JUNG JIN LEE REPORTS: 

In this issue we report on the list of the IASC Invited Paper meetings and their organisers for the ISI 2003 Session in Berlin. We also provide the IASC report on cosponsored conference and information on coming conferences. More detailed information can be found via the IASC homepage: 
http://www.stat.unipg.it/iasc. 

The List of IASC Invited Paper Sessions for ISI 2003 in Berlin 
Number represents the ISI 2003 Session invited paper meeting number. 

18. Bioinformatics Organiser: Elizabeth de Turckheim (France); 
19. Numerical methods in statistics including iterative methods for non-linear problems Organiser: James E. Gentle (U.S.A.); 
20. Spatial and temporal modelling by residual maximum likelihood Organiser: J Juritz (South Africa); 
21. Multivariate graphics and visualisation Organiser: to be announced; 
22. Open statistical systems Organiser: J. Hinde (Ireland); 
23. Data mining: visualisation, application and statistification Organiser: A. Wilhelm (Germany); 
24. Mixed and generalised linear mixed models (Bayesian and non-Bayesian approaches) Organiser: Y. Lee (Korea); 
25. Computer intensive methods for semiparametrics Organiser: L. Yang (US); 
26. Computational statistics in the environment sciences Organiser: Michael Schimek (Austria); 
62. Quantum statistical information Organiser: to be announced; 
64. Accessibility and availability of statistics through metadata (Joint IASC/IOAS meeting) Organiser: Andrew Westlake (U.K.); 

Report of the IASC Cosponsored Conference 

The 2^nd International Symposium on Partial Least Squares and Related Methods 
The 2^nd International Symposium on Partial Least Squares and Related Methods (PLS'01) took place in Anacapri (Italy) from October 1^st to 3^rd, 2001. This Symposium, after the first edition that took place in 1999 at Jouy-en-Josas (France), was jointly organised by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Naples, the HEC School of Management and the CISIA-CERESTA company. 

PLS'01 pursued the following objectives: 
1) developing state-of-the-art PLS methods, PLS approaches and any related methods; 
2) presenting a panorama of the most outstanding reference scientists connected to PLS; 
3) exploring numerous real applications of PLS in varying industry areas. 

The scientific programme of the Symposium was developed by the Steering Committee in co-operation with the Statistical Associations that scientifically co-sponsored the event: the International Federation of Classification Societies (represented by its President Jean Paul Rasson from the University of Namur in Belgium), the International Association for Statistical Computing (represented by the Chairman of its European Regional Section Gianfranco Galmacci from the University of Perugia), the ISI Committee on Statistics in Business and Industry (represented by Bovas Abraham from the University of Ontario in Canada) and by the Italian Statistical Society. 

The programme was comprised of 10 invited lectures and 29 contributed papers organised in 6 sessions on the following themes: New PLS-based Methods and Algorithms; Topics related to Multivariate Analysis; Validation, Variables Selection and Subspace Identification in PLS; Multi-Block PLS Methods; Issues in PLS Approach; PLS Industrial Applications. All lectures were delivered in plenary sessions. 

The invited lectures were given by:

• Svante Wold - "PCA and PLS with Very Large Data Sets"; 
• Bovas Abraham - "Dimensionality Reduction Approach to Multivariate Prediction"; 
• Michele Forina - "Weighting Predictors and Objects in PLS"; 
• Sijmen de Jong - "(Direct) Orthogonal Signal Correction: Com-parison of Old and New Algorithms"; 
• Harald Martens - "Multivariate Analysis of Quality"; 
• Garmt Dijksterhuis - "GP-PLSR: An Integrated Technique for Analysing Sensory Science Data"; 
• D.L. Massart - "Diagnostics for Application of PLS in Multivariate Calibration"; 
• Tormod Næs - "Optimised Score Plot by Principal Components of Predictions"; 
• Inge Helland - "Rotational Symmetry, Model Reduction and Optimality of Prediction from the PLS Population Model"; 
• Aloke Phatak - "PLS, Conjugate Gradients, and Lanczos Methods". 

PLS'01 has shown that PLS-based methods have now become a research topic of high interest for statisticians covering a very broad area of statistical methods, from regression to generalised linear models, from data analysis to causal and path modelling, with several theoretical and statistical properties being demonstrated. The Symposium succeeded in gathering all the most outstanding experts in PLS methods from industrial, business and academic worlds from all over the world. The different backgrounds of the lecturers ensured the treatment of the presented methods from different points of view so as to cover the methodological, computational and application issues. The PLS techniques were also compared to other methods and several applications to real data and industrial problems were shown.

 A selection of the most outstanding papers included in the Proceedings will be published in famous international journals according to their interests and their methodological, computational and/or application relevance. Special issues of the following journals have been planned: Italian Journal of Applied Statistics; Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems; Computational Statistics and Data Analysis. 

Attendance at PLS'01 included 39 participants coming from 19 different countries (almost all European countries were represented as well as distant countries such as Korea, U.S.A., Canada, Brasil, Australia, China, Pakistan and Nigeria) representing all continents and including people from the academic, industrial and private sectors operating in various fields. 

Several social events were organised during the Symposium (a welcoming cocktail, a guided excursion, visits to attractive sites, and a Gala Dinner on a boat). These events helped to create a pleasant atmosphere in which social and scientific exchanges took place. 

At the end of PLS'01, the organisation of PLS'03 in Portugal was announced. The chief organisers of PLS'03 will be Manuel Vilares and Pedro Coelho from the University of Lisbon. 

