ISI - International Statistical Institute Newsletter Volume 28, No. 3 (84) 2004 - Sections
Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability
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Editorial Address | Enno Mammen, Department of Economics, University of Mannheim, L 7, 3-5, 68131 Mannheim, Germany Tel: +49-621-181 1927 E-mail: emammen@rumms.uni-mannheim.de |
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| President | Donald A. Dawson, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive Ottawa, Canada, K1S 5B6 E-mail: ddawson@math.carleton.ca Tel: +1 613 520-2600 x2147 – Fax: +1 613 520-3822 |
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| Website | http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli For information, see also the website of Bernoulli News at http://isi.cbs.nl/bnews/index.html |
| Launch of the Committee for Stochastic Sciences Institutes |
| Increased Cooperation with the IMS |
| Upcoming Meetings |
This Contribution was edited by Enno Mammen, Outgoing Scientific Secretary of BS
Editorial
This edition contains a report from the President of the Bernoulli Society, Donald A. Dawson, and announcements of upcoming scientific meetings sponsored or co-organised by BS. For more information, see also the electronic version of Bernoulli News:
http://isi.cbs.nl/bnews/index.html .
At the Bernoulli Society World Congress last July in Barcelona, there were several administrative meetings of the Bernoulli Society. At the General Assembly, Bernoulli Society President Don Dawson gave the following report.
President´s Report
There are a number of developments that have taken place since the General Assembly in August 2003.
New Appointments: Peter McCullagh took over as Editor of Bernoulli at the beginning of January 2004.
New Committee Chairpersons:
Publications: Willem van Zwet
C(PS)2: Committee Chair is Wojbor Woyczynski ( waw@po.cwru.edu
), Chair-Elect is Peter Guttorp ( peter@stat.berkeley.edu
)
LARC: Pablo Ferrari
ERC: Marie Huskova
On behalf of the Executive Committee, I would also like to thank the Chairs of our other Committees:
EARC: Tim Brown
CCSP: Ed Waymire
Launch of the Committee for Stochastic Sciences Institutes
This new Committee, which was created at the Berlin Session, is chaired by Frank den Hollander. To a large extent, the scientific societies such as the Bernoulli Society and the growing number of research institutes in the statistical and mathematical sciences play complementary roles for our community. The purpose of this Committee is to explore ways in which these two types of institutions can support each other and develop modes of cooperation.
Website
The Bernoulli website is now hosted by Statistics Netherlands together with the ISI website. Bernoulli News and a list of members are now available online.
Bernoulli Top
Increased Cooperation with the IMS
In view of the success of the joint World Congress - IMS Annual Meetings held every four years, the Executives of the two Societies have discussed ways of expanding our cooperation. A number of areas have been discussed and some concrete steps have already been taken in this direction:
The Bernoulli Society Committee for Conferences in Stochastic Processes has agreed with the IMS Program Committee to include up to two Medallion lectures at the annual SPA Conferences beginning in 2005. The Bernoulli and IMS administrative offices are exploring the possibility of a joint online membership list. The two Societies are exploring possibilities for cooperation in publications. As an important step in this direction, the Bernoulli Society has agreed to jointly publish with IMS the new electronic survey journal Probability Surveys. At its meeting, the Council approved the following reciprocal membership agreement with the IMS. The Bernoulli Society will grant an annual fee reduction of 25% to Bernoulli Society members who pay regular fees and are also members of the IMS with the understanding that the IMS will introduce the same fee reduction in the IMS fees for these members. (This agreement does not include joint BS-ISI members. The possibility of extending this to joint BS-ISI members is under discussion with the ISI.)
Publications
Bernoulli, Stochastic Processes and their Applications: Both journals are doing well. Peter McCullagh took over from Willem van Zwet as Editor of Bernoulli at the beginning of January 2004. Philipp Protter is Editor of SPA since 2002. The submissions at both journals have been changed to an electronic submission system. The current contract with Elsevier for SPA is subject to renewal in June 2005.
Project Euclid: Bernoulli is now online with Project Euclid. All registered Bernoulli Society members receive the electronic version without cost.
arXiv for Statistics: Richard Gill, who was asked by the Council in Berlin to work with the IMS on this, reports that the eprint archive at arxiv.org now covers both probability under math.PR and statistics under math.ST.
Probability Surveys: The Bernoulli Council approved the recommendation to sponsor and co-publish the new electronic survey journal Probability Surveys, initiated and edited by David Aldous, Jim Pitman and Marc Yor. This journal will be open access and will serve as an important step of open access online publications in probability and statisics.
Bernoulli News: The Editor, Rodney Wolff, invites all members to make
contributions to the next issue of Bernoulli News. If there are any news items
of interest, for example, awards to Bernoulli Society members or special
activities in your area or region, please forward them to Rodney Wolff.
Membership
The membership at the end of 2003 was 1,241. In view of the decrease, the Executive is considering ways to attract new members. At its Berlin Session meeting, the Council approved the special offer of a 50% reduction in the membership fee for the first year of membership. Also, during the first part of 2004, members of the Executive Committee contacted potential members by a variety of means and this has resulted in the recruitment of a number of new members. Ideas on ways to attract the young generation of probabilists and statisticians who are entering the profession are solicited.
ISI 2005 – Sydney
The Bernoulli Society contribution to the program of ISI 2005 has been organized by our Program Committee chaired by Leopold Simar.
World Congress 2008
An advertisement inviting expressions of interest in organizing the 2008 joint World Congress and IMS Annual Meeting has appeared in Bernoulli News and on the Bernoulli Society website. We are pleased that Professor Louis Chen has indicated that he and his colleagues at the National University of Singapore would be interested in organizing the joint Meeting. As President-Elect of the IMS and former President of the Bernoulli Society, Louis Chen is well placed to lead this and he has indicated that the Institute for Mathematical Sciences and the Department of Statistics and Applied Probability of the National University of Singapore would also join efforts in this endeavor. No other expressions of interest have been received and the Bernoulli Society Council is supportive of this proposal. The proposal has also been forwarded to IMS President Terry Speed, who also forwarded it for consideration by the IMS Program Committee.
Expression of Thanks:
The term of Enno Mammen as Scientific Secretary ended during this Meeting and the term of our current Treasurer, Mathisca de Gunst, will end at the end of December 2004. I would like to take this opportunity to express on behalf of all members of the Bernoulli Society our profound appreciation for the dedication and hard work that they did over the past four years.
On recommendation of the Executive Committee, Professor Arnoldo Frigessi, University of Oslo, has been appointed by the Council as the new Scientific Secretary for a 4-year term beginning in 2004. Professor Frigessi is currently the Chair of the Local Organizing Committee for the
25th European Meeting of Statisticians (2005). His research interests include statistical genomics, Markov random fields, MCMC and Bayesian modeling.
Professor Ursula Gather, University of Dortmund, has been appointed by the Council as Treasurer for a 4-year term beginning January 2005. Professor Gather is a member of the Program Committee for the EMS 2005. She is speaker of a Special Research Project (SFB) on Statistics of the German Science Foundation. Her research interests include robust statistics, quality control and industrial statistics.
Don Dawson
Bernoulli Society President
Bernoulli Top
Upcoming Meetings
XII Congreso Latino Iberoamericano de Investigación de Operaciones (CLAIO): 4-8 October 2004
This Conference will be held at the Hotel Habana Libre Tryp, Sol Meliá. It will be a meeting of interest to statisticians, covering topics such as Quality Control, Stochastic Processes, Forecast Methods, Logistic Applications, Transport and Distribution of Resources, Graphs and Inventories, Vehicle Routing, Applications of the Investigation of Operations to Biology and Medicine, Biometry, Ecological Games, Bioinformatics. For further details of the meeting, please see
www.matcom.uh.cu/root/investigacion/eventos/claio.
Séminaire Européen de Statistique (SemStat): 12-19 December 2004
The next SemStat on Statistics of Spatio-temporal Systems will be held on 12-19 December 2004 in Höhenried, near Munich, Germany, financed through a successful bid of the European Mathematical Society (EMS) to the 6th framework programme of the European Commission. This event is held under the auspices of the Department of Statistics of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, with additional financial support from the German Science Foundation through the SFB 386.
