Published three times a year, the ISI Newsletter provides a broad overview of the Institute's activities, and also includes additional information of interest to statisticians. The Newsletter is sent to all members of the ISI and its Sections (approx. 5,000) as part of their membership.
In this online Issue Message from the Director Search for ISI Members The 52nd Session of the International Statistical Institute News of Members Deceased Members Awards, Prizes and Competitions ISI Committee Matters Proposals welcome for the ISI Seoul Session in 2001 Conferences, Meetings and Calls for Papers Training of European Statisticians (TES) Scienza & Business — Science & Business Publications Pocket Editorial Transition for International Statistical Review Calendar of Events
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Message from the Director
Preparations for the ISI Helsinki Session are now in full swing!
The meeting may reach a record attendance, and will include a number of new, exciting features such as a CD-ROM version of the printed proceedings and an electronic mailbox for all participants.
We all look forward to seeing old friends and making new acquaintances.
As can be seen in Information Bulletin No. 2, the scientific as well as the social programmes promise to be impressive.
For the latest developments, check the website: http://www.stat.fi/isi99ISI Publications
As promised in the previous issue of the ISI Newsletter, I would like to report on the results of the enquiry among ISI members and section members on ISI publications.
Results of an enquiry sent out in December 1998
Together with the membership dues notice for 1999, the ISI Permanent Office sent a questionnaire to all ISI members and all ISI-Section members in December 1998. The questions dealt specifically with publications produced by ISI and its Sections. The aim of the questionnaire was to find out if a cafeteria structure, in which you pay for the publications you order, next to a base membership fee, would be feasible. Presently, all ISI and all Section members receive the International Statistical Review, Short Book Reviews, membership lists, and the ISI Newsletter as part of their membership without being charged separately for these publications. Quite a few members have indicated that they prefer a “pay-for-what-you-want” system.Response .....
The total number of respondents (ISI members who may also be member of one or more Sections + Section members per May 31, 1999) was 701. This response represents about 17% of the total number of questionnaires sent out. Of these, 665 (95%) answered membership questions, showing the following respondent characteristics:..... by type of membership
a) Sole ISI membership: 154
b) Joint ISI and Section memberships:
ISI + BS: 100
ISI + IASS: 31
ISI + IAOS: 29
ISI + IASC: 27
ISI + IASE: 12
ISI + IAOS + IASS: 17
ISI + more than two Sections: 15231
Total a) and b): 385
(= 19.2% of total ISI and joint memberships)c) Section memberships only:
BS: 98
IASS: 44
IAOS: 16
IASC: 58
IASE: 43
IAOS + IASS: 7
IASC + BS: 7
More than two Sections: 7Total c): 280
(= about 9% of total Section memberships)
Total no. of respondents 665..... by country in descending order:
USA 150
Germany 62
UK 53
France, Italy 34
Australia, Netherlands 29
Canada 27
Japan 18
Sweden 13
Switzerland 12
Finland 11
Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, Norway, Spain 10
India 7
Hong Kong, Mexico, Poland 6
Portugal 5
Korea, Thailand 4
Czech Rep., Israel, Panama, South Africa, Venezuela 3
China, Costa Rica, Greece, Kenya, Lithuania, Philippines, Turkey 2
Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Guyana, Iceland, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malta, Malaysia, New Caledonia, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Taiwan 1..... by global geography:
North America 177
Middle and South America 40
Western Europe 304
Eastern Europe (transition countries) 15
Africa 9
Asia 55
Australia, including Oceania 38Although responses from developed countries are somewhat higher than might be expected on the basis of membership per area, this difference is not significant, such that responses may be regarded to be representative from a geographical point of view.
..... by level of economic development:
Developed countries 553
Developing/transition countries 85Quality and satisfaction
As regards the quality of ISI publications, of the 634 respondents, 588 (93%) were satisfied, 27 (4%) somewhat satisfied, and 18 (3%) not satisfied. Dissatisfied respondents mention: more surveys; less surveys; more original articles; too little methodology; too few electronic journals; too specialised; too general; not applied enough; insufficient quality; dull; no cutting edge; too expensive.Citation usage
Of the 491 respondents to the question if they ever cited an ISI publication, 333 (68%) responded YES, and 158 (32%) NO.
Usage, cafeteria, form, and pricing per publication
If ISI would switch to a cafeteria system in which ISI and Section members pay one basic price for membership, and additional, specified amounts for each publication, which publications would respondents subscribe to? “This would depend on the cost of the basic membership fee, and what the price of the journal in question would be”, was what many respondents understandably indicated. Yet, most were willing to respond, albeit with pronounced differences between publications, and to indicate usage, suggested price level, relation between price and form, and library recommendation. Data per publication (with indication of cost price) concerning usage, willingness to subscribe at what price, whether form or content was most important, and whether to recommend a library subscription are as follows for each publication:International Statistical Review ($25)
Of the 646 respondents to the question how intensively they read this publication, 207 responded that they read it often, 322 regularly, 98 seldom and only 19 never. Of the 610 respondents to the subscription question, 468 (78%) would subscribe at the cost price of $25, 142 (22%) would not. The cost price of $25 was considered as realistic. At our question what would you consider to be the right price for ISR, most respondents also suggested $25. Price above form: 292 (65%). Form above price: 158 (35%). Of the 701 respondents, 467 (67%) would recommend it to their library. ISR is clearly the most popular of all ISI publications. It is the only statistical journal covering all fields of statistics, which is its strength as well as its weakness. Many respondents designate it as the “flagship” of ISI.Short Book Reviews ($15)
Of the 621 respondents to usage, 222 read it often, 247 regularly, 113 seldom, and only 39 never.
Of the 587 respondents to the subscription question, 354 (60%) would subscribe, 233 (40%) would not. Price above form: 415 (95%). Form above price: 20 (5%). Of the 701 respondents, 217 (31%) would recommend it to their library. Quite a few positive comments were received. Some respondents find this the best ISI publication. Form is considered unimportant: it is considered to be a throw-away journal with a very limited shelf life.Statistical Theory and Method Abstracts ($84)
Of the 559 respondents to the usage question, 22 read it often, 60 regularly, 181 seldom and no less than 296 never. Requests to put it on CD-ROM or the web were numerous. Of the 519 respondents to the subscription question, 65 (13%) would subscribe, 454 (87%) would not. Average suggested price: $75. Price above form: 256 (86%). Form above price: 43 (14%). Of the 701 respondents, 264 (38%) would recommend it to their library. Overlap with CIS and Zentralblatt was noted by various respondents. Typically a library journal.ISI/Section Membership Directories ($15)
Of the 573 respondents to the usage question, 65 used the ISI-membership list often, 132 regularly, 228 seldom, and 148 never. As regards Section membership lists, responses varied. For IAOS, no membership lists are published. Of the 564 respondents to the subscription question, 318 (56%) would subscribe, 246 (44%) would not. Many respondents indicated that this list should be supplied as part of membership and not be charged separately. If it were to be priced, it should not cost more than $10.
