BIOMETRIC
Vol. 32 No. 1 • January–March
BULLETIN
International Biometric Society Internationale Biometrische Gesellschaft Société International de Biométrie
President’s Corner
In my last column, I mentioned that the election of new Executive
Board Directors was
under way. This is
now complete, and
I would like to congratulate and welcome
our new Directors:
Karen Bandeen-Roche (US - ENAR), Frank
Bretz (Austro-Swiss Region), Krista Fischer
(Nordic-Baltic Region), Joel Greenhouse
(US - ENAR), Freedom Gumedze (South
Africa), Tae Rim Lee (Korea), and Ernst Wit
(Netherlands). As you will see, they are
drawn from many different regions across
the world and reflect the strength of our
membership across the various geographic
areas as set out in our Bylaws. However, it
is worth noting that, although each Director
does of course come from a specific region,
they are not on the Executive Board to
represent these regions, they are there as
elected representatives of the Society as a
The Closing Session of the German Region meeting, 61st Biometrisches Kolloquium in Dortmund, Germany, following John Hinde’s Keynote
Address on ‘Translational Statistics.’ Tim Friede
(German Region President), John Hinde (IBS President), Katja Ickstadt (Local Organizer), Jürgen
Kübler (German Region Past President), Jörg Rahnenführer (Local Organizer).
“Biometry, the active pursuit of biological knowledge by quantitative methods.” - R.A. Fisher, 1948
whole and to represent all of our members
in the governance and oversight of the running of our Society. This is very different
from the old IBS Council whose members
really did come with clear mandates from
their home Region, with every region being
represented. This direct regional link persists in the new Representative Council
and with the time for regions to propose
their replacement members for this fast
approaching (four-year terms start from
July of non-IBC years). I would urge any
members who are interested in getting
involved in this aspect to make them known
to their region. The Representative Council
is an excellent forum for inter-region collaboration and has responsibilities for many
important aspects of the Society, such as the
selection of ‘IBS Honors and Awards,’ formation of the Nominating Committee for IBS
elections, and additionally many members
serve on and chair the Standing Committees
of the Society. For those who are interested
in becoming more involved in the running
of IBS, joining Representative Council is an
excellent way to start in the International
Society.
The new Executive Board will meet for
the first time in April in Nijmegen, The
Netherlands, immediately after the Channel
Network Conference. This Executive Meeting
will be reported on in the next issue of this
Bulletin. The Channel Network Conference,
which brings together the Belgium, British
and Irish, French, and Netherlands Regions
is one of the many IBS regional meetings
that will take place this year. In March, I spent
three very interesting days at the German
Region’s 61st Biometrisches Kolloquium in
Dortmund. It was good to see that this
meeting included a special session with
speakers from the Polish Region, funded in
part by the International Society. This inter1
Biometric Bulletin
IN THIS ISSUE
President’s Corner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
From the Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Region Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
NEW FEATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Biometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
JABES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Region News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Australasian Region. . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Austro-Swiss Region. . . . . . . . . . . 7
British and Irish Region. . . . . . . . . 7
Chinese Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Dutch Region. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
German Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Eastern Mediterranean Region . . . 9
Eastern North American Region. . . 9
Japanese Region. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Spanish Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Western North American Region. . 10
Announcements and News . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Meetings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
region collaboration is something that we
are very keen to support, and I hope to be
able to report on more instances of this later
in the year. Over the coming months, I plan
to attend a number of other regional meetings—these provide an excellent opportunity for dialogue between the International
Society and the Regions and allow me to
meet many of you and solicit your views on
what you value in the Society and what you
would like to see happening.
These regional meetings are one of the great
strengths of our organisation and provide a
focus for biometry across the world. It is also
Continued on p. 6
BIOMETRIC BULLETIN
ISSN 8750-0434
Copyright © 2014
International Biometric Society
Biometric Bulletin is published four times a year in
March, June, September and December for US$40 per year by the:
International Biometric Society
1444 I Street, NW, Suite 700 • Washington, DC 20005-6542 USA
Telephone: +1 (202) 712-9049 • Fax: +1 (202) 216-9646
Email: <[email protected]>
Website: http://www.biometricsociety.org
The Biometric Bulletin is available to members of the Society as
part of their annual dues. The views of contributions to this publication should not be ascribed to the International Biometric Society.