The meeting takes place in the beautiful surroundings of Schloss Höhenried at Lake Starnberg, approximately 40 minutes by train from Munich. For further details, see
www.schloss-hoehenried.de.
The following scientists have so far agreed to give invited lectures at this meeting:
*Ulf Dieckmann (IIASA Laxenburg, Austria)
*Peter Diggle (Lancaster, UK)
*David Higdon (Los Alamos, US)
*Valerie Isham and Richard Chandler (London, UK)
*Eva Vedel Jensen (Aalborg, Denmark)
*Montserrat Fuentes (Raleigh, US)
*Richard Law (York, UK).
Applications are now invited from Ph.D students and postdocs from EU countries to participate in this exciting event. The deadline is 30 September 2004.
Please visit the Semstat website at www.stat.uni-muenchen.de/semstat2004/
for further information.
School on Information and Randomness: 13-17 December 2004
This school will be held at the Center for Mathematical Modeling, Universidad de Chile.
Courses will be delivered by Chris Burdzy (Washington), Bernard Host (Marne-la-Vallée), Chris Hoffman (Washington) and Heinrich Matzinger (Bielefeld and Georgia Institute of Technology). The Organisers are Alejandro Maass, Servet Martinez and Jaime San Martin.
For information, contact Gladys Cavallone gladys@dim.uchile.cl
International Conference on the Future of Statistical Theory, Practice and Education: 29 December 2004-1 January 2005
This Conference will be held at the Birla Science Museum, Hyderabad, India, across the New Year: 29 December 2004 -
1 January 2005. For more information, please contact C.R. Rao (Penn State) ( crr1@psu.edu
), N. Balakrishnan (McMaster) ( bala@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca
), N. Kannan (Texas, San Antonio) ( nkannan@utsa.edu
), H.N. Nagaraja (Ohio State) ( hnn@stat.ohio-state.edu
) or Dipak Dey (Connecticut) ( dey@merlot.stat.uconn.edu
).
2nd Latin American Congress on Bayesian Statistics (COBAL 2): 6-10 February 2005
Following up on the success of COBAL1, the Second Latin American Congress on Bayesian Statistics (COBAL 2) will be held 6-10 February 2005 at Hotel Presidente Intercontinental "Los Cabos", in San Jose del Cabo, Baja California, Mexico. This meeting will consist of invited talks and poster sessions. More details on the programme, registration fees and lodging costs will be available soon on the following website
www.dpye.iimas.unam.mx/cobal2/
. For more information, please send an e-mail to cobal2@sigma.iimas.unam.mx
.
30th Conference on Stochastic Processes and Their Applications: 26 June-1 July 2005
This meeting will be held in Santa Barbara, California, USA, 26 June-1 July 2005. For further information, please see the website
www.pstat.ucsb.edu/projects/spa05/
.
25th European Meeting of Statisticians: 24-28 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 has just been announced, as is detailed below. 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 or otherwise, who do not wish to stay in a more conventional hotel. We currently estimate the on-campus accommodation to cost circa €200 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 as well. In summary, we aim 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 meetings? Would you be interested in joining a small group planning this activity? Please e-mail us at
frigessi@nr.no if so.
Expected arrival of participants is Saturday, 23 July 2005. The meeting starts on Sunday, 24 July 2005, 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, 28 July 2005. 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, and Eurandom) and the Local Organising Committee includes Arnoldo Frigessi (Norwegian Computing Centre, and Oslo), Chair, and Nils L. Hjort (Oslo), Deputy Chair.
Keynote addresses will be given as follows:
*David Donoho (Forum Lecture)
*Yuval Peres (Opening Lecture)
*Odd Aalen (Closing Lecture)
*Jean Bertoin (Special Invited Lecture)
*Wilfrid Kendall (Special Invited Lecture)
*Neil Shepard (Special Invited Lecture)
*Laurie Davies (Special Invited Lecture)
*Keith Worsley (Special Invited Lecture).
The Invited Sessions and Organisers are as follows:
*Strategies for Analysing Complex Event History Data (Robin Hendersson)
*Dynamic Treatment Regimes and Causal Inference (Susan Murphy)
*Statistics for Animal Populations (Steve Brooks)
*Geostatistical Modelling and Inference (Leonhard Held)
*Statistical Challenges in Genomics (Mark Van der Laan)
*Statistical Genetics (Simon Tavare)
*Non- and Semi-parametrics Bayes Methods (Sonia Petrone)
*Statistics and Machine Learning (Gabor Lugosi)
*Statistics in High Dimensions (Vladimir Spokoiny)
*Model Selection, Model Building (Hans Künsch)
*Financial Statistics (Michael Sørensen)
*Time Series (Daniel Pena)
*Methodology for Hierarchical Models (Christian Robert)
*MCMC (Jun Liu)
*Signal Processing and Image Reconstruction (Havard Rue)
*New Directions in Robust Statistics (Xuming He)
*Statistical Algorithms (Jaromir Antoch)
*Random Walks and Lévy Processes (Zhan Shi)
*Random Matrices and Related Topics (Ofer Zeitouni)
*Interacting Particle Systems (Olle Häggstrom)
*Continuous Limits of Discrete Models and the Stochastic Loewner Evolution
*Analysis of Stochastic Functionals (Marc Yor)
*Stochastic Geometry and Telecommunication Modelling (Francois Baccelli)
*Applied Probability and Queues.
In addition, there will be an invited discussion session on Statistical Software.
See the web page www.ems2005.no/.
IMS Annual Meeting/Joint Statistical Meetings, 7-11 August 2005, Minneapolis, Minnesota
9th International Vilnius Conference on Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics: 25-30 June 2006
This Conference will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 25-30 June 2006, under the auspices of the International Statistical Institute. For more information, contact Aleksandras Plikusas
( conf@ktl.mii.lt ) at the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Akademijos str. 4, 08663, Vilnius, Lithuania, or visit
www.science.mii.lt/vilconf9/.
26th European Meeting of Statisticians, 24-28 July 2006, Thorun, Poland
Herold Dehling is chairing the Scientific Programme Committee. The Chairman of the Local Organising Committee is Adam Jakubowski.
Joint Statistical Meeting, 6-10 August 2006, Seattle, Washington
Bernoulli
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Editorial Address | Vice-President: Rob Edwards,
Director, Statistics Department, International Monetary Fund Tel: +1 202 623 8640 - Fax: +1 202 623 6460 E-mail: redwards@imf.org |
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| President | Heli Jeskanen-Sundström, Statistics Finland, FIN-00022 Statistics Finland, Finland
Tel: +358 9 1734 3389 – Fax: +358 9 1734 2442 E-mail: heli.jeskanen-sundstrom@stat.fi |
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| Website |
http://tilastokeskus.fi/iaos |
Rob Edwards Reports:
Officers for the period 2003-2005 are:
President: Heli Jeskanen-Sundström (Finland)
Vice-Presidents:
Hermann Habermann (USA)
Ida Stamhuis (The Netherlands)
Hussein Shakhatreh (Jordan)
Pali Lehola (South Africa)
Rob Edwards (Australia)
SCORUS Representative: Derek Bond (United Kingdom)
Treasurer: Daniel Berze (Director of the ISI)
IAOS Website
Readers are encouraged to visit the IAOS website at
http://tilastokeskus.fi/iaos
for the latest information on IAOS activities. The website is regularly updated. Comments or suggestions for improving the website can be sent to
iaos.webmaster@stat.fi.
IAOS/IASS Conference on Poverty, Social Exclusion and Development: A Statistical
Perspective, Amman, Jordan, 29 November to 1 December 2004
Dr. Hussein Shakhatreh, Director General of Statistics at the Department of Statistics in Jordan, extends an invitation to all statisticians and concerned bodies to attend the IAOS-IASS Conference on “Poverty, Social Exclusion and Development: A Statistical Perspective”, to be held in Amman, Jordan, from November 29 to December 1, 2004.
The Conference will aim to illuminate prospects to develop, analyse and assess definitions and methodological approaches to the measurement of poverty and poverty alleviation. The three-day event will also include thematic discussions targeted at young statisticians and will be followed by an additional Pan-Arab meeting the next day.