Of 384 respondents, 340 (89%) preferred price over form, 44 (11%) form over price. Out of 701 respondents, 103 (15%) would recommend it to their library. Many requests were made to put the ISI-membership list on the web.Bernoulli Journal ($45)
Of the 553 respondents to the usage question, 55 read it often, 85 regularly, 126 seldom, 287 never.
Of the 546 respondents to the subscription question, 186 (34%) would subscribe, 360 (66%) would not. Average suggested price for members was $40. Of 315 respondents, 210 (67%) preferred price over form, 105 (33%) form over price. Of 701 respondents, 266 (38%) would recommend it to their library. Some respondents find this journal too theoretical.Computational Statistics and Data Analysis ($20)
Of the 559 respondents to the usage question, 59 said they read it often, 94 regularly, 135 seldom, 271 never. Of the 563 respondents to the subscription question, 225 (40%) would subscribe, 338 (60%) would not. Average suggested price: $24. Of 326 respondents, 222 (68%) preferred form over price, 104 (22%) price over form. Of the 701 respondents, only 180 (26%) would recommend it to their library, by far the lowest figure. The reason is clear: the subscription price is $1,276 per year. This price caused numerous complaints, negative comments and many strong negative emotions, bordering on outrage. Clearly, this journal is very much overpriced (by Elsevier), or, as one respondent put it, “extortionate”.ARIS and ISI Newsletter
ARIS was mentioned only seldom. It did not occur in the questionnaire. Comments were mostly negative. It is generally considered to be of limited use, as there is mostly the same information in every edition. Numerous respondents suggested to put ARIS information on the web, with links to the numerous statistical organisations mentioned in it. The Permanent Office will implement this suggestion after the appearance of the 1999 ARIS issue, which will come out in the summer of 1999.
The ISI Newsletter, although it did not feature in the questionnaire either, was mentioned more frequently, invariably in a positive sense.Non-subscribers
Reasons given for not subscribing to journals in a cafeteria system were in descending order of frequency:
• Not relevant to my professional interests
• Not enough shelf space (rich countries)
• Not enough time to read them all
• Too expensive (mostly poor countries)
• Retired or retiring
Quality considerations were not mentioned.Some overall conclusions
• Section responses are fairly representative of Section membership, except for IAOS, which is underrepresented.
• Respondents form a representative sample in terms of geographical distribution.
• Response from ISI members was with 19% more than twice the response from Section members who are not a member of ISI.
• An overall response of 17% is not bad. Whether people actually will do what they indicate as their intention on the questionnaire remains to be seen.
• A cafeteria system will not kill any of the journals that would feature in it, viz. ISR, SBR, STMA, BJ, CSDA, but would reduce the number of copies that need to be printed of ISR and SBR.
• CSDA, BJ and STMA would remain largely unaffected by a cafeteria system.
• ISI Newsletter and membership lists must and will continue to be provided as part of membership, preferably via the Web.
• STMA should be on CD-ROM. We hope to achieve this from next year onwards.
• ISI publications quality is generally regarded as good.
• More ISI publications should appear on CD-ROM and/or Internet
• Elsevier’s library subscription fee for CSDA is unrealistically high.
• There are many good reasons that have nothing to do with price or quality for NOT subscribing to a journal.The Executive Committee and the Permanent Office thank all of you who have taken time to fill in and return the questionnaire. We take your comments and suggestions seriously and expect to report about their implementation at the Helsinki Session this August.
The future growth of ISI depends on you!
All ISI members are urged to take the initiative and nominate individuals who they believe to be qualified for ISI membership. A person distinguished for his contributions to the development or application of statistical methods or to the administration of statistical services may be elected an ISI ordinary member. A person who is or has been an ordinary member and whose contributions to statistics merit special honour may be elected an honorary member. A tear-out nomination form appears towards the end of this Newsletter. The deadline for submissions for the next round of ISI member elections is November 8, 1999. Completed nomination forms should be directed to the ISI Permanent Office.Marcel van den Broecke
Director
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Search for ISI Members
The ISI and its Sections have a number of members with out-of-date addresses, and materials sent to them are typically returned to us by the postoffice with an "Address Unknown" notification. Could the following members (or their friends and colleagues) please contact the ISI Permanent Office and provide us with an updated address:
Dr. Daryl Pregibon (ISI, IASC)
Mr. Pierre Soubie (ISI, IAOS)
Mrs. Monika Meusel (Bernoulli)
Mr. Walter Gulbinat (IASC)
Prof. Kin Lam (ISI, IASE)
Dr. Dominique Serrurier (ISI)
Mr. Seung Kon Lim (ISI)
Should any member change their mailing address (or e-mail, fax, telephone number, etc.), we would be grateful if you could inform Mr. Victor Boughey at the ISI Permanent Office at (@cbs.nl).
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The 52nd Session of the International Statistical Institute
August 10–18, 1999, Helsinki, Finland
The 52nd Session of the ISI
Executive Secretariat
Statistics Finland
FIN–00022 Statistics Finland, Finland
Secretary General Ilkka Mellin
Telephone +358 9 17341
Fax +358 9 17342970
E-mail isi99@stat.fi
Internet http://www.stat.fi/isi99The organisation of the 52nd ISI Session culminates in August.
The National Organising Committee is determined to ensure that the Session runs as smoothly as possible for all participants.Information Bulletin No. 2
Information Bulletin No. 2 was published in March 1999. It includes information about the scientific and social programme as well as accommodation in Helsinki. Please note that Bulletin No. 2 has also been published on the homepage of the Session at http://www.sta.fi/isi99 .