Upcoming IASC Conferences:

The 14^th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management
24^th-26^th July, 2002, 
http://www.ssdbm2002.ed.ac.uk 

The 14^th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management (SSDBM) 2002 will take place in Edinburgh, Scotland from 24^th-26^th July, 2002. 

This international conference will bring together scientific domain experts, databases researchers, practitioners and developers for the presentation and exchange of current research on concepts, tools and techniques for scientific and statistical database applications. The 14th SSDBM will provide a forum for original research contributions and practical system design, implementation and evaluation. This year the conference will focus on two priority themes, Bioinformatics (genomic and biodiversity informatics), and Statistical Metadata. The priority areas will be supplemented with tutorials, invited talks or panel sessions and illustrated with demonstrations of research prototypes and industrial systems. SSDBM 2002 will continue the tradition of past SSDBM meetings in providing a stimulating environment to encourage discussion, fellowship and exchange of ideas in all aspects of research related to scientific and statistical database management. 

Topics: Research papers discussing database issues of Bioinformatics and Statistical Metadata are particularly welcome, however original research papers on any area related to scientific and statistical database management are also invited. Topics include: Conceptual models, Data Integration, System architectures, Metadata management, Query Optimisation, Data and Knowledge Management, Visualisation, Knowledge discovery and Data mining, Multimedia data management, Data warehouses and Spatio-temporal data. Case studies of SSDBM applications, Demonstrations and short papers for poster sessions are also invited.

Venue: Conference and Training Centre, Edinburgh University, South College Street , Edinburgh, Scotland. 
Travel: The conference Centre is situated in the centre of the beautiful and historic city of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is easily reached by air directly or via major European and British cities. 

The Compstat 2002 Conference in Berlin 
24^th - 28^th August 2002 

The 15^th IASC Compstat Conference will take place in Berlin, the capital of Germany from August 24^th to 28^th 2002. The meeting is organised by the Institute for Statistics and Econometrics ( http://ise.wiwi.hu-berlin.de ) of the School of Business and Economics of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and will be held in the main building of Humboldt Universität, situated in the boulevard "Unter den Linden" which is lined with many impressive buildings and monuments, in the historical center of Berlin. 

The welcome reception of the conference will take place in the "Sauriersaal" dinosaur hall of the world-famous Museum of Natural History. As a part of the University it displays unique artifacts such as the worlds biggest dinosaur skeleton (24m long). 

Berlin is a city with a most eventful history, even by European standards. Berlin's most important monument, the Brandenburg Gate, witnessed not only the parades of Napoleon, the German emperors and the Nazis but also the festival of reunification. 

The remains of the Wall and Checkpoint Charlie symbolize the time when divided Berlin was a focal point of the Cold War and depended on the airlift. Today, Berlin is a vibrant, multicultural and cosmopolitan metropolis - one should definitely spend some time sightseeing. Therefore, Compstat offers as part of its social programme an excellent boat tour through Berlin, followed by a gala dinner.

 Humboldt University, founded in 1810, is an integral part of this history. The concepts of Wilhelm von Humboldt - that teaching and research should be done "in unity" and students should obtain a broad liberal arts education - were later adopted by many other Universities. Since 1900 it belongs to the world's leading universities, with 29 Nobel prizes being awarded to its faculty members. The School of Business and Economics - which will host the meeting - has been very successful in attracting guests, participants and students as well as research grants for the Compstat 2002 conference. So far the Scientific Programme Committee has selected 270 papers for presentation, and nearly 600 registrations from over 40 countries were received. The purpose of Compstat is to provide a forum to exchange ideas, experiences and information about the latest developments in Computational Statistics, including links between statistical theory and applied statistics. The conference will cover all aspects from implementation of new statistical ideas through to user experience and software evaluation. 

The main topics are: 

1. Computational Finance; 
2. Statistics of E-commerce; 
3. Mining Very Large Statistical Databases; 
4. Complex Data Structures in the Biosciences; 
5. Net based Statistics. 

Papers for the following topics will be presented: 

• Statistical Risk Management; 
• Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods; 
• Marketing Simulations; 
• Statistics of E-Commerce; 
• New Strategies of Teaching (Multimedia, Internet); 
• Computerbased Sampling/Questionaires; 
• Analysis of large databases (with emphasis on computing in memory); 
• Distributed Computing; 
• Graphical tools for data analysis; 
• Client-Server concepts; 
• Process control; 
• Classification and clustering; 
• New Statistical Software; 
• Historical development of software; 
• Integrated Statistical Documents; 
• Multivariate Analysis; 
• Dimension Reduction; 
• Sparse Data Sets; 
• Dynamic Factor Models for Time Series; 
• Topics connected with Economics (model choice with many variables); 
• Marketing mix problems (supermarket data, scanner data); 
• Robust Analysis; 
• Spatial Modelling; 
• Generalized Linear Modelling; 
• Design of experiments; 
• Modern interfaces for statistical databases. 

Furthermore we are proud to present you another two highlights of the conference, the XML-course and the Research conference on Computational Finance. 

The XML-course will provide an introduction to the concepts and languages that stand behind the eXtensible Markup Language. It will show, how XML works, how a serverside usage can be implemented and what the advantages of this technology are in comparison to other standards. Example implementations will go into details of XML usage. They will demonstrate how XML technology can be used for applications in the field of computational statistics. 

The Research conference on Computational Finance is organised in co-operation with the German National Research Centre for Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes Sonderforschungsbereich 373 (http://sfb.wiwi.hu-berlin.de) and will provide a further close link between these two fields of science.

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