The National Organising Committee, formed for the purpose of the Conference, has prepared a delightful program to ensure that your stay is productive, diverse and an engaging experience, which will allow participants to explore Jordan’s rich cultural heritage and spectacular ancient sites.
Scientific Meetings will revolve around the following themes:
1. Definitions and Approaches to the Measurement of Poverty: Proposed Meetings:
Different Dimensions of Poverty (I)
Different Dimensions of Poverty (II)
Approaches of international organizations (I)
Approaches of international organizations (II)
2. Poverty Statistics (Sources, Tools, Results,..): Proposed Meetings:
Local statistics, regional statistics and poverty; rural poverty tools
Tools;
Specific aspects of poverty: gender, youth, health, ethnic groups;
International comparisons of poverty;
Images of poverty in:
1. Developed countries
2. Emerging countries
3. Transitional countries
4. Developing countries
3. Limits and Uncertainties of Statistics; Social Exclusion
Limits and gaps of social statistics: in developing countries, in developed countries;
Excluded and underclass populations;
Non-market economy and poverty;
Poverty analysis through anthropologists and sociologists approaches.
4. Information Systems on Poverty and Social Exclusion; Poverty and Development Policies
Information systems for poverty follow up;
Poverty and economic and social policies (I);
Poverty and economic and social policies (II);
To view further information on Topics of Invited and Contributed Papers Meetings, please visit
http://db/iaos/iaos/links1.htm.
IAOSTopIAOS Programme for the 55th ISI
Session, Sydney, Australia, 5 to 12 April 2005
IAOS Programme Committee Chairperson Fred Ho reports that the Organisers for the Invited Paper Meetings (IPMs) have been appointed as below:
(IPM 27) IAOS FORUM: New social and economic indicators for local areas without increasing respondent burden
ORGANISER: Hermann Habermann (USA)
hermann.habermann@census.gov
US Census Bureau
(IPM 28) Impact of the "international indicators of development" movement on national statistical programme priorities
ORGANISER: Ada van Krimpen (The Netherlands)
@cbs.nl
Statistics Netherlands
(IPM 29) Statistical measurement issues requiring collaboration among NSOs
ORGANISER: Richard Barnabé (Canada)
richard.barnabe@statcan.ca
Statistics Canada
(IPM 30) Statistics on International Migration
ORGANISER: Brian Pink (New Zealand)
brian.pink@stats.govt.nz
Statistics New Zealand
(IPM 31) The role of official statistics in innovation, knowledge management and development of the new economy
ORGANISER: Shigeru Kawasaki (Japan)
skawasaki@stat.go.jp
Statistics Bureau of Japan
(IPM 32) The regional and urban dimension of official statistics: small area statistics and data of particular relevance to regional and urban planning
ORGANISER: Derek Bond (UK)
d.bond@ulst.ac.uk
University of Ulster, U.K.
(IPM 33) Standards for regional and urban indicators
ORGANISER: Rosa Giaimo (Italy)
giaimo@unipa.it
University of Palermo, Italy
(IPM 34) Asian Statistical Forum: Official Statistics in the Asia Pacific Region - New Challenges and intra-regional cooperation
ORGANISER: Nailin Feng (China)
nlfeng@stats.gov.cn
National Bureau of Statistics, China
Several other IPMs are managed jointly by the IAOS and other ISI Sections; Organisers have also been appointed:
(IPM 35) Response burden and public cooperation in statistical surveys (with IASS)
ORGANISER: Luigi Biggeri
biggeri@istat.it
ISTAT, Italy
(IPM 51) Promotion of statistical literacy among students (with IASE)
ORGANISER: Pilar Martín-Guzmán (Spain)
pilar.guzman@uam.es
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
(IPM 63) Educating the media on how best to report statistics (with IASE and IASS)
ORGANISER: Jacob Ryten (Canada)
rytenjacob@msn.com
(IPM 85) The development of quarterly national accounts by institutional sector (with Finance)
ORGANISER: Richard Walton (UK)
richard.walton@bankofengland.co.uk
Bank of England, U.K.
Organisers are now in the process of inviting authors and fixing the titles and contents of the papers. Discussants are also being invited. Much of this work has already proceeded to an advanced stage.
Members of the ISI and its Sections, as well as other interested parties, may wish to note the themes of the IPMs and should feel free to let their wishes be known to the Organisers with regard to the subject matter contents and emphases of the IPMs. This should contribute to the richness of the IPMs.
IAOSTopPrize for Best Paper for Young Official Statisticians
Please communicate this announcement to all potential interested persons and institutions.
To encourage more young official statisticians to take an active interest in the activities of the IAOS, the Executive Committee has set up a biannual prize for the best paper in the field of official statistics written by young official statisticians.
Prize:
Author(s) of the best paper will be given an economy return air fare, hotel accommodation and an allowance to attend the next upcoming ISI Session in Sydney, 5-12 April 2005. If they are not yet an IAOS member, their membership will be paid for the next two years.
Conditions:
There is no restriction with respect to the topic. The paper may not exceed ten pages. The paper will be judged by an international panel with the Vice-Presidents Pali Lehohla as the Chair and Ida Stamhuis as a member. Other members are IAOS IPM Organisers. The adjudication panel for the Prize will make their recommendations of the best paper based on:
• Scientific merit;
• Originality;
• Applicability of ideas in statistical offices; and
• Quality of the exposition.
The decision of the panel will be final.
Other Conditions:
To be eligible, you must be:
• under the age of 40 on 1 January 2005;
• employed by an official statistics agency; and
• prepared to travel to Sydney in April 2005 to present the paper.
Submission of papers for the 2005 Prize is now called. If you are interested, please send your paper, preferably in MSWord format, to Ida Stamhuis at
stamhuis@few.vu.nl . If you have questions, you can contact her. The deadline for the submission is 6 December 2004.
The winner will be announced by the end of February 2005 and will have the opportunity to present the paper in one of the IAOS meetings at the 55th ISI Session.
IAOS Satellite Meetings during the 2005 Sydney ISI Session
Preparations are ongoing to organise two IAOS Satellite Meetings during the 2005 Sydney ISI Session. New Caledonia will host a Satellite Meeting before the ISI Session on the topic "Statistical Issues for Small Countries (Especially Island Nations)". This will be held in Nouméa between 31 March-2 April 2005. The second meeting will be held after the ISI Session in New Zealand and it will be hosted by Statistics New Zealand. The topic is "Challenges in Measuring Small and Indigenous Populations". More information on both meetings follows, and can also be obtained from the IAOS website.
Satellite Meeting on "Statistical Issues for Small Countries (Especially Island Nations)", Nouméa, New Caledonia, 31 March to 2 April 2005
A satellite meeting will be held in Nouméa from 31 March to 2 April 2005 on the theme of statistical issues specific to islands and small countries, in conjunction with the ISI Session that will take place in Sydney from 5 to 12 April 2005. Why not come to Nouméa on your way to Sydney!
This is a good opportunity to repeat the experience of the Macau Satellite Meeting of 1990, held in conjunction with the 2nd IAOS Independent Conference in Beijing. The Organisers {the New Caledonia Institute of Statistics and Economic Surveys (ISEE), the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS)} remembered the success of that Satellite Meeting and have set themselves the goal of renewing this experience 15 years later.
Nouméa, located less than three hours by plane from Sydney, is the ideal venue for holding such a meeting. The capital of New Caledonia, a small French territory of some 250,000 inhabitants, Nouméa hosts the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, most of whose members are small island countries. The SPC’s Conference Centre is a modern but friendly venue, ideally located at the seaside on one of Nouméa’s prettiest bays, close to the city’s hotels and restaurants.
This Satellite Meeting will inevitably interest a wide audience. It will provide an opportunity for ISI members from islands or small economies throughout the world (Pacific, Indian Ocean, Caribbean, Mediterranean, Asia, etc.) and to official statisticians as a whole to discuss problems that concern many countries. It will also be an opportunity to discover New Caledonia, a multicultural sub-tropical country blending Melanesian and French culture in the Pacific Ocean.
A brochure will be mailed to all IAOS members and to heads of National Statistical Offices in mid-September containing registration details for the Meeting and calling for expressions of interest in contributing papers. A website for the Meeting will be established shortly. Further details about the Meeting or requests for a copy of the brochure can also be obtained by e mail to:
IAOS2005@spc.int.