Registration
A form for registration and for reserving accommodation is attached to Information Bulletin No. 2. The form is to be returned to CONGREX/Blue & White Conferences, the official conference office. Please note that it is possible to use an electronic form on the homepage of the Session at http://www.sta.fi/isi99Statistics on submission of papers and preliminary registration
The number of Abstracts submitted for the Session is 850. There will be 80 Invited Paper Meetings with more than 200 papers. The schedule is published in Bulletin No. 2. The number of Contributed Papers is more than 600. The Contributed Papers Meetings and the schedule for them will be formed in early June. Although the deadline for the submission of papers has expired long ago, the local organisers are still waiting for some manuscripts that are supposed to be included in the programme. “LATE BIRDS”, PLEASE HURRY UP!
It has been extremely interesting to see that 90 per cent of the manuscripts were submitted through e-mail and the majority of these were prepared making use of the style-sheet published in Bulletin No. 2 or the template on the homepage of the Session.
On May 30, 1999 the number of registered participants was 650 and the number of registered accompanying persons was 140. According to the statistics drawn from the preliminary registrations these numbers are expected to almost double before the Session.Proceedings
Due to the electronic collection procedure of the manuscripts, the Proceedings of the 52nd Session were already published on our homepage in early June, long before the Session. Please note that all the manuscripts that were sent to the Local Organisers in a hard copy version have been scanned and transformed into an electronic version as well. Nevertheless the participants will receive a copy of the Proceedings in print as well as on CD-ROM upon their registration. Electronic publishing will clearly become an essential part of scientific conferences.Discussants’ papers
The 2-page papers of the invited discussants are printed in the volume of Proceedings that will be published after the Session. According to the rules, discussants are to submit their papers to the Local Organisers in Helsinki one day before their Meeting. However, it is desirable to submit the manuscripts to the Local Organisers by using the same (electronic) procedure that was used for the Invited and Contributed Papers before the Session. In this way it is possible to publish discussants’ papers on the homepage of the Session long before the last volume of the Proceedings will come out in print. When preparing the manuscripts, the discussants are to follow the same instructions as the authors of the Contributed Papers. The instructions for preparing manuscripts have been published in Bulletin No. 2 and on the homepage of the Session at http://www.sta.fi/isi99.Right: Finlandia Hall by night
DAILY PROGRAMME
Monday, 9 August
10:00–20:00 Registration
Tuesday, 10 August
08:00–20:00 Registration
16:00–18:00 Opening Ceremony
18:00–20:00 Welcome Reception
Wednesday, 11 August
09:00–11:15 Scientific Meetings
11:15–13:00 Lunch Break and Administrative Meetings
13:00–15:15 Scientific Meetings
15:15–15:30 Break
15:30–17:45 Scientific Meetings
17:45–19:00 Administrative Meetings
20:00–22:00 Helsinki City Reception
Thursday, 12 August
09:00–11:15 Scientific Meetings
11:15–13:00 Lunch Break and Administrative Meetings
13:00–15:15 Scientific Meetings
15:15–15:30 Break
15:30–17:45 Scientific Meetings
17:45–19:00 Administrative Meetings
Friday, 13 August
09:00–11:15 Scientific Meetings
11:15–13:00 Lunch Break and Administrative Meetings
13:00–15:15 President’s Invited Paper Meeting
15:15–15:30 Break
15:30–17:45 ISI General Assembly
17:45–19:00 Administrative Meetings
20:00–22:00 Concert
Saturday, 14 August
09:00–11:15 Scientific Meetings
12:00–18:00 Excursion to Suomenlinna Fortress
Sunday, 15 August
09:00–18:00 Optional Excursions
Monday, 16 August
09:00–11:15 Scientific Meetings
11:15–13:00 Lunch Break and Administrative Meetings
13:00–15:15 Scientific Meetings
15:15–15:30 Break
15:30–17:45 Scientific Meetings
17:45–19:00 Administrative Meetings
19:00–21:00 Tutorial (Workshop) on Markov Chain Monte Carlo
Tuesday, 17 August
09:00–11:15 Scientific Meetings
11:15–13:00 Lunch Break and Administrative Meetings
13:00–15:15 Scientific Meetings
15:15–15:30 Break
15:30–17:45 Scientific Meetings
17:45–19:00 Administrative Meetings
20:00–23:00 Farewell Party
Wednesday, 18 August
09:00–11:15 Scientific Meetings
11:15–13:00 Lunch Break and Administrative Meetings
15:15–15:30 Break
13:00–15:15 Scientific Meetings
15:30–17:45 Scientific MeetingsHelsinki
The capital of Finland since 1812, Helsinki is a modern city. The whole metropolitan area has a population of almost one million. Helsinki is the centre of Finland’s administrative, cultural and economic life.
Helsinki is an attractive location for major international conferences. As well as boasting a superb conference centre, Finlandia Hall, Helsinki has an extensive range of good hotels in different price brackets, highly efficient public transport, and vast cultural strength.
Helsinki is a safe and clean city, with an exceptionally well built infrastructure. It is big enough to provide all the services that the 52nd ISI Session and its participants may require, yet small enough to make everyone feel at home during their stay.
The cultural life is rich, dynamic and international. This is apparent by its inclusion as one of the European Cultural Cities for the year 2000. The University of Helsinki, founded in 1640, is the oldest and biggest in Finland. In all, there are more than 70 museums and multitude of art galleries, as well as many theatres and an opera house.
Nature is never far away in this city. The sea and the picturesque archipelago also lend a very special air to Helsinki.
Helsinki–Vantaa International Airport is a hub of complete services for airline passengers, some ten million of whom pass through it annually. It is one of the most efficient and pleasant airports in Europe.Conference Venue
Finlandia Hall, the conference and concert centre designed by the world-famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, is the venue of the 52nd ISI Session. Since its opening in 1971, this magnificent work of modern architecture has hosted numerous meetings of world-wide importance.
The location of Finlandia Hall is ideally located in the heart of Helsinki, in a park which provides wonderful opportunities for relaxing between Scientific Meetings by taking a stroll in beautiful surroundings.
Finlandia Hall has all the technical facilities needed for a successful meeting. The 52nd ISI Session will be working in its modern, state-of-the-art conference rooms, while the spacious foyers will provide an opportunity for a more informal exchange of views.
Finlandia Hall provides all the services that the 52nd ISI Session and its participants may require from a conference centre.