Reproduction for commercial purposes is allowed if the source is
acknowledged.
Editor
Dimitris Karlis, Dept. of Statistics, Athens University of Economics &
Business, e-mail: <[email protected]>
Regional Correspondents
Liesbeth de Wreede (ANed), Sally Galbraith (AR), Richard Emsley
(BIR), Hein Putter (Channel Network), Axel Benner (DR), Anil
Barak (EMR), Leslie McClure (ENAR), Mamadou Diedhiou (GEth),
Olayemi Oluwasoga (GNi), Zofia Hanusz (GPol), Cornelia Enachesu
(GRo), Peter M. Njuho (GSAf), Wellington Mushayi (GZim), Babu
L. Verma (IR), Satoshi Hattori (JR), Esa Läärä (NR), Cecilia Bruno
(RArg), Sophie Vanbelle (RBe), Luzia Aparecida Trinca (RBras),
Novie Younger (RCAC), Anabel Forte (REsp), Robert Faivre (RF),
Stefano Salvadori (RItl), Seung-Ho Kang (Rko), Andrea Berghold
(ROeS), Henry G. Mwambi (SUSAN), Megan Othus (WNAR),
Jialiang Li (SING), Dan Kajungu (GUgan), Agnes Ankomah (GGha),
John Mwangi (GKe), Njoku Ama (GBot), Innocent Zebaze (GCam),
Cristian Meza (GCl), Katja Ickstadt (CEN), Alia Sajjad (PKSTAN),
Andrew Zhou (CHINA).
International Biometric Society Executive Board
President: John Hinde, Ireland
Past President: Clarice G.B. Demétrio, Brazil
Secretary-Treasurer: James Carpenter, United Kingdom
Directors: Wesley Johnson, United States; Lisa Lavange, United
States; Kerri Mengersen, Australia; Peter Njuho, South Africa;
Sharon-Lise Normand, United States; Vicente A. Núñez-Antón,
Spain; José Pinheiro, United States; Paulo J. Ribeiro, Brazil;
Michael Schemper, Austria; Alan Welsh, Australia; Andreas
Ziegler, Germany; Hendrick Boshuizen, Netherlands
Editors of Biometrics
Jeremy M.G. Taylor, University of Michigan, 1415 Washington
Heights, M4509 Sph Ii, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2007, Tel: (734) 9363287, Email: <[email protected]>
Jeanine J. Houwing-Duistermaat, Department of Medical
Statistics and Bioinformatics, Leiden University Medical Centre,
Postzone S-05-P, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands,
Tel: 31-71-5269707, Email: <[email protected]>
Yi-Hau Chen, Academia Sinica – Institute of Statistical Science,
Taipei 11529, Taiwan R.O.C., Tel: 886-2-27871968, Email:
<[email protected]>
Marie Davidian (Executive Editor), North Carolina State
University, Department of Statistics, Box 8203, Raleigh, NC
27695-8203, USA, Tel: +1-919-515-1940, Fax: +1-919-5157591, E-mail: <[email protected]>
Editor of Journal of Agricultural, Biological and
Environmental Statistics (JABES)
Montserrat (Montse) Fuentes, North Carolina State University
Department of Statistics, Box 8203, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA,
Tel:+1-919-515-1921, Fax: +1-919-515-1169, Email: <fuentes@
ncsu.edu>
International Business Office
Executive Director: Dee Ann Walker, CAE
Director of Education: Alphonsus Baggett, MEd
Director of Administration: Janet Huynh
From the Editor
SAVE THE DATE
Dear Reader,
A new issue of our Bulletin is out. In this issue,
we happily host another feature article by
Daria Steigman, news from the Regions, our
Calendar of Meetings and many other things
you always expect. I have also compiled some
results from the Society’s recent Committee on
Communications Survey conducted at the end
of 2014 between the members of IBS. The
report is included in this issue and revealed
interesting things about the Bulletin.
The featured article of this issue entitled
Predicting the Course of Multiple Sclerosis (MS):
How Statistics and Standard Scans Can Predict
Disease and Improve Treatments refers to the
findings from the University of Pennsylvania
on the important issue of how much information the different scans on patients with
MS provide and how this information can
be used for predictions. Findings are very
promising not only for MS but other diseases
as well. For one more issue, Daria put the
topic in a very nice perspective, presenting
the improvements on this field and explaining
to our audience how statistical modeling can
help considerably for such an ugly disease.