Nouméa is well serviced by a number of airlines with:
7 weekly flights to Tokyo, Japan, with direct connections to Paris
2 weekly flights to Osaka, Japan, with direct connections to Paris
9 weekly flights to Sydney, Australia
3 weekly flights to Brisbane, Australia
4 weekly flights to Auckland, New Zealand
2 weekly flights to Nadi, Fiji
5 weekly flights to Port Vila, Vanuatu
1 weekly flight to Papeete, French Polynesia
It is very easy to make connections to European countries and North America via Japan, Australia or New Zealand.
In December 2004, those people who have submitted the expression of interest form will receive a detailed meeting programme and practical information about final hotel reservations and payment of the registration fees.
We hope to see you soon in Nouméa.
Scientific programme
Thursday Afternoon, 31 March
Registration
Software demonstrations
Poster sessions
5 p.m.: Opening ceremony
Friday Morning, 1 April
Session 1: Millennium Development Goals – their role in and relevancy to developing statistical skills in small countries and islands
Friday Afternoon, 1 April
Session 2: Technologies for small countries
Saturday Morning, 2 April, Sessions 3 & 4 (concurrent)
Session 3: The role of international standards in small countries
Session 4: Sample surveys and estimation techniques for small countries
Conclusions and closing session
IAOSTopSatellite Meeting on "Challenges in Measuring Small and Indigenous Populations", Wellington, New Zealand, 14 to 15 April 2005
Statistics New Zealand will be hosting an IAOS Satellite Meeting on “Challenges in Measuring Small and Indigenous Populations” in Wellington, New Zealand, on 14-15 April 2005. As this conference is being held immediately after the ISI Session in Sydney (5-12 April 2005), it provides a good opportunity for the ISI delegates to also attend this Satellite Meeting. Sydney is less than a three-hour flight from Wellington. The Meeting will be held in Te Papa Tongarewa/Museum of New Zealand, which is a high-quality conference venue, situated close to all facilities, and right on the Wellington waterfront.
While the main focus is on methodological issues, the Conference will be of direct interest to economic and social researchers, as the theme encompasses the challenges of measuring small domains in economic, social and population statistics. Among the themes likely to be covered by the Satellite Meeting are: statistical methods used to collect information in censuses or other large-scale surveys; measurement and improvement of data quality; the derivation of indicators on indigenous populations, communities or subnational areas; statistical use of administrative data sources; experience with data integration initiatives; small area estimation; other new developments in satisfying the growing demand for disaggregated statistical measures.
The Conference programme will consist of three keynote plenary sessions and an array of concurrent sessions on technical and substantive issues related to the Conference theme. The registration fee for the two-day Satellite Meeting is NZ$ 350.00 (including GST), but to encourage participation of students, the registration fee for full-time students is just NZ$ 50.00. The registration fee includes morning and afternoon teas, and lunches on 14-15 April, and pre-Conference reception on 13 April. A Conference dinner is planned for Thursday, 14 April 2005 (estimated cost - NZ$ 80.00).
The Conference Organisers are inviting 'expressions of interest' from prospective authors of papers. The last date for submission of abstracts is 29 October 2004. An ‘Expression of Interest’ form, a formal registration form, and other information for Conference delegates are available on the website http://www.stats.govt.nz/ISIsatellitemeeting.
If you are interested in presenting a paper, please contact the Conference Organisers. All enquiries should be addressed to:
Mansoor Khawaja, Chief Demographer, Statistics New Zealand, Private Bag 4741, Christchurch, New Zealand;
E-mail: ISIsatellite@stats.govt.nz
; Phone: +64 3 964 8794.
IAOS Nominations Committee
The IAOS Nominations Committee is Chaired by Hallgrimur Snorrasson (Iceland). The Committee's task is to propose nominations for the 2005-2007 Executive Committee of the IAOS.
IAOS Programme Committee for the ISI 2007 Session
The members of the IAOS Programme Committee for the 56th ISI Session (Lisbon, Portugal, August 22-29, 2007) are listed below. All IAOS members are invited to submit proposals for suitable topics and organizers to a member of the Programme Committee by December 3, 2004. Proposals dealing with topics not dealt with during the previous ISI Sessions will be given special attention.
Richard Barnabé (Chairperson)
Assistant Chief Statistician/Statisticien en chef adjoint
Social, Institutions & Labour Statistics/Statistique sociale, des institutions et du travail
Statistics Canada/Statistique Canada
R.H. Coats - 26-M
Tunney's Pasture/pré Tunney
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0T6
Canada
+1-613-951-6088
+1-613-951-0556 (fax/télécopieur)
E-mail: barnric@statcan.ca
Mary Chamie
Chief, Demographic and Social Statistics Branch
United Nations Statistics Division
2 United Nations Plaza
Room DC2-1554
New York, New York 10017
United States of America
+1-212-963-4869
+1-212-963-1940 (fax/télécopieur)
E-mail: mchamie@un.org
Michel Euriat
Chef de l’unité Répertoire et Démographie des Entreprises
INSEE
Timbre E101
18 Bd A. Pinard
75675 Paris
Cedex 14
France
+33-1-41175063
+33-1-41176327 (fax/télécopieur)
E-mail: michel.euriat@insee.fr
Feng Nailin
Director General
Department of International Cooperation
National Bureau of Statistics
75 Yuetan Nanjie
Xichenggu
Beijing 100826
China
+86-10-6857-6357
+86-10-6857-6354 (fax/télécopieur)
E-mail: nlfeng@stats.gov.cn
Jan Fischer
President
Czech Statistical Office
Na padesatem 81
100 82 PRAGUE 10
Czech Republic
+420-2-74052411
+420-2-74052133 (fax/télécopieur)
E-mail: fischer@gw.czso.cz
Dominic Leung (SCORUS representative)
Census and Statistics Department
21/F, Wanchai Tower
12 Harbour Road
Wan Chai
Hong Kong, China
+852-25824997
+852-28241003 (fax/télécopieur)
E-mail: dktleung@censtatd.gov.hk
Rosemary Marcuss
Deputy-Director
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Department of Commerce
1441 L Street N.W. Suite 6005
Washington, D.C. 20230
United States of America
+1-202-606-9602
+1-202-606-5311 (fax/télécopieur)
E-mail: rosemary.marcuss@bea.doc.gov
Maximo Aguilera Reyes
Director Nacional
Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas
Casilla 498-3
Santiago, Chile
+56-2-366-7777
+56-2-671-2169 (fax/télécopieur)
E-mail: asistente.direccion@ine.cl
Other Matters
Comments and suggestions on revitalising the IAOS continue to be actively encouraged and can be sent to:
IAOS President: Heli Jeskanen-Sundström at Heli.Jeskanen-Sundstrom@stat.fi
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IAOSTop
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Submitted by: Wendy Thomas Standing Committee on Regional and Urban Statistics SCORUS met in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2004 with representatives from 19 countries. The Conference “The Biennial Conference on Regional and Urban Statistics: Understanding Change” was sponsored by the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota. Abstracts of the session’s presentations can be found at http://www.pop.umn.edu/scorus/abstracts.pdf
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This Conference differed from previous conferences by focusing on involving all participants in discussions on the various session topics. The collegial atmosphere of the Conference was enhanced by the relaxed setting of the Roy Wilkins Room at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which encouraged small group discussion as well as in-depth exchanges of information and ideas following each session. The closing session pulled these discussions together, exploring the role of SCORUS, its mission and future activities. A number of exciting initiatives began in earnest during this session, including the development of a draft mission statement for SCORUS, new regional groups to expand local cooperation and involvement, and the official launching of the SCORUS website “The International Network for Regional and Urban Statistics”.
SCORUS members are currently involved in finalizing the new mission statement and task list, as well as preparing for several upcoming conferences. We are also exploring ways to expand our connections with China and the possibility of creating a Chinese version of the website.