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Schedule for Invited Paper Meetings Programme des communications invitées ’ Wednesday, August 11 Mercredi, le 11 août 09:00-11:15 IPM 8 Landscape and watershed frontier of environmental and ecological statistics. Paysages et limites de bassins versants dans les statistiques écologiques et environnementales par télédétection. IPM 26 Neural networks. Réseaux neuronaux. IPM 50 Official statistics in the 20th century-historical perspective. La statistique officielle au 20e siècle: une perspective historique. IPM 73 Globalisation of markets and cross-border holdings of financial assets. Globalisation des marchés et holdings financiers transfrontaliers. 13:00-15:15 IPM 24 Impact of graphical Markov models in diverse fields. Utilisation de modèles graphiques de Markof dans divers domaines. IPM 39 Image analysis in biology and medicine. Analyse d’image en biologie et médecine. IPM 56 Improving the effectiveness of data collection through innovative technology. L’innovation technique pour améliorer l’efficacité de la collecte des données. Eurostat Forum Forum Eurostat 15:30-17:45 IPM 5 Statistics and the assessment of causality. Statistique et jugement de causalité. IPM 41 Lindeberg’s Central Limit Theorem into the 21st century. Le théorème central limite de Lindeberg à l’aube du 21e siècle. IPM 43 Cultural statistics. Statistique de la culture. IPM 70 Use of surveys in strengthening statistical systems in transition countries with emphasis on Asian transition countries and comparison with European experience. Renforcer le système statistique des pays en transition grâce à des enquêtes: cas des pays asiatiques en transition et référence à l’expérience européenne. Thursday, August 12 Jeudi, le 12 août 09:00-11:15 IPM 4 Statistics in telecommunication. Statistiques dans les télécommunications. IPM 10 Organisation of national statistical institutes. Organisation des instituts nationaux de statistique. IPM 38 Lévy processes-application and theory. Processus de Lévy - application et théorie. IPM 69 Issues related to use of censuses of population, agriculture and enterprises in subsequent surveys in developing countries. Utilisation des recensements de population, de l’agriculture ou des entreprises pour des enquêtes ultérieures dans les pays en développement. IPM 82 Statistics in pharmaceutical industry. La statistique dans l’industrie pharmaceutique. 13:00-15:15 IPM 3 History of ideas in statistics and probability in Scandinavian countries. Histoire des idées en statistique et probabilités dans les pays scandinaves. IPM 30 Coalescent modelling of evolutionary ancestry. Modèles de coalescence et lignée évolutive. IPM 46 How to measure deregulation? Comment mesurer la déréglementation? IPM 57 Computational aspects of graphical models and Bayesian inference networks. Aspects informatiques des modèles graphiques et des réseaux d’inférence bayésienne. IPM 61 Statistical education for life. L’éducation statistique dans la vie. 15:30-17:45 IPM 17 Advances in resampling methods. Développements récents dans les méthodes de rééchantillonnage. IPM 48 Surveying and estimating for the informal sector. Enquêtes et estimations dans le secteur informel. IPM 53 Statistical computing in business and industry. Le calcul statistique dans le commerce et l’industrie. IPM 58 Statistical education and significance tests controversy. L’enseignement de la statistique et la controverse sur les tests de signification. Friday, August 13 Vendredi, le 13 août 09:00-11:15 IPM 13 Statistics in art. Statistiques de l’art. IPM 54 Optimal experimental design and computational methods in industrial applications. Plans d’expérience optimaux et méthodes de calcul dans les applications industrielles. IPM 66 Issues in weighting household and business surveys. Les pondérations dans les enquêtes ménages et entreprises. IPM 72 The use of ancillary information in agri-environmental statistics. Information ancillaire dans la statistique agro-environnementale. IPM 80 Human rights and gender statistics. Droits de l’Homme et statistiques par sexe. 13:00-15:15 IPM 1 President’s Invited Paper Meeting. Séance des communications invitées du Président. Saturday, August 14 Samedi, le 14 août 09:00-11:15 IPM 7 Statistical issues in health policy. Questions statistiques en politique de santé. IPM 25 Visualisation in data mining. La visualisation en exploration de données. IPM 28 Design, estimation and analysis issues in sampling from imperfect business registers. Echantillonnage, estimation et analyse à partir de répertoires d’entreprises imparfaits. IPM 60 Statistical education using flexible learning approaches. L’enseignement de la statistique par des méthodes adaptatives. IPM 74 The role of women in statistics in the new millennium. Le rôle des femmes dans la statistique du nouveau millénaire. Best Papers by Young Statisticians from Developing Countries (Jan Tinbergen Awards) Meilleurs travaux de jeunes statisticiens des pays en voie de développement (prix Jan Tinbergen) Monday, August 16 Lundi, le 16 août 09:00-11:15 IPM 18 Multiway data in psychometrics and chemometrics. Données “multiway” en psychométrie et chimiométrie. IPM 21 Geographical information systems. Systèmes d’information géographique (SIG). IPM 31 Probability on trees. Probabilités sur des arbres. IPM 65 Design of surveys for measuring change over time. Conception d’enquêtes pour mesurer les changements temporels. IPM 78 Statistical calibration of dynamic economic models. Calibrage statistique des modèles économiques dynamiques. 13:00-15:15 IPM 16 State space modelling and Kalman filter methods. Modèles à espace d’états et filtres de Kalman. IPM 33 Measurement error. L’erreur de mesure. IPM 47 Small domain estimates including use of administrative data. Estimations sur petits domaines, notamment grâce à des données administratives. IPM 63 Visualisation as an educational tool. La visualisation comme outil pédagogique. 15:30-17:45 IPM 6 Statistical literacy. Panel discussion. Culture statistique. Table ronde. IPM 22 Population estimation and forecasting. Estimations et projections de population. IPM 36 Statistical aspects of data mining and knowledge discovery in databases. Aspects statistiques de l’exploration de données et de la découverte de connaissances dans les bases de données. IPM 51 Data visualisation and regression graphics. Visualisation des données et graphes de régression. 19:00-21:00 IPM 2 Tutorial on Markov Chain Monte Carlo. Atelier sur les méthodes de Monte-Carlo par chaîne de Markof. Tuesday, August 17 Mardi, le 17 août 09:00-11:15 IPM 11 Crucial issues for Statistics in the next two decades. Questions cruciales pour la statistique dans les deux prochaines décennies. IPM 32 Data-analysis of non-linear physical time series. Analyse de séries chronologiques non-linéaires en physique. IPM 52 Statistical programming environments. Visualisation des données et graphes de régression. IPM 68 Evaluation of shortcut procedures, such as limited coverage and non-probability sampling, in survey design. Propriétés des procédures de raccourci, telles que couverture partielle ou échantillonnage non-probabilisque. IPM 81 Statistical aspects of physical and environmental science. Aspects statistiques dans la science physique et de l’environnement. 