Since winter is almost over and the summer
is coming fast, a lot of interesting regional
conferences will take place this summer
around the world. You can find plenty of
information about the meetings for the
Regions in the section, Region News.
During the IBS conference last summer in
Florence, the Communications Committee
of IBS decided to run a web survey in order
to gather some opinions about the website
and other communication tools, including the
Biometric Bulletin. The web survey was conducted during November–December 2014.
As previously mentioned, you can find the
results concerning the Biometric Bulletin later
in this issue.
Once more, we welcome your suggestion
about the Bulletin. Also, ideas for future feature articles are much appreciated; we are
always in need of fresh topics for this successful column. You may email any ideas to
me directly at [email protected].
Note that preparations for the 28th
International Biometric Conference being held
July 10-15, 2016 in Victoria, British Columbia,
Canada have already started.
I hope you enjoy this issue.
Warmest Regards,
Dimitris Karlis
Biometric Bulletin
2
XXVIIIth International
Biometric Conference
10 – 15 July 2016
Victoria, Canada
Region Key
Regions
RArg - Argentinean Region
AR - Australasian Region
ROeS - Austro-Swiss Region
RBe - Belgian Region
RBras - Brazilian Region
BIR - British and Irish Region
RCAC - Central American-Caribbean Region
EMR - Eastern Mediterranean Region
ENAR - Eastern North American Region
RF - French Region
DR - German Region
IR - Indian Region
RItl - Italian Region
JR - Japanese Region
RKo - Korean Region
ANed - The Netherlands Region
NR - Nordic Baltic Region
SING - Singapore
REsp - Spanish Region
WNAR - Western North American Region
GBot - Botswana
GCam - Cameroon
GCI - Chile
CHINA - China
GEth - Ethiopia
GGha - Ghana
GKe - Kenya
GNi - Nigeria
PKSTAN - Pakistan
GPol - Poland
GRo - Romania
GSAf - South Africa
GUgan - Uganda
GZim - Zimbabwe
Networks
CEN - Central European Network
CN - Channel Network
SUSAN - Sub-Saharan Network
NEW FEATURE:
Predicting the Course of MS: How Statistics and Standard Scans
Can Predict Disease and Improve Treatments
By Daria Steigman
Some of the greatest discoveries start with curiosity. With asking an elegant question. Van Phillips asked, “why can’t they make a
better foot?”—and invented the Cheetah prosthetic. A daughter
asked, “why do we have to wait for the picture?”—and Edwin Land
invented the Polaroid camera.
Shinohara and his colleagues focused on one particular type of
imaging: T1 mapping. One way that T1 maps can be used is to study
the diffuse changes that occur in the brain over time. The better we
understand the degenerative impact of MS, in principle the better
we can treat it.
Author Warren Berger calls them beautiful questions.
A major problem with quantitative T1 mapping, however, is that
every machine is calibrated slightly differently—so it is difficult to
compare results from one MRI scanner to the next, and from one
facility to the next. T1 maps can have systematic differences across
protocols, software versions, scanners, and centers—making comparison a little bit like looking for the commonalities among apples,
oranges, and bananas.
Taki Shinohara, assistant professor of biostatistics, University of
Pennsylvania, started with a beautiful question about an ugly disease—multiple sclerosis. He asked: We take a lot of pictures to
understand MS, but how much additional information do postcontrast magnetic resonance images provide?
Exploring this simple question ultimately sparked a broader line
of inquiry that took researchers from looking at simple imaging to
pondering how better to predict information along the course of
MS and other diseases.
How Much Is a Post-Contrast Image Worth?
To understand how MS is traditionally monitored and treated, it
is first important to understand that standard clinical care involves
scanning a patient every 6-12 months (without—and subsequently
with—a contrast agent) to chart the accumulation of white matter
lesions. The traditional thinking is that the post-contrast scan will
show the more active (i.e., newer) lesions and the breakdowns in
the blood-brain barrier. Physicians can then change a patient’s treatment as needed.
Shinohara told Biometric Bulletin that the team started by
doing some simple statistical modeling to see whether there is information in pre-contrast MRIs that can tell them something about the
post-contrast MRI.