Upcoming Conference Involvement:
IAOS/IASS 2004, “Poverty, Social Exclusion and Development: A Statistical Perspective”, in Amman, Jordan, 29 November-1 December 2004:
Local Statistics, Regional Statistics and Poverty; Rural Poverty
International Comparisons of Poverty
55th Session of the ISI, Sydney, Australia, 5-12 April 2005
Standards for Regional and Urban Indicators
Regional and Urban Dimension of Official Statistics: Small Area Statistics and Data of Particular Relevance to Regional and Urban Planning
The 2005 Berlin Meeting will take place in January at the Hunting Lodge of Glienicke.
A special meeting focusing on Urban and Regional Indicators in Amsterdam is scheduled for September 2005
25th SCORUS Conference will be held in Wroclaw, Poland, in 2006.
For complete up-to-date information or to participate in topical discussions, please visit our website
http://www.scorusnet.com .
IAOS
International Association for Statistical Education
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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@lsbu.ac.uk |
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| President | Chris Wild, Department of Statistics & Mathematics, Education Unit, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. Tel: +649 373 7599, Fax: +649 373 7018 E-mail: c.wild@auckland.ac.nz http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/showperson.php?firstname=Chris&surname=Wild |
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| Website | http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/ ; http://isi.cbs.nl/iase.htm |
FORTHCOMING IASE ACTIVITIES
Statistical Education Presentations at The International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-10) IASE Roundtable on Curricular Development in Statistics Education
Report by Gail Burrill ( burrill@msu.edu )
What do we know about the statistics curriculum across countries? What directions should we be thinking about as we develop curriculum and what should we be considering as we do so? The IASE Roundtable on Curricular Development in Statistics Education held in Lund, Sweden, on 28 June to 3 July 2004, provided a forum for 26 participants from nine countries to consider aspects of the statistics curriculum from primary school to the tertiary level and across courses in statistics, mathematics, teacher preparat , dined at the historic Grand Hotel, and spent a day of leisure exploring the island of Hven on bicycles (the one day the sun was out the entire time!).
Questions that framed the discussion included: How do we help the world understand that statistics education is vital in a world where social policy, technology, environment and so on all depend strongly on careful design of investigations and very fine analysis of data? What is important to teach, when should it be taught and how? How do we carefully structure the curriculum? What do we know about when concepts should be taught and how? How can we make statistics education more inviting? What do we know Themes that emerged included the very prevalent role of frameworks as a guide to thinking about curriculum development, assessment, levels of progression in developing concepts, and teachers? Practice. Somewhat related were papers and discussions that involved the recognition of the need for and subsequent design of scaffolding experiences for learning key concepts such as measures of center or the interpreting box plots. A general trend that emerged across the papers was the lack of students? Ability, at use of real data and real situations, and the use of technology both as a means to develop understanding of concepts and to enable students to apply their knowledge and skills in problem solving situations. Abstracts of the papers and the Roundtable agenda are available on the website http://hobbes.lite.msu.edu/~IASE_2004_Roundtable/ . The proceedings, which will include the recommendations of working groups on technology and its relation to the curriculum, research and the statistics curriculum, teacher education, reflections for IASE, and curriculum frameworks should be available on the IASE website in early 2005.
Dear All, As I was putting up Dissertation Abstracts following from earlier SERJ correspondence, I thought why not try to have IASE house a complete archive of actual dissertations in statistics education and I have started down this track, see
http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/iasedissert
. Rachel and I have put up some abstracts Joan gave me, grabbed the ones SERJ had before they stopped (from Chris Reading), and approached a few people to get their actual dissertations and not the just the abstracts. I want to do a general appeal soon for dissertations but I feel (thinking psychologically) that the more complete the page is and the more actual Dissertations we have before I do the appeal, the more successful it will be. Some of the people in http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/iasedissert
are your own students. For others, you will either know them or know the supervisors. Would you please send out some e-mails to your contacts in an effort to get actual dissertation files for me for those dissertations listed? (I can do the translation to pdf.) If you decide to also pursue some people for whom I do not have the information, I need the following:
Year: xxx
Author: xxx
Institution: xxx
Title: xxx
Supervisors: xxx
And then the Abstract and Dissertation files (of course, I can also pull an abstract out of a dissertation). MY APPEAL (and this may be useful for your e-mails) will be roughly:
Dear XXX, We are starting to build as comprehensive a collection of recent Statistics Education Ph.D. dissertations as we can on the IASE website, see: http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/iasedissert . We are trying to build a one-stop resource centre for Ph.D. students in Statistics Education and their supervisors ― still, lamentably, a very small community. Would you mind sending me your dissertation? We would really like the actual dissertation and not just the abstract, because we think it is good for Ph.D. students, particularly when they are just starting and again at write up stage, to be able to look at full dissertations that other people in the area have done. We will put them on the site as pdfs, but can make pdfs from Word documents, etc. The few people we have contacted so far have been saying, "I wish we had a something like this when I was doing my Ph.D.".
Thanks and all the best,
Chris Wild
CERME 4: Group 5 Stochastic Thinking (Research on probabilistic and statistical thinking)
From SERJ Associate Editor, Dave Pratt ( dave.pratt@warwick.ac.uk
)
The Fourth Conference of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (CERME 4) takes place at Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain, from 17 to 21 February 2005. CERME is organised by the European Society for Research in Education, and is designed to foster a communicative spirit. It deliberately and distinctively moves away from research presentations by individuals towards collaborative group work. Group 5 is one such group and will have 12 hours over four days in which to meet and progress its work. The Organisers for Group 5 invite research-based papers on stochastic thinking, including probability, statistics and the interface between these domains to be submitted electronically by September 30th, 2004. For further details, please see: http://fcis1.wie.warwick.ac.uk/~dave_pratt/Group5CERMEInvite.doc
.
Dave Pratt (Group 5 Coordinator)
dave.pratt@warwick.ac.uk
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International Association for Statistical Computing
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Editorial Address | Joyce C. Niland, Ph.D.,
Chair of Division of Information Science, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA 91010, USA Tel: (626) 359-8111; Fax: (626) 303-5912 E-mail: jniland@coh.org |
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| President | Stanley P. Azen, Division of Biostatistics, Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles CA 90033
USA Tel: +1-323-442-1810; Fax:+1-323-442-2993 E-mail: sazen@usc.edu |
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| Website |
IASC Website: http://www.stat.unipg.it/iasc/
CSDA_SSN Website: www.csdassn.org |
I. IASC CSDA-SSN Website:
Since the publication of the last ISI Newsletter, we are pleased to report that the CSDA-SSN website, www.csdassn.org , has been well populated with news items, conference announcements, and statistical software announcements and reviews. Furthermore, other statistical institutions as well as publishers of statistical journals and books have contributed information and links to the CSDA-SSN website.
We encourage IASC members to submit IASC news items and calendar of events, not only to the IASC Scientific Secretary (for publication in the ISI Newsletter), but also to the CSDA-SSN website. In addition, updates regarding statistical software and applications can also be submitted to the CSDA-SSN website, along with a link to the software developer. This provides an excellent opportunity for promoting the use of new developments in statistical software, and obtains feedback from interested IASC members.
II. COMPSTAT 2004
COMPSTAT 2004, the 16th Symposium of the IASC, was held in Prague during August 23-27, 2004. Over 500 participants attended this very interesting and exciting event, hosted by the Charles University, one of the oldest universities in Europe (founded in 1348). Invited and contributed papers covered all areas of statistical computing, from the development and implementation of new statistical ideas to user applications and software evaluation. In addition to an outstanding scientific programme, participants had numerous opportunities for enjoying the magical beauty of Prague, its architecture, music and culture. The IASC commends Jaromir Antoch and his Local Organising Committee for putting together an outstanding COMPSTAT meeting. IASC also wishes to congratulate Peter Sint, who received an IASC/ISI Certificate of Appreciation at the Opening Ceremony for his contributions to COMPSTAT over the past 30 years.
III. Charles University Faculty Memorial Medal
At COMPSTAT 2004, Professor Carlo Lauro was awarded the Memorial Medal of the Faculty of Charles University in Prague. Professor Lauro was commended for his distinguished and wide-ranging scientific work, as well as his pioneering activities that helped to establish statistical computing as an important part of both theoretical and applied statistics. In addition, Professor Lauro was honoured for his efforts as President of the IASC and Vice-President of the ISI, which have been held in high esteem in the worldwide statistical community. In 1986, Professor Lauro organised the first COMPSTAT meeting in Rome, and provided financial assistance to Czech mathematicians to attend the symposium.