13:00-15:15 IPM 12 Whither statistical publishing? Où va l’édition statistique? IPM 34 Semiparametric models for dependent data. Modèles semi-paramétriques avec données dépendantes. IPM 42 Statistical training of people working in and with official statistics. Formation statistique des personnes travaillant dans ou avec la statistique officielle. IPM 64 Co-ordination of surveys and managing respondent burden. Coordination d’enquêtes et gestion de la charge pour les enquêtés. 15:30-17:45 IPM 14 Information revolution and statistics in developing countries. Révolution de l’information et statistique dans les pays en développement. IPM 15 Opportunities for statisticians in business, industry and public service. Des emplois pour les statisticiens dans les affaires, l’industrie et les services publics. IPM 29 Use of commercial data sources in official statistics. L’utilisation de données d’origine commerciale dans la statistique officielle. IPM 35 Recent advances in probability. Développements récents en probabilités. IPM 59 Teaching and training multivariate data-analysis. Analyse multivariée: enseignement et pratique. Wednesday, August 18 Mercredi, le 18 août 09:00-11:15 IPM 27 Improving and communicating the quality of survey-based statistics. Améliorer et faire connaître la qualité des statistiques d’enquête. IPM 40 Model selection and evaluation. Choix et évaluation de modèles. IPM 62 Issues involved in the assessment and evaluation of student learning of statistics. A propos de l’évaluation des acquis des étudiants en statistique. IPM 71 Quality and reliability improvement. Amélioration de la qualité et de la fiabilité. IPM 77 Statistical issues in environmental monitoring and assessment. Questions de statistique pour l’évaluation et le pilotage en environnement. 13:00-15:15 IPM 19 Statistics, science and the media. Panel discussion. La statistique, la science et les médias. Table ronde. IPM 20 Foundations of Statistical Science. Les fondements de la science statistique. IPM 23 Statistical and computational approaches to genetic evolution. Approche de l’évolution génétique par le calcul et la statistique. IPM 45 Registers and surveys in health and social service monitoring. Registres et enquêtes pour le pilotage du service sanitaire et social. IPM 55 Symbolic computation and computer algebra in statistics. Calcul symbolique et algèbre informatique en statistique. 15:30-17:45 IPM 9 Wavelets in statistics. Ondelettes en statistique. IPM 37 Statistical methods for object recognition. Méthodes statistiques pour la reconnaissance d’objet. IPM 49 Critical problems in economic statistics. Problèmes cruciaux en statistique économique. IPM 67 Analysis of data from complex surveys. Analyse des données d’enquêtes complexes.
Administrative Meetings Programme ’ Morning 09:00-11:15 Lunch 11:15-13:00 Early Afternoon 13:00-15:15 Mid Afternoon 15:30-17:45 Late Afternoon 17:45-19:00 Evenings 19:00-..... Tuesday, August 10 Registration Outgoing ISI Executive Committee Registration Registration Opening Ceremony (16:00-18:00) Welcoming Reception Wednesday, August 11 Scientific Meetings BS “World Mathematics 2000” Committee IAOS Executive Committee Joint Meeting of the ISI Programme & Programme Co-ordinating Committees (52nd Session) Working Group of International Statistical Training Centres ISI Member Auditors IASS Council I Statistics and the Environment Committee I Scientific Meetings Scientific Meetings ISI Nominations Committee I ISI Membership Committee IAOS Programme Committee BS Programme Committee IASE Programme Committee IASC Programme Committee I IASS Programme Committee I City of Helsinki Reception Thursday, August 12 Scientific Meetings BS East Asian & Pacific Regional Committee ISI Programme Committee I BS European Regional Committee SCORUS Meeting Mahalanobis Committee Open Meeting of the Committee on Women in Statistics Scientific Meetings Scientific Meetings IASS General Assembly BS Publications Committee Working Group on City Statistics Association of Balkan Statisticians Meeting Life Sciences Committee El-Khowarizimi Committee on Statistics for Arab Countries Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics IASE Executive Committee Friday, August 13 Scientific Meetings Incoming & Outgoing ISI Council Meeting Marco Polo Committee on Tourism Statistics ISI Programme Co-ordinating Committee I Committee on Women in Statistics President’s I.P. Meeting ISI General Assembly and Jan Tinbergen Award Presentations Concert Saturday, August 14 Scientific Meetings Jan Tinbergen Winning Paper Presentations Social Programme Social Programme Social Programme Sunday, August 15 Social Programme Social Programme Social Programme Social Programme Monday, August 16 Scientific Meetings IASE General Assembly BS Council Meeting IASC European BoD Gregor-Johan Mendel Committee on Agricultural Statistics IASS Programme Committee II Statistics in Industry Committee Scientific Meetings Scientific Meetings IAOS General Assembly Christiaan Huygens Committee on the History of Statistics Sports Statistics Committee ‘BS Committee for Probability & Statistics in the Physical Sciences IASC Council Meeting Open Meeting of Statistical Societies (including members of Ad Hoc Committee) Tuesday, August 17 Scientific Meetings IASS Council Meeting II IASC General Assembly BS Programme Co-ordinating Committee Meeting Bernoulli Editorial Board Statistics and the Environment Committee II ISI Mercator Committee WNP Board Meeting Scientific Meetings Scientific Meetings BS General Assembly ISI Nominations Committee II Gregory King Committee on Statistical Infrastructure ISI Programme Committee II IASC Programme Committee II ISI Publications Committee ISI Committee on Professional Ethics Farewell Party Wednesday, August 18 Scientific Meetings ISI Programme Co-ordinating Committee II IASC EARS BoD ISI Incoming Executive Committee Working Group on the Identification of Special Areas of Statistical Interest Scientific Meetings Scientific Meetings
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News of Members
David R. Cox (Nuffield College, Oxford, U.K.) has been awarded an honorary Doctorae Degree by the Department of Statistics of the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the Theory and Applications of Statistics and service to the Society. During his stay in Athens, D.R. Cox taught in the “Distinguished Visiting Professor Lecture Series” of the graduate program of the Department a short course entitled “Theories of Statistical Inference”.
Stephen Fienberg (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA) has been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. This is the highest honour that an American scientist can receive.
Yasunori Fujikoshi (Department of Mathematics, Hiroshima University, Japan) has been awarded the 1998 Jacob Wolfowitz Prize for his paper “A Method for Improving the Large-sample Chi-squared Approximations to some Multivariate Statistics”.