“It turns out you can do a pretty good job at predicting,” said
Shinohara. “This means that there is additional information in the
pre-contrast images that we’re not routinely seeing about the brain
and lesion activity.” This also suggests that under some circumstances
it might not be necessary to take additional, post-contrast images.
Refining the Predictions
The team’s next step was to conduct a longitudinal study of MRI
results. Members of the team looked at several years of images to
see what information the historical record (i.e., 2-3 years of images)
holds about what’s happening in the brain of an MS patient today.
They discovered that examining past images can give you a good
assessment of whether there is white matter lesion activity in a particular region of the brain.
The research team’s work comes at a time when the study of
magnetic resonance imaging in MS is shifting from focal lesions to
other parts of brain. This means that even areas that look healthy
now might hold clues to the future. Which led to a new question:
What additional information might be gleaned from new types of
advanced imaging?
3
Given these challenges, the team wondered: Can you predict T1
maps from conventional MRIs?
The answer, they found, is “yes.”
Amanda Mejia, a fourth year doctoral candidate in biostatistics at
Johns Hopkins University, is part of the team that took up this latest
question. She told Biometric Bulletin that their goal is to create a technique to estimate T1 relaxation times without doing any
additional scans or advanced biophysical modeling.
“We’ve developed a simple statistical model that allows you to get a
T1 map for free on top of a standard MRI protocol,” she said. It relies
on a standard clinical protocol of four MRI scans plus a tissue segmentation algorithm. It’s faster. No expensive additional scans. Less
time for MS patients to have to lie still in a machine. It also turns out
that statistical T1 maps have a better signal-to-noise ratio, enabling
better detection of differences in MS subpopulations.
Implications for Clinical Practice
To reduce the amount of time, or number of times, an MS patient
has to lie in an MRI machine is to enhance that patient’s quality of
life. To reduce the number of times a patient has to be injected with
a contrast agent is to reduce the opportunities for complications. To
reduce these things also reduces the overall cost of health care while
improving treatments—and, hopefully, outcomes as well.
While Taki Shinohara and his colleagues have focused their attention
on one disease, their research holds promise for other diseases. At
heart their work is about using statistics and statistical modeling to
predict both what has happened and what’s likely to happen. If it
works for MS, why can’t the same techniques be used to map the
progression of other diseases?
In addition to Taki Shinohara, key members of the team include
Daniel Reich (National Institute for Neurological Disorders and
Stroke), Gina-Maria Pomann and Ana-Maria Staicu (North Carolina
State University), and Ciprian Craniceanu, Elizabeth Sweeney, and
Amanda Mejia (Johns Hopkins University).
Hyperlink: Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question
Biometric Bulletin
Biometrics
June 2015 Issue Highlights
The June Biometric Methodology section opens with a Discussion
paper, “On Bayesian estimation of marginal structural models,” by
Olli Saarela, David A. Stephens, Erica E. M. Moodie, and Marina B.
Klein, followed by discussions by Michael R. Elliott and Roderick J.
Little; Paul Gustafson, Alessandra Mattei and Fabrizia Mealli; James
M. Robins, Miguel A. Hernán, and Larry Wasserman; and a rejoinder
by the authors. The rest of the issue features regular articles on a
wide range of methodological and application area topics. Biometric
Methodology includes “Generalized multilevel functional-on-scalar
regression and principal component analysis,” by Jeff Goldsmith,
Vadim Zipunnikov, and Jennifer Schrack; “Incorporating founder virus
information in vaccine field trials,” by Dean Follmann and Chiung-Yu
Huang; “Classification of longitudinal data through a semiparametric mixed-effects model based on lasso-type estimators,” by Ana
Arribas-Gil, Rolando De la Cruz, Emilie Lebarbier, and Cristian Meza;
and “Spatial extended hazard model with application to prostate
cancer survival,” by Li Li, Timothy Hanson, and Jiajia Zhang.
Among the papers in the Biometric Practice section are “Improving
efficiency in clinical trials using auxiliary information; Application
of a multi-state cure model,” by S. C. Conlon, J. M. G. Taylor, and
D. J. Sargent; “Detecting clinically meaningful biomarkers with
repeated measurements: An illustration with Electronic Health
Records.” by Benjamin A. Goldstein, Themistocles Assimes, Wolfgang
C. Winkelmayer, and Trevor Hastie; “A penalized likelihood approach
for investigating gene-drug interactions in pharmacogenetic studies,” by Megan L. Neely, Howard D. Bondell, and Jung-Ying Tzeng;
and “Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (SMART)
with adaptive randomization for quality improvement in depression
treatment program,” by Ying Kuen Cheung, Bibhas Chakraborty, and
Karina W. Davidson.