IV. IASC Council Meeting at COMPSTAT 2004
The IASC Council met on August 24th at the 2004 COMPSTAT meeting in Prague. The following summarises the key comments and recommendations made at the meeting:
• The official IASC journal, CSDA, has again doubled its impact factor over the last year. The Editorial Board was expanded in 2003 with Jae C. Lee as Co-Editor for the Asian Region.
• Erricos Kontoghiorghes has initiated the proposal to hold the 3rd IASC World Conference in Cyprus, primarily for those involved with CSDA (see below). The Council unanimously approved the proposal. Michael Schimek recommended that the Council consider that the IASC World Conference be offered in alternate years from COMPSTAT.
• Because the ISI Session in Australia will be held early in 2005 (April), the election process for the coming year will also have to be moved up earlier. Gilbert Saporta, President-Elect responsible and Chair of the IASC Nominating Committee, will begin developing the ballot after the COMPSTAT meeting. Saporta recommended guidelines for balancing the list of nominees for the Board of Directors (BoD) and the Council, e.g. across industry versus academia, geography, gender, etc. Because of the timing of the ISI Session, announcements and transitions of the IASC BoD and Outgoing Council will take place in the General Assembly at the ISI Session in Sydney in 2005. However, due to the timing issue, the Incoming Council will hold its first meeting in Cyprus.
• While there was a small income loss in 2002 and a decrease in income from 2002-2003, the numbers of members invoiced and dues paid have increased in this timeframe.
• The next COMPSTAT meeting will be held in Rome at the end of August 2006.
• The fifth Asian Regional Society (ARS) meeting would be hosted by Hong Kong University in 2005.
• IASC will co-sponsor the XI International Symposium on Applied Stochastic Models and Data Analysis, which will be held in Brest, France, May 17-20, 2005.
• John Eccleston, IASC/ISI Programme Committee Chair for ISI 2005, reported that there will be 9 IASC Invited Paper Meetings and 5 Invited Paper Meetings shared with other professional societies (2 with Bernoulli and 3 with Official Statistics).
• Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi and Wing Fung, IASC/ISI Programme Committee Co-Chairs for ISI 2007 in Lisbon, had a planning meeting at COMPSTAT 2004. The ISI 2005 topics were distributed to the 2007 Programme Committee, and submitted proposals were reviewed as a preliminary list. It was noted that the deadline for deciding on sessions/tracks is February 5, 2005 (earlier than usual), in order to be announced during ISI 2005 in April. Erricos proposed, and the Council accepted, that there should be a selection of papers from the ISI Session in Lisbon to be considered for publication in CSDA.
• Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi reported that the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS) liaison with IASC has been ongoing as well, resulting in IASC organising an invited session at IFCS in Chicago, as well as one at COMPSTAT 2004. Vincenzo is on the IFCS Scientific Program Committee, and David Banks is on the IASC Programme Committee.
V. Plans for 3rd IASC World Conference on Computational Statistics:
The 2nd IASC Conference was organised by Stan Azen and held in Pasadena, California, in 1995. The IASC Council has approved a proposal from Erricos Kontoghiorghes to organise the
3rd IASC World Conference on Computational Statistics and Data Analysis to be held in Cyprus during October 28-31, 2005. The site of the Conference is the Amathus Beach Hotel, Limasol, Cyprus. The Conference intends to enhance the visibility and reputation of the IASC journal, CSDA. In addition, it will establish new initiatives that will make the CSDA the leading journal in the field. The 2003 impact factor of CSDA is 0.711, which is 55% higher than it was in 2002.
The CSDA Conference will consist of a number of topics (tracks) with their own “call of papers” and chairs. We will invite, and expect, CSDA Associate Editors and Advisory board members, together with other experts, to propose topics in their expertise. The co-chairs should solicit submissions, evaluate the short abstracts submitted in their track and organise their scheduling. A track should consist of at least 2 sessions (8+ talks). Furthermore, successful tracks can propose—possibly jointly—a CSDA special issue based on the conference talks and other invited, or contributed, papers.
VI. The XI International Symposium on Applied Stochastic Models and Data Analysis (ASMDA)
Gilbert Saporta, President-Elect of IASC, is encouraging IASC to co-sponsor the 2005 ASMDA meeting, which will be held in Brest, France, May 17-20, 2005. The ASMDA aims to serve as the interface between Stochastic Modelling and Data Analysis and their real life applications particularly in business, finance and insurance, management, production and reliability, biology and medicine. The Symposium 2005 will focus on new trends in theory, applications and software of Applied Stochastic Models and Data Analysis.
For more information, go to the Conference website: http://asmda2005.enst-bretagne.fr
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VII. Call for Proposals for IASC Programme at ISI 2007
IASC members are invited to submit proposals for suitable topics and organisers of Invited Paper Meetings to be organised during the 56th ISI Session (Lisboa, August 15-22, 2007). Proposals should be sent to the IASC Programme Committee Chairpersons (Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi -
vincenzo.espositovinzi@unina.it
or Wing K. Fung - wingfung@hku.hk ) by no later than January
15th, 2005.
The Committee will rank proposals according to the topics of greatest interest to IASC, with special attention to topics not dealt with during the previous ISI Sessions. Moreover, the Committee will ensure that the final list of organisers includes some names from developing and transitional countries, and provides a balanced distribution by gender.
VIII. Availability of CSDA On-Line
Margaret de Ruiter-Molloy, Membership Officer of the ISI, requested that we notify all IASC members of the availability of CSDA on-line, after payment of their membership fees.
IX. City of Hope Medical and Scientific Achievement Award
In July 2004, Joyce Niland, Ph.D., Professor and Chairperson of the Division of Information Sciences at City of Hope National Medical Center, and current Scientific Secretary of the IASC, was presented with the Medical and Scientific Achievement Award. This Award, given to one individual every 2-3 years, recognises outstanding contributions by a City of Hope scientist or physician. The Award was presented during the City of Hope’s 2004 National Convention, held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
Founded in 1913, City of Hope is one of the world's leading research and treatment centres for cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases, and a pioneer in the fields of bone marrow transplantation and genetics. Dr. Niland has been a member of City of Hope for over 16 years, during which
time she has been instrumental in growing the support for clinical and basic science research from 15 to over 130 faculty and staff, founding 2 new Departments of Biomedical Research and Clinical Research Information Management, and successfully competing for $20 million in peer-reviewed research grants and contracts. Over the past 25 years, Dr. Niland has served on numerous review panels for the National Institutes of Health, as external advisor to several cancer centres, and as associate editor of major journals, including CSDA, and has co-authored over 90 publications, several book chapters, and a text on biomedical informatics for clinical research. She also serves as Director of the Data Coordinating Centers of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Outcomes Research Project, and a national multi-centered study in islet cell transplantation for Type I Diabetes.
European Regional Section of the IASC
Elections for Board of Directors
2004-2008
Report
The European Regional Section recently held elections for the Chairman-Elect and five members of the Board of Directors to serve during the 2004-2008 term under the direction of the Election Committee, formed by Gianfranco Galmacci (Chairman), John Hinde and Marlene Müller. The new Chairman-Elect is:
Tomàs Aluja-Banet (Tech. Univ. of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain)
The new Board Members are:
Roland Fried (University Carlos III, Madrid, Spain)
Jan Klaschka (Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic)
Fionn Murtagh (Queen's University Belfast, UK)
Martin Theus (University of Augsburg, Germany)
Peter van der Heijden (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
The European Regional Section of the IASC thanks all the candidates for their interest in participating in IASC affairs to
promote statistical computing and computational statistics in Europe.
The election took effect at the Board of Directors meeting, held during the COMPSTAT 2004 in Prague (Czech Republic), 23-27 August 2004.