Mark E. Johnson (Department of Statistics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA) and Rebecca Parsons (Department of Computer Science, University of Central Florida, USA) are the recipients of the 1998 Thomas L. Saaty Prize for their paper “A Case Study in Experimental Design Applied to Genetic Algorithms with Applications to DNA Sequence Assembly”.
Prem Narain, former ISI Council member (1989-1993), was awarded the Dr. M.S. Randhawa Gold Medal during the fourth Agricultural Science Congress held February 1999 in Jaipur by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences of which he is a Founder Fellow and past Treasurer (1990-1997). The Medal was instituted by the Academy in 1995 in memory of the late Dr. M.S. Randhawa to recognise scientists for excellence in research in social sciences. Prem Narain is an agricultural statistician and statistical geneticist and worked as Director of the Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi (1981-1992). Currently, he is Professor Emeritus at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and Executive President of the Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics.
Calyampudi R. Rao (Penn State University, USA) has been awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Brazil. The award is the twenty-first doctorate degree he has received from universities in fourteen countries.
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Deceased Members
The ISI regrets to announce the death of our colleagues:
Elected Born Deceased Siegfried Koller 1956 1908 1999 Germain Kreweras 1972 1918 4 January 1999 Wassily Leontif 1952 1906 3 February 1999
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Awards, Prizes and Competitions
Competition for Young Statisticians from Developing Countries
Jan Tinbergen Awards 1999The ISI is pleased to announce the winners of the 1999 Jan Tinbergen Awards:
• J.P. Ekwaru (Uganda) for his paper “An Approximation for the Rank Adjacency Statistic for Spatial Clustering with Sparse Data”;
• D. Gervini (Argentina) for his paper “A Robust and fully Efficient Regression Estimator”;
• V. Swaminathan (India) for his paper “Semiparametric Estimation for Stationary Markov Chains with Continuous State-Space”
These awards, previously known as the “ISI Awards for Young Statisticians from Developing Countries”, were renamed in honour of the late ISI member and world-renowned econometrician Jan Tinbergen. The Executive Committee is grateful to the Stichting Internationaal Statistisch Studie Fonds for providing each of the winners with a five thousand Dutch Guilder prize in addition to the all-expenses-paid trip to the ISI Session in Helsinki.Jan Tinbergen Awards 2001
The ISI announces the tenth Competition among young statisticians from developing countries who are invited to submit a paper on any topic within the broad field of statistics, for possible presentation at the 53rd Session of the ISI to be held in Seoul, Korea, in August of 2001.
As a special one-time only feature of the 2001 competition, participation will be restricted only to FEMALE nationals of developing countries (excluding nationals from transition countries), who were born in 1969 or later.
Papers submitted must be unpublished, original works, which may include material from participants’ university theses.
The papers submitted will be examined by an International Jury of distinguished statisticians who will select the three best papers presented in the competition. Their decision will be final.
The authors of the winning papers will receive the Jan Tinbergen Award in the amount of 5,000 Dutch Guilders and be invited to present their papers at the Seoul Session of ISI, with all expenses paid (i.e. round trip airline ticket from her place of residence to Seoul plus a lump sum to cover living expenses).
Manuscripts for the Competition should be submitted to the ISI Permanent Office not later than January 1, 2001.
The rules governing the preparation of papers, application forms and full details are available upon request from the ISI Permanent Office. Contact details are as follows:
The Director
International Statistical Institute
address PO Box 950
2270 AZ VOORBURG
The Netherlands
telephone +31 70 3 37 57 37
fax +31 70 3 86 00 25
e-mail @cbs.nl
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ISI Committee Matters
ISI Nominations Committee welcomes your proposals!
The ISI Nominations Committee, which is responsible for selecting the slate of candidates for the Executive Committee (President Elect and three Vice Presidents) and for eight members of Council, welcomes your suggestions for appropriate future candidates for the next round of ISI elections. The Committee will meet during the Helsinki ISI Session to discuss the merits of the various proposals, and prepare a short list of candidates. Please send your proposals to the Chair of the Committee:
Professor David Siegmund
address Department of Statistics
Stanford University
STANFORD, CA 94305, USA
e-mail dos@stat.stanford.edu
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Proposals welcome for the ISI Seoul Session in 2001
The ISI Programme and Programme Co-ordinating Committees, under the Chairmanship of Richard Gill, have begun their work in preparing the scientific programme for the Seoul 2001 ISI Session. ISI members and ISI Committee representatives are urged to submit proposals for invited paper meetings to the ISI Programme Committee before the Helsinki ISI Session. These proposals should be sent to one of the Committee members:
ISI Programme Committee:
Chairman Prof. Richard Gill (U.K.) rgill@euridice.tue.nl
Vice-Chairman Prof. Jae Chang Lee (Republic of Korea) jaeclee@kuccnx.korea.ac.kr
Members Fred Vogel (USA) fvogel@nass.usda.gov
Jeff Teugels (Belgium) jef.teugels@wis.kuleuven.ac.be
Bo Bergman (Sweden) bober@ikp.liu.se
Murray Cameron (Australia), co-ordinator of ISI Committee proposals murray.cameron@cmis.csiro.au
Anil Gore (India) apgore@stat.unipune.ernet.in
Thomas A. Louis (USA) tom@biostat.umn.eduISI Programme Co-ordinating Committee:
Chairman Prof. Richard Gill (U.K.) rgill@euridice.tue.nl
Vice-Chairman Prof. Jae Chang Lee (Republic of Korea) jaeclee@kuccnx.korea.ac.krRepresentatives:
IAOS Mr. Heinrich Bruengger (Switzerland) heinrich.bruengger@bfs.admin.ch
IASC Professor Carey Priebe (USA) cep@jhu.edu
IASE Prof. Lionel Pereira-Mendoza (Canada) pereiraml@am.nie.ac.sg
IASS Mr. David Binder (Canada) binddav@statcan.ca
Bernoulli Society Prof. Nick Fisher nick.fisher@cmis.csiro.au
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Conferences, Meetings and Calls for Papers
ISI Cutting Edge Conference: Spatial Statistics for Production Ecology
Report By Alfred Stein
From 19 to 21 April 1999, the ISI cutting edge conference ‘Spatial Statistics For Production Ecology’ was organized in Wageningen, the Netherlands. The conference was sponsored by the Netherlands Royal Academy of Sciences and by the CT de Wit Research School of Production Ecology. Opening remarks were made by ISI Director Dr. Van den Broecke.
