
ISBIS-6 was an ISBIS satellite meeting to the 56^th Session of the International Statistical Institute in Lisbon. It was held in the island of Azores Sao Miguel at Ponta Delgada during August 18-20, 2007.
ISBIS-6 provided a forum for presenting and exchanging ideas in statistical methods applicable to business, finance, and industry. Prof. Franciso J. Samaniego from University of California, Davis was the program chair. The local organizer was Helena Bacelar Nicolau from University of Lisbon.
Talks ranged from very applied to cutting edge research. The exchange of knowledge and experiences fostered international collaboration in research and other technology transfer activities. It provided also an opportunity for dialogue between statisticians working in business, finance and industry, and academia.

The ISBIS-6 special issue comprises 5 papers (out of a total of 31 submissions) that underwent three rounds of a peer review process.
I remind you that the Journal of Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry (ASMBI) is the official journal of ISBIS. As such, I truly wish this special issue will further stimulate the submission of papers from the numerous ISBIS members who do outstanding research in the growing field of business and industrial statistics.

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

ISBIS

ISBIS at other Conferences

One of the objectives of ISBIS is to develop and promote relationships among national and regional organizations involved in activities similar to those of ISBIS.

PLS’09: 6^th International Conference on Partial Least Squares and Related Methods
Beijing, 4-7 September 2009

ISBIS is sponsoring the 6^th International Conference on Partial Least Squares and Related Methods taking place in Beijing, China, 4-7 September 2009.

PLS'09 focuses on research in Management, Engineering and Life Sciences. This conference is a unique event through which outstanding experts in PLS methods, from all over the world, can meet and communicate.
During the four-day meeting, experts from different countries and regions will present their state-of-art and up-to-date research on the PLS methods, which will reflect challenging advances in this fields for the 21^st century. The PLS techniques will be compared with other typical methods and empirical applications to real data will be performed. The Symposium will provide participants with different insights on both theoretical and practical aspects of PLS and related methods. Furthermore, the symposium will be also precious chance and platform for academic scholars and specialized professionals to meet and talk on their own interests in versatile fields where PLS can be applied to.
The following invited talks are confirmed at this stage:

“Some thoughts about Generalized Structured Component Analysis”
Yoshio Takane, McGill University

“Partial Least Squares methods for Organismal Systems Biology: Some Science and some Speculation”
Fred Bookstein, University of Washington

“Discovering latent structure features using divergences”
Clive Bowman, University of Reading, United Kingdom

“PLS modelling in high-dimensional dynamic nonlinear differential equation systems”
Harald Martens, Nofima Mat / Norwegian University of Life Sciences

“Conjugate Gradient: a Statistical Framework for Partial Least Squares Regression”
Nicole Krämer, Berlin Institute of Technology

“The OPLS method and its extensions: a paradigm shift in PLS modeling and its impact on interpretation and visualization in biology and medicine”
Johan Trygg, Umeå University, Sweden

“On the Statistical Power of PLS using Product Indicators: A Clarification, Extension, and Cautionary Note”
Wynne W. Chin, University of Houston

More details at: www.pls09.org

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

ISBIS

ISBIS website (www.isbis.org)

The address of the official ISBIS website is www.isbis.org. This is the place to look for up-to-date information on the activities of ISBIS including a member-only zone with electronic access to the ASMBI-Journal, list of members, papers from past conferences and much more.
For further information on the website, or suggestions for its content, please contact Yves Grize (ISBIS President Elect) at: yves-laurent.grize@baloise.ch

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

ISBIS Membership

ISBIS membership is open to all individuals and organisations with a professional interest in any aspect of business, financial and industrial statistics. There are individual, institutional and student memberships. Details and application forms can be obtained from the ISBIS website (www.isbis.org) or contact Nicholas Fisher (nif@valuemetrics.com.au).

If you are already a member of the ISI and one of its Sections, you can add ISBIS to your membership for a small fee by sending an e-mail to Margaret de Ruiter-Molloy in the ISI Office (@cbs.nl).

You can now renew your ISBIS membership electronically by using the form on: http://isi.cbs.nl/intro-payment.htm.

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

ISBIS
Top

The International Environmetrics Society (TIES)

News from TIES

The 20^th Annual Conference of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES) was held in Bologna, Italy, from July 5-9, 2009. This was a joint meeting of TIES and GRASPA (Italian Group for environmental applications) reflecting their common interest in handling complexity and uncertainty in environmental data.

The TIES awards committee chaired by Peter Guttorp has selected to give the Abdel El-Shaarawi Young Researcher’s Award for 2009 to Sudipto Banerjee. This was presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting in Bologna.

A TIES North American Regional Meeting on “Measuring, Monitoring, and Modeling Environmental Resources” was held from June 15-17, 2009, in Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
For more information, see our website at www.environmetrics.org.

Announcements

Top

Home Page

Back to the content of this Newsletter

Previous Newsletters