The Incoming BoD Members replaced the retiring Members:
Helena Bacelar-Nicolau (Portugal)
Dee Denteneer (The Netherlands)
Herwig Friedl (Austria)
Hana Rezankova (Czech Republic)
Gunther Sawitzki (Germany)
Members elected during the 2002 elections and serving for another two years in the BoD are:
James Currall (University of Glasgow, UK)
Marlene Müller (Humboldt University, Germany)
M. Pilar Muñoz (Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, Spain)
Hans Nyquist (Umeå University, Sweden)
Luca Scrucca (University of Perugia, Italy)
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International Association of Survey Statisticians
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President | Prof. Luigi Biggeri, ISTAT, Via Cesare Balbo, 16, 00184 Roma, Italy Tel. : +39 06 46731 E-mail : biggeri@istat.it |
| Executive Director | Mr. Michel Péronnet, INSEE/CEFIL, 3, rue de la Cité, 33500 Libourne, France. Tel.: +33
(0)5 5755 5602 E-mail: michel.peronnet@insee.fr |
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| Secretariat | c/o Mme Claude Olivier, CEFIL
(INSEE), 3 rue de la Cité, 33500 Libourne, France. Tel.: +33 (0)5 5755 5600 Fax: +33 (0)5 5755 5620 E-mail: claude.olivier@insee.fr |
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| Executive Secretary | Anna Maria Vespa, Centre
d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales (CEPII), 9 rue Georges Pitard, 75015 Paris, France. Tel. :+33-1-53685571 Fax : +33-1-53685501 E-mail : vespa@cepii.fr |
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| Website | http://isi.cbs.nl/iass/index.htm |
Message from the IASS President
I am very glad to announce that the IASS Council has decided to award the Cochran-Hansen Prize at the next ISI Session in Sydney 2005. As the majority of the Council Members has stressed, the Prize is associated with prestigious names and it is a good opportunity to enhance the visibility of the Association, but I also would like to underline that it is especially a way to encourage and reward the methodological research activity of young statisticians from developing and transitional countries. Nevertheless, there is a need to better advertise the Prize and also to encourage young statisticians from developing or transitional countries to apply. To this purpose, the IASS Council Members and IASS local representatives have been asked to promote the Prize in their countries. Furthermore, an announcement will appear in Bulletin II of the ISI Session and will also be posted on the IASS website.
I have nominated a Cochran-Hansen Prize Committee chaired by Kari Djerf and composed of the following members from the IASS Council: Gordon Brackstone, Beverley Carlson, Marina Signore and myself. I would like to thank all the members of the Committee and wish them success with their work.
I am very pleased to inform you that the IASS Council has expressed a positive opinion concerning the publication of the Invited Papers presented in IASS sponsored meetings during the ISI Session in Sydney 2005. Indeed, Pedro Luis do Nascimento Silva, Chairman of the IASS Programme Committee for the ISI Session Sydney 2005, has raised this important issue concerning the fact that the IASS used to produce a volume of the Invited Papers presented in meetings that it sponsored during the ISI Sessions. It would be my intention to produce CD-ROMs containing enlarged versions of the Invited Papers presented in IASS sponsored meetings to be distributed to the IASS members. My feeling is that Istat (Italian National Statistical Institute) could take care of this initiative.
I have nominated Professor David Steel as Chair of the IASS Programme Committee for the ISI Session in Lisbon 2007 and I would like to wish him successful and rewarding work.
Luigi Biggeri
IASS President
Cochran-Hansen Prize 2005: Competition for Young Survey Statisticians from Developing and Transitional Countries
In celebration of its 25th anniversary, the IASS established the Cochran-Hansen Prize to be awarded 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 Cochran-Hansen Prize is open to nationals of developing or transitional countries, who are living in such countries and who were born in 1965 or later.
Papers submitted must be unpublished original works. They may include materials from the participant's university thesis. They should be written in English or French. The papers should be submitted to the IASS Secretariat at the address specified below. The deadline for submitting the papers is December 31, 2004. Each paper submitted should be accompanied by a cover letter that specifies the participant's year of birth, nationality, and country of residence.
The papers submitted will be examined by the Cochran-Hansen Prize Committee. The decision of the Committee is final.
The winner of the Prize will be invited to present his/her paper at the 55th Session of the International Statistical Institute, to be held in Sydney, Australia, 5-12 April 2005, and the winner of the Prize will be announced at the ISI General Assembly in Sydney.
The author of the winning paper will receive the Cochran-Hansen Prize in the form of books and journal subscriptions to the value of about €500 and will have all the expenses paid in order to present the paper at the ISI Session in Sydney (i.e., round trip airfare between place of residence and Sydney, and a lump sum to cover living expenses).
The papers should be submitted to:
Mme. Claude Olivier
IASS Secretariat
c/o INSEE- CEFIL
3, rue de la Cité
33500 Libourne
France
Tel.: +33 5 57 55 56 17
Fax: +33 5 57 55 56 20
E-mail: claude.olivier@insee.fr
Marina Signore
IASS Scientific Secretary
2005 Election Nomination Committee
The Nomination Committee “consisting of seven members has been selected from among the members of the Association and from not less than five different countries”. They are: Anders Christianson (Sweden), Debra Taylor (New Zealand), Claudio Quintano (Italy) - working as the Committee’s convener - Clyde Charre De Trabuchi (Argentina), Colm O´Muircheartaigh (USA), Joan Manuel Batista (Spain), Rosalia Castellano (Italy), Susana Rubin-Bleuer (Canada). The Committee is working to propose the candidates for the election of IASS Council’s Officers and Members holding from the next October 2004 for their installing during the IASS General Assembly Sydney ISI Meeting. Some criteria about the choices to do are exchanged among the members of Committee for carrying on an homogeneous and efficient work. The sense is picking up members to be candidate for gender, IASS seniority, experience, interest to do, alternance of countries, etc.. The people that the Committee is deciding to choose have to participate as candidates to be elected, according to the qualitative mix considered in the article 7 of IASS Statute for the election of the Officers and Members of the Council. Then, according to the custom, as the Committee’s convener I have the duty to carry out, for each post, the general ranking in order to build the final general list of candidates which will be printed on ballot papers. In the next weeks the result of our common work that has grown our own experience.
Claudio Quintano
Chair of the 2005 Election Nomination Committee
Initiative for a European Regional Section of IASS
During the European Conference on Quality and Methodology in Official Statistics (Q2004) in Mainz, an informal meeting was organised on 24 May 2004 to discuss an initiative for creating a European Regional Section of the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS).
The meeting was attended by nearly 100 participants, mostly from Europe but also from overseas. It was chaired by the President of the IASS, Luigi Biggeri. The meeting was initiated by a group of people that felt that the collaboration of European survey statisticians should be enhanced. In particular, the idea of a series of conferences on survey methodology was welcomed. Also, a better networking of survey statisticians to raise awareness about survey statistics in European institutions, in particular the research programmes of the EU, seems to be necessary. The creation of a European Regional Section of IASS would lend continuity to these activities and at the same time allow the connection with the international community of survey statisticians and, through the ISI, statisticians in general.
A group of 12 volunteers met at the same conference to organise the work towards the creation of a European Regional Section of IASS. The volunteers are Pascal Ardilly, Jelke Bethlehem, Siegfried Gabler, Beat Hulliger, Thomas Körner, Seppo Laaksonen, Ralf Münnich, Frank Nolan, Susanne Rässler, Marina Signore and Chris Skinner. Five tasks (internal organisation and communication, external communication, conferences, objectives and activity plan, statutes and finances) were defined and distributed among the members of the working group. A European Conference on Quality and Survey Methodology in May 2006 in the U.K. could be the first event of the new European Regional Section of IASS.
The working group will inform about its activities on the website www.surveystatistics.net
. Interested persons may contact Beat Hulliger ( beat.hulliger@bfs.admin.ch ) or Ralf Münnich
( ralf.muennich@uni-tuebingen.de ).
Any suggestions are warmly welcome!
IAOS/IASS Joint Conference, Amman 2004
The IAOS/IASS Joint Conference on “Poverty, Social Exclusion and Development: A Statistical Perspective” will be held in Amman, Jordan, from 29 November to 1 December 2004. An additional day, on the same topic, is foreseen for Arab statisticians.
The composition of the Programme Committee and the list of the Meeting Leaders have been already included in the previous issues of the ISI Newsletter.
The final programme, as well as the registration form, is available on the Conference website at the following address:
http://www.dos.gov.jo .
IASS Invited Papers Meetings, Sydney 2005
The IASS Programme Committee for the 2005 ISI Session in Sydney is chaired by Pedro Luis do Nascimento Silva
( pedrosilva@ibge.gov.br ).