The conference combined modern procedures of spatial statistics with current developments in agriculture and the environment, commonly termed production ecology. Production ecology in a narrow sense aims at optimising agricultural production in an environmentally safe way. In a somewhat wider sense, production ecology includes as well larger ecological natural systems, such as wildlife refuges and considers matters of conservation as well. Central in both views is the concept of the agricultural and the environmental system, with clear interactions between the two. Agricultural and environmental processes are modelled, to achieve a better understanding, but also to support decision-making by farmers and planners. For this purpose, crop growth models, groundwater models, leaching models and other models are used for agricultural systems, and multivariate biodiversity related models are used for environmental systems. Reliable information is obviously obtained only when models are properly fed. Of great importance is the role of information systems, that contain information collected in the past, and satellites that collect remote sensing information often on an almost daily basis. Many statistical issues can be raised, and it serves as an interesting opportunity to combine and highlight modern approaches within statistics.
The conference distinguished three themes:
1. Spatial statistics and geographical information systems (GIS) for decision support
2. Spatial statistics and agricultural modeling
3. Spatial statistics and remote sensing for decision support.
The conference had 9 invited paper presentations, approximately 30 contributed papers and a set of 15 posters was on display continuously. In total, 90 scientists participated. A central concept was the concept of ‘scale’ and spatial variation, returning in many presentations, and often governing the choice for any particular statistical method. Point patterns appeared to be very prominent at the within field scale, e.g. to model the occurrence of weeds, whereas geostatistics was in particular useful as soon as an assumption on some form of stationarity of a continuous variable could be made. That commonly happened at a somewhat larger scale.• GIS related issues dealt with the precision of spatial information and its consequences for decision making, and also addressed aspects of stochastic imaging. It considered climate variables, wildlife counts in an African nature refuge, but also farming in developing countries. Ecological models came into view in a study on nitrate in shallow groundwater. New advances were reported in optimal sampling and monitoring issues.
• Modeling dealt primarily with data precision in modeling. Obviously, issues of sensitivity and uncertainty in modeling were discussed. The scale issue returned in a study of upscaling methane emissions from rice paddies to the isle of Java. Applications concerned sugar-cane growth at a provincial level in Brazil and interpolation of climatic data. Variability of data in space and time was addressed, both related to agricultural prediction and to irradiation. Modern procedures of modeling included also fuzzy sets and neural networks. Fuzzy set theory was used, a.o., to query probabilistic land cover data.
• Remote sensing focused on the one hand on describing spatial variation, and on the other hand of using it for production ecology context. The first group contained papers on replacing clouded pixels and of quantifying the variation within and between delineated units, but also on comparison of the crop area changes in time. The second group of papers focused on estimation of vegetation, land cover area, and for feeding crop models.
One of the obvious conclusions was that modern spatial statistical procedures are well suited for use in production ecology. More specifically, we notice that production ecology as an important concept in modern agricultural science serves as a new challenge for the development and application of statistics. Moreover, an interesting integration emerges as the traditional distinction between ‘agriculture’ and ‘environment’ now starts to diminish.
The conference proceedings will appear as two special issues. The one containing the papers with a strong statistical background will be published in Environmental Ecological Statistics. Those with a more agricultural and environmental backbone in either the European Journal of Ecology or in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.Satellite Conference on Statistical Publications and Statistical Publishing
August 23–24, 1999, Warsaw, Poland
As statistics are difficult for the public to understand and access, statisticians must accept the burden (and costs) of making them understandable and accessible to their users. With this in mind, the Polish Central Statistical Office (GUS), in collaboration with the ISI Permanent Office are organising a satellite conference on statistical publishing, to be held August 23-24, 1999 in Warsaw, Poland. With more than 200 academic statistics journals being published, and in view of the increasing importance of official statistical publications, the conference will examine various issues of importance to the future of statistical publishing, emphasising the effects of electronic dissemination.
Programme
Theme Speakers Discussants
Keynote Addresses V.N. Nair (Univ. of Michigan)
D. Roy (Statistics Canada)
Initial Decisions G. Salou (OECD)
B. Olsson (Statistics Sweden)
M. Feith (Springer-Verlag)
Content Management J. Kavaliunas (US Census Bureau)
P. Friss (Hungarian Central Stat. Office)
B. Trumbo (California State Univ.)
Output Management M. Hazewinkel (CWI, The Netherlands)
G. Galmacci (Università degli Studi)
M. Podehl (Statistics Canada)
Marketing and User Relations D. Byk (Eurostat)
L. Dellaert (Statistics Netherlands)
S. von Oppeln (German Federal Stat. Office)
Finance and Other Matters T. Walczak (Polish Central Stat. Office)
S. von Oppeln-Bronikowski (German Federal Stat. Office)
L. Oestergaard (Statistics Denmark)Time will also be made available for open discussion of each topic, and there will be a summary panel discussion. A reception will be held on 23 August.
To obtain an information/registration brochure, please contact:
International Statistical Institute
Permanent Office
address PO Box 950
2270 AZ VOORBURG
The Netherlands
telephone +31 70 3 37 57 37
fax +31 70 3 86 00 25
e-mail @cbs.nl
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Training of European Statisticians (TES)
Course Plan
The TES Institute is on its way for the new 1999-2000 Programme.
The programme, which will start in September 1999 to end of June 2000, comprises 28 courses and seminars.
The focus has been put on both Economic Statistics stream and Support courses with respectively 8 and 7 courses planned in the entire programme.
The courses planned until the end of the year are presented below in chronological order:
Code Title Leader Dates & Place
SOC-001-E Systems of Social Statistics Everaers 04 Oct.– 08 Oct. 99, Barcelona
ECO-102-E Business Registers: Set-up, Use and Maintenance Bergstrøm 11 Oct.– 15 Oct. 99, Oslo
PDU-103-E Techniques of Electronic Data Dissemination Argüeso Jimenez 18 Oct.– 22 Oct. 99, Sevilla
SUP-204-E Measurement of the Quality of Statistics Depoutot & Elvers 25 Oct.– 27 Oct. 99, Luxembourg
ECO-202-E The Revised European System of Accounts (ESA 95) Sector Accounts Newson 08 Nov.– 10 Nov. 99 Luxembourg
ECO-001-E National Accounts Statistics in Practice van Nunspeet 08 Nov.– 19 Nov. 99, Voorburg
SUP-103-E Price Index Theory and Price Statistics von der Lippe 22 Nov.– 26 Nov. 99, Düsseldorf
ECO-205-E The Revised European System of Accounts (ESA 95) Quarterly Accounts Mazzi 06 Dec.– 09 Dec. 99, Luxembourg
DAT-003-F Sampling Techniques and Practice Deville 06 Dec.– 17 Dec. 99, BruzPlease take note that the registration deadlines are respectively fixed in the beginning of July, August and September for courses planned in October, November and December, in view of properly preparing the courses and providing you in time with information and course materials.