As always, lists of papers to appear can be found at the Biometrics
website. Papers to appear in future issues may also be found under
the “Early View” link at the Wiley website, which may be accessed by
IBS members by visiting http://www.biometricsociety.org/, selecting
“Biometrics” from the drop-down menu at the “Publications” link at
the top of the page, and accessing the “Click here” link.
Report of the Editors Highlights
As usual, the March 2015 issue contains as the lead article the
“Report of the Editors — 2014,” which presents journal statistics for
2014. Some highlights from the Report:
—Biometrics received 594 new submissions to the Biometric
Methodology and Biometric Practice sections of Biometrics in
2014, plus 7 Reader Reaction articles and 2 Letters to the Editors.
This number of submissions to Methodology and Practice is
increased by 50 over that for 2013 (554).
—Of the 594 submissions, 396 were to Biometric Methodology
(66.7%) compared to 363 (65.9%) in 2013 and 396 (71.9%) in
2012.
—The 594 submissions came from 38 countries/districts (based
on the country of the corresponding author). 56.9% were from
the USA, 5.9% from P.R. China, 5.0% from Canada, 4.4% from the
United Kingdom, and 3.0% from Italy.
—In 2014, Biometrics published 66 Biometric Methodology papers;
35 Biometric Practice papers, one of which was a Discussion paper.
More information is available in the full Report.
Editorial Board News
Co-Editor Jeanine Houwing-Duistermaat’s term will end 31
December 2015. According to geographic convention, the new
Co-Editor should reside in Europe. Following IBS policy, the following search committee has been appointed: Marie Davidian (ENAR,
Biometrics Executive Editor), Chair; Byron Morgan (BIR, former
Biometrics Editor and AE, EAC member); Bruce Lauckner (CACR,
EAC member); Esa Läärä (Nordic Baltic, EAC Chair); Yi-Hau Chen
(At-large, Biometrics Co-Editor); Jeanine Houwing-Duistermaat
(Dutch Region, Biometrics Co-Editor); and Michael J. Daniels (ENAR,
Biometrics Co-Editor). The nominee selected by the committee will
be subject to approval through the IBS governance structure. An
email requesting recommendations was sent to the IBS membership
in February.
The result of the search will be reported in a future column.
Associate Editors (AEs) for Biometrics serve two-year, renewable
terms that start on 1 July of each year. Each year, roughly half of
the AEs have terms ending on 30 June; accordingly, each Spring, the
Co-Editors review the expertise of the current AEs and submission trends with an eye toward possibly bringing on new AEs with
expertise that is underrepresented or may be lost by AE retirements.
The CEs welcome suggestions at any time from the IBS membership regarding individuals who may be excellent choices to serve
as AEs. Please send suggestions, along with a CV or URL where
the individual’s qualifications may be found, to the journal Editorial
Manager, Ms. Ann Hanhart, at [email protected]. Self-nominations
will be considered.
French Translations of Abstracts of Biometrics
Articles
Members of the French Region have graciously volunteered for
many years to prepare French translations of the abstracts of all
published Biometrics articles coordinated most recently by Bernard
Goldfarb and Jacques Benichou. Recently, links to these abstracts
were established on the Biometrics website homepage at http://
www.biometrics.tibs.org and on our publisher’s website at Wiley
Online Library, http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/biom, under the
SPECIAL FEATURES link.
Biometric Bulletin
4
Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental
Statistics (JABES) Editor Report
The Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics is
looking forward to an exciting year in 2015 with many upcoming
events. JABES will be hosting invited sessions at JSM and ENAR, and
will also be releasing a special issue. Also, every year JABES presents
the Best AE Award to one Associate Editor who has put a lot of
hard work into making JABES a successful journal. We are pleased to
announce that the winner of the Best AE Award for 2014 is Dipankar
Bandyopadhyay. Congratulations, and thank you for all your hard
work!