The Organisers of the Meetings are progressing in their work. In particular, they have selected the invited speakers and the discussants for each Meeting.
The Invited Paper Meetings with IASS sponsorship are the following: no. 35, no. 53, no. 54, no. 55, no. 56, no. 57, no. 58, no. 59, no. 60, no. 61, no. 62, no. 63, no. 83.
Additional information can be found in the Session Bulletin II, now available on the Sydney Session website: http://www.tourhosts.com.au/isi2005/
.
IASS Short Courses, Sydney 2005
The organisation of the IASS Short Courses, to be held in connection with the 55th ISI Session, started in September 2003.
Earlier announcements have been published in the past issues of the ISI
Newsletter, in the Survey Statistician and in Bulletin I of the ISI 2005. Updated information is available in Sydney Bulletin II and on the
IASS Website.
Brochures prepared by Istat (Italy) with the Short Courses Programme have been distributed to all the participants of the European Conference on Quality and Methodology in Official Statistics, Q2004, in Mainz, 24-26 May 2004, and to participants of Compstat 2004,
16th Symposium of IASC, Prague, August 23-27, 2004. I am grateful to John Kovar who has arranged to have copies of the brochures distributed at the 2004 Statistics Canada Symposium, which will take place in November 2004.
Announcements will also appear in the next issue of the following scientific journals,
JOS (Journal of Official Statistics), Survey Methodology, Statistics in
Transition, and the CSDA Journal. I would like to express my thanks to the Editors of the previous journals for their support and to the persons I have contacted for this purpose, namely to Lars Lyberg, Gordon Brackstone, Jan Kordos and Stan Azen.
Special thanks are also due to the Local Organisers of the 55th ISI Session in Sydney and in particular to Anna Poskitt for their very efficient support for the necessary local arrangements.
Funding assistance for supporting statisticians from developing and transitional countries will be provided by international organisations. Further information concerning the UN Statistical Division sponsorship can be found at the following address:
http://isi.cbs.nl/05session/UNSD.htm . The website contains the application forms and lists the application criteria. Anyone wishing to attend the IASS Short Courses who would like to apply for the UNSD Fund should complete this application form and return it to the ISI. The IASS will also provide some financial support to participants from transitional and developing countries, consisting in free registration. For further information, please contact Marina Signore, the IASS Scientific Secretary, at the address provided below.
Programme
The IASS has defined a preliminary programme of Short Courses to be offered just prior to or after the
55th ISI Session, which will be held in Sydney, Australia, April 5-12, 2005.
The Courses are led by high-level international experts and are addressed to practitioners, researchers and students in statistics and survey methodology. The official language of the Courses is English.
The following Courses have been planned. However, the programme might be modified according to student participation.
Venue: Australian Bureau of Statistics
St. Andrew's House
Sydney Square
Sydney NSW 2000
Course A: Workshop on Survey Sampling
Presented by:
Graham Kalton (Westat)
Steven Heeringa (Survey Research Center, University of Michigan)
The workshop will focus on practical aspects of sampling for household surveys. It will start from basic principles and build up to complex stratified multi-stage sample designs. It will cover the main sampling techniques and also such issues as sampling frames, weighting, and imputation. It will end with an introduction to variance estimation with complex sample designs.
Duration: 2.5 days
Dates: 1 and 2 April 2005 (full days); 3 April 2005 (morning)
Course B: Variance Estimation in Complex Surveys
Presented by:
Wayne Fuller (Iowa State Universtiy)
Kirk Wolter (University of Chicago)
F. Jay Breidt (Colorado State University)
Anthony An (SAS Institute)
The purpose of this Course is to provide training in variance estimation in complex surveys for survey statisticians, especially those from developing countries. The course will cover methods of estimating variances for statistics such as means, proportions, ratios, regression coefficients, and statistics arising in the analysis of two-way contingency tables. Both linearisation and replication methods will be discussed. The use of computer software for computing variances of statistics from complex sample designs will be demonstrated and instruction will be given in practical applications. About one-half of the Course will be devoted to implementation on the computer.
Duration: 2 days
Dates: 3 April 2005 (afternoon); 4 April 2005 (full day); 5 April 2005 (morning)
Course C: Workshop on Editing and Imputation of Survey Data
Presented by:
John G. Kovar (Statistics Canada)
Eric Rancourt (Statistics Canada)
Surveys and censuses conducted by national statistical agencies, research institutes and other survey organisations suffer from various degrees of nonresponse even under ideal conditions. In order to try to alleviate the problems caused by nonresponse, editing and imputation methods are usually applied. Since the process of editing and imputation is time and resource intensive, care must be exercised in controlling the efficiency as well as the effectiveness of the methods. The aim of this Short Course is to introduce the students to methods of prevention, detection and treatment of nonresponse. Evaluation of such methods and their impact on the survey outputs will be highlighted. Existing edit and imputation software will be compared. Numerous examples will be provided to illustrate the material presented.
Duration: 1.5 days
Dates: 4 April 2005 (full day) and 5 April 2005 (morning)
Course D: Introduction to Survey Quality
Presented by:
Paul Biemer (RTI International and University of North Carolina)
Lars Lyberg (Statistics Sweden)
The Course is designed for a broad audience that includes experienced survey researchers who would benefit from a better understanding of the survey data quality, as well as others with little or no prior experience in survey methods. It will provide a brief introduction to survey quality using total survey error paradigm. The Course begins with a discussion of total survey error and its relationship to survey costs. Then, the major sources of survey error are discussed, focusing on four major sources: coverage error, nonresponse, data processing error and measurement error. We also discuss some methods that are most often used in practise for evaluating the effects of the source on total survey error.
Duration: 2 days
Dates: 3 April 2005 (afternoon), 4 April 2005 (full day) and 5 April 2005 (morning)
Course E: Statistical Disclosure Control
Presented by:
Anco Hundepool (Statistics Netherlands)
Eric Schulte Nordholt (Statistics Netherlands)
Peter-Paul de Wolf (Statistics Netherlands)
The purpose of this Course is to provide the participants with an understanding of the methodological aspects of Statistical Disclosure Control, to train them in solving problems on this topic and to demonstrate the ARGUS software. The meaning and impact of Statistical Disclosure Control can only be appreciated in the light of practical problems and policy related issues. Therefore, some attention is also paid to such topics without putting a heavy emphasis on them. Topics covered include theory and methods on microdata, exercises on microdata, demonstration of Mu-ARGUS, theory and methods on tabular data, exercises on tabular data, demonstration of Tau-ARGUS, legal issues, on-site facilities and remote access.
Duration: 2 days
Dates: 13 and 14 April 2005 (full days)
Course F: Design and Analysis of Repeated Surveys
Presented by:
David Steel (University of Wollongong)
Craig McLaren (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
This Course will consider the interaction between the design of a repeated survey and the methods used for estimation and analysis. The choice of rotation pattern will be considered in terms of the impact on the estimation of levels and changes. Composite and other forms of estimators will be reviewed and the interaction between design and estimation explored. Estimation of seasonally adjusted and trend estimates from repeated surveys will also be considered.
Duration: 2 days
Dates: 13 and 14 April 2005 (full days)
Registration
Course participants are required to be members of the IASS in good standing. For non IASS members, membership to the IASS is offered together with the participation in a Course.
Deadline
The deadline for registration is 31 December 2004. For late registration, a penalty of €50 will be added.
Course Fees
|
1 course |
2 courses |
3 courses |
|
|
IASS members from developed countries or sponsored by a developed country |
€ 240 |
€ 360 |
€ 420 |
|
Non IASS members from developed countries or sponsored by a developed country |
€ 260 |
€ 380 |
€ 440 |
|
IASS members from developing or transitional countries |
€ 120 |
€ 180 |
€ 210 |
|
Non IASS members from developing or transitional countries |
€ 130 |
€ 190 |
€ 220 |
Group discounts for several participants from the same institute are available: 10% discount for 5 people and 20% for 10 people.
The registration form is located on the IASS website and on the Sydney Session website.
For further information and expression of interest, please write to the following address: ISI2005_IASS_shortcourses@istat.it
Marina Signore
IASS Scientific Secretary
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