In addition to its annual training activities, the TES Institute has developed a new series of manuals or textbooks based on courses provided in the framework of its Core Programme.
The first manual presents The Role of Statistics in a Democracy and can be ordered directly – for free – at the TES Institute.The second manual will be published during the summertime and presents the Indices for bilateral and multilateral Comparison of Prices, Quantities and Values.
Further manuals will cover topics on Sampling Techniques and Social Statistics.
For any further information on the training programme of the other activities of TES Institute, please contact:
Ms. Valérie Vandewalle
Co-ordinator for Evaluation and Information matters
telephone +352 29 85 85 34
fax +352 29 85 29
e-mail vvandewalle@tes-institute.lu
website http://www.tes-institute.lu
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Scienza & Business — Science & Business
(Editor: Tommaso Gastaldi)
Call for Papers
“Scienza & Business” (monthly) wants to be a link between the enterprises and the scientific research as it is intended in the academic field or in the institutes of research: kind of “American Scientific” but oriented towards themes of technology and business and with a real link with the university world, where contributions from both the academic and the business world could meet.
“Scienza & Business” publishes papers by writers in Industry, University and in any kind of business which has connections to technological innovation.
Some of the topics which are of interest to the journal are the following: software engineering, telecommunications, marketing, market segmentation, data warehouse, neural networks, information technology, data mining, computer programming, applied research, industry technology, trade and electronic money, business intelligence, information delivery, customer relationship, bioengineering, bio-informatics, management, risk management, credit scoring, optimization, etc.
The scientific board of the journal is mainly formed by professors and researchers both in universities and private companies (such as SAS Institute, IBM, EDS, Minolta,.. see website). Applications to join are welcome (a strong research curriculum is needed).
Papers are welcome. Accepted languages are Italian and English. Papers must be accompanied by visual material (slides, photos). For more information, please contact:
Dott. Tommaso Gastaldi
Dip. Statistica, Probabilità e Stat. Appl.
address Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
P.le Aldo Moro, 5
00185 ROMA, Italy
telephone +39–6 49 91 04 94 or 6 40 73 618
fax +39–6 49 59 241
e-mail gastaldi@pow2.sta.uniroma1.it
website http://cam70.sta.uniroma1.it/s&b/home.htm
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Publications Pocket
ARIS Volume 6, 1999
Annual Report on International Statistics
By Gerrit Stemerdink
At this moment, the 1999 issue of ARIS — the Annual Report on International Statistics — is being printed at INSEE, Paris. All members of ISI and its Sections will receive a copy of this publication.
This sixth edition, however, will be the last one in its present, printed form. The first edition appeared in 1994, due to an initiative of the late Dr. Zoltán Kenessey. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of senior advisor Professor Willem Begeer and the first executive editor Dr. Gustaaf Loeb, ARIS has evolved into a highly appreciated means of communication for the entire international statistical community, inside as well as outside the ISI.
In the last few years, it was felt that the emerging technologies on the Internet asked for an adaptation of the ARIS formula. We noticed that, because of the length of the production process, some information — especially as regards national statistical associations — was often more or less outdated at the moment it arrived at the reader’s desk. Also, on responses to the questionnaires which were sent out to the entire ISI community at the beginning of this year, it was suggested that several ARIS entries were either relatively unchanged from year to year, or contained less detail or were not always up-to-date.
This all led us to the decision to make ARIS a part of the existing ISI website on the Internet. As the development of the web variety of ARIS will take some time, we advise all readers to keep this last printed version within reach until its electronic counterpart will have attained some maturity. Priority will be given hereby to include the information on national statistical associations; therefore their contributions were not listed in this issue.ISI would like to thank all those who have contributed to make the printed versions of ARIS the success it has become. A very special thanks goes to INSEE, France, which have generously printed and distributed all six issues of ARIS!
Two New Publications from the US Department of Commerce International Programs Center
Two new publications, Population Trends: Peru and World Population at a Glance: 1998 and Beyond are now available on request, as are copies of earlier International Briefs.
Population Trends: Peru provides an overview of demographic trends and the related health and family planning program and policy situation in one of Latin America’s most important nations.
World Population at a Glance: 1998 and Beyond describes trends in population growth and other key demographic indicators at the global and regional levels over the next quarter century.
Requests should be forwarded to:
Population Studies Branch
International Programs Center
Population Division
address U.S. Census Bureau
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20233-8860, USA
fax +1–301 457 1539
e-mail prowe@census.gov
website http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/wp98.html
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Editorial Transition for International Statistical Review
Vijay Nair will retire as co-editor of the International Statistical Review on August 1, 1999. He will be succeeded by Elja Arjas, Professor of Biometry, University of Helsinki and Research Professor, National Public Health Institute, Finland. Willem de Vries will continue as the other co-editor.
Over the past four years, Vijay and Willem have worked hard to refocus the International Statistical Review as a premier review journal of wide interest to the members of the International Statistical Institute and its Sections. This has been a challenging task, given the diverse range of interests represented within the ISI family. Nevertheless, the readers will hopefully agree that the journal has made considerable progress in this direction.
The new editorial team plans to continue in this direction and plans to attract and publish high-quality expository/review articles. There is a great deal of flexibility in interpreting the term “review”. The journal is interested in good review papers on statistical theory, methodology, applications, education, computing, graphics, data analysis, and the history of statistics/probability. This includes papers on mature topics as well as expository articles on new, emerging areas. The journal will also continue to publish articles which describe developments and state-of-the-art practices in the various areas represented by the ISI Sections, including official statistics, statistical computing, statistical education, and survey statistics.
Also of interest are papers which discuss statistical issues and applications in contemporary topics of broad interest in science and technology, business and industry, public policy, education, health and medicine, the environment, and so on.
Potential authors and readers with suggestions are encouraged to contact the new co-editors:
Elja Arjas elja.arjas@rni.helsinki.fi
Willem de Vries @cbs.nl
All submissions should be sent, as usual, directly to:
Mrs. , Executive Editor
International Statistical Review
address International Statistical Institute
PO Box 950
2270 AZ Voorburg, The Netherlands
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