The showcase session at JSM 2015 in Seattle has been prepared by
Associate Editor, Dipankar Bandyopadhyay. The session, “Advances in
space-time covariance estimation and serially-dependent extremes”
will feature work by R. G. Niyogi’s “Low-rank Spatially Varying CrossCovariance Estimation,” B. Li’s “Nonparametric Space/Space-Time
Covariance Estimation,” B. Reich’s “Modeling Serially-Dependent
Extremes,” and will also feature a discussion by Sudipto Banerjee.
Also at JSM, there will be an Editorial Board Meeting for JABES on
Tuesday, August 11.
This year, JABES will also be hosting an invited session at the ENAR
Conference prepared by Murali Haran titled, “Journal of Agricultural,
Biological, and Environmental Statistics Highlights.” This will feature E. M. Schliep’s “Multilevel Latent Gaussian Process Model for
Mixed Discrete and Continuous Multivariate Response Data,” D.
Senturk’s “Nonlinear Varying-Coefficient Models with Application to
a Photosynthesis Study,” J. Grego’s “Limited-Information Modeling
of Loggerhead Turtle Population Size,” and J. Huang’s “Analysis
of Variance of Integro-Differential Equations with Application to
Population Dynamics of Cottong Aphids.”
titled “Statistical Genomics and Transcriptomics in Agriculture,” and
will feature many articles discussing cutting-edge techniques.
The next issue of JABES to be released in March 2015 will include
several interesting articles on new statistical techniques and process.
These articles include papers such as: “Robust Joint Non-linear
Mixed-Effects Models and Diagnostics for Censored HIV Viral Loads
with CD4 Measurement Error” by D. Bandyopadhyay, L. Castro, V.
Lachos, and H. Pinheiro; “Characterization of Weighted Quantile Sum
Regression for Highly Correlated Data in a Risk Analysis Setting” by
C. Carrico, C. Gennings, D. Wheeler, and P. Factor-Litvak; “Estimating
Abundance from Counts in Large Data Sets of Irregularly Spaced
Plots using Spatial Basis Functions” by J. Ver Hoef and J. Jansen;
“Bayesian Nonparametric Models of Circular Variables Based on
Dirichlet Process Mixtures of Normal Distributions” by G. NunezAntonio, M. Ausin, and M. Wiper; “Estimation of General Multistage
Models From Cohort Data” by P. de Valpine and J. Knape; “Pseudolikelihood Estimation of Multivariate Normal Parameters in the
Presence of Left-Censored Data” by H. Hoffman and R. Johnson;
“Analysing Mark-Recapture-Recovery Data in the Presence of
Missing Covariate Data Via Multiple Imputation” by H. Worthington,
R. King, and S. Buckland; and “Maximum Pairwise Pseudo-likelihood
Estimation of the Covariance Matrix from Left-Censored Data” by
M. Jones, S. Perry, and P. Thorne.
For more information on upcoming issues, the editorial board, and
the aim and scope of the journal please visit our website www.
editorialmanager.com/jabe. We also accept submissions of books to
review in the upcoming issues of JABES, to submit a book for review
please contact Mikyoung Jung at [email protected].
There will also be a special issue of JABES to be released in 2015
co-edited by Dan Nettleton and Rob Templeman. This issue will be
5
Biometric Bulletin
Montse Fuentes, Editor-in-Chief
President’s Corner
Region News
Continued from p. 1
Australasian Region (AR)
wonderful to see the focus given to young members at these meetings, typically through competitions, special sessions, travel awards,
training programmes, etc. This is clearly one way that the Society
and our members can serve the wider community to their mutual
benefit. In the same way, we hope that the IBS can also serve and
support all of you—the Society’s website is a key element in delivering on this. The Communications Committee, together with our
International Biometric Office, is currently looking at how to improve
the website and make it more useful and usable. It hosts a wealth
of material and not just information on upcoming meetings, but
resources that we hope may be of real benefit to our members. As I
mentioned in a previous column, we have been experimenting with
putting up material from IBCs, including videos of two invited sessions
and the short course on Meta Analysis and its implementation in R.
With my own group in Galway, over the last few weeks, we have
used the material from this short course as the focus for our postgraduate seminar group—I have to say that it was both an excellent
introduction to the topic and a good experience for all involved. The
technology worked very well, and it was almost as good as attending the course in person. So do try making use of these resources,
and let us know of your experiences, both good and bad. We will be
looking to do more of this from future IBCs, and I know that many
regions are doing similar things, which could perhaps also be shared
through the IBS website.
On the topic of member value from the website, I would like to
draw your attention to a little known specific member benefit. Our
journal publishers, Wiley and Springer, have special IBS member
discounts on their books. For details visit the ’Bookstore’ tab (www.
biometricsociety.org/bookstore) in the ’Members Only’ area of the
website, accessible once you have logged in using your personal
username and password.
Finally, plans for the next IBC in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
(10–15 July 2016) are advancing. You will already find a link to the
conference website on the IBS webpage with helpful information
on the conference location and travel, including visa requirement
details. Plans for the scientific programme are well under way: the
International Programme Committee is finalising the list of Invited
Sessions; the Education Committee is selecting a programme of Short
Courses; a committee is being set up to run the Young Statisticians
Award competition (5 awards of $3000); special Showcase Sessions
will include our two international journals Biometrics and JABES, a
session organised by the International Statistical Institute as part of
our bilateral arrangement, and a Statistics in Practice session organised
by the German Region together with the Education Committee. The
Call for Contributed Papers will go out later in the year, but do keep
an eye on the website (biometricconference.org) to catch up with
the latest developments. So, start planning your trip to Canada – it is
going to be another great IBC. Meanwhile, there are plenty more IBS
activities to come in 2015, and I hope to meet many of you at them.
John Hinde
[email protected]
Introducing the AR
President, Ross Darnell
Ross Darnell, an applied statistician at CSIRO in Queensland,
recently began his term as
President of the Australasian
Region. Ross has extensive
experience as a statistical consultant in research and academic institutions in Australia and
the United Kingdom. He is regularly a participant at IBCs, having attended the Cairns, Dublin,
Ross Darnell (CSIRO, Queensland), Kobe and Florence conferences.
Ross, who is looking forward to
President of the Australasian Region.
the next two years in the role of
president, is eager to help develop any new initiatives and opportunities from our members.
Australasian Biometric Conference, 2015
Biometrics by the Harbour
Hobart, Tasmania 29 November – 3 December 2015
Save the Date: On behalf of the Australasian Region of the
International Biometric Society we invite you to join us for our
biennial conference. Share your work with colleagues working with
statistical tools on problems in the biosciences, including ecology,
agriculture, biomedical science, public health, environmental science
and forestry.
The conference will be held at one of Hobart’s oldest hotels –
Hadley’s Orient Hotel (http://hadleyshotel.com.au), located in the
heart of Hobart. Hobart itself is well known for its history, its natural
beauty, its food and culture, and as a gateway to pristine wilderness.
Come and enjoy a world-class conference in a stimulating environment! Further details are available at http://www.biometricsociety.
org.au/conferences.html.
Travel Awards to Assist IBS Members from
Developing Countries
The IBS Awards Fund Committee has instituted a program to assist
IBS members from developing countries to attend conferences
sponsored by IBS Regions or Networks, such as Biometrics by the
Harbour. For more information, please visit: http://www.biometricsociety.org/travel-grant-application/.
Biometric Bulletin
6
Congratulations Shirley
Pledger
Congratulations to Shirley
Pledger, from Victoria University
of Wellington, who was recently awarded the New Zealand
Statistical Association’s highest
accolade, the Campbell Award
(http://stats.org.nz/honours/
campbell-award), for her sustained contribution to the promotion and development of
statistics. Shirley started out in
Shirley Pledger (Victoria University mathematics and moved into
of Wellington), recipient of the New statistics after a few years at
Zealand Statistical Association’s home with family. She has been
a member of IBS since 1982
Campbell Award.
and was an associate editor
of Biometrics during 2001-2003. Her research work is in capturerecapture models and, more recently, in modelling ecological communities using finite mixtures. She retired recently but continues at
Victoria University, doing research and supervision and drinking tea
with colleagues.
Vanessa Cave
Austro-Swiss Region (ROeS)
As IBS Biometric Bulletin correspondent from the Swiss-Austria
Region, I am excited about the election of Frank Bretz into the IBS
Executive Board. Frank made many important contributions to our
Region as well as our neighboring Region, the IBS German Region,
including scientific program committee member for several international and regional biometric conferences, including the 2nd
Central European Network Meeting in Zurich (2011, co-organized
by three IBS Regions: German, Austro-Swiss and Polish Regions),
and the upcoming joint annual conference of the Austro-Swiss
and Italian Regions (2015). Frank is an active member of the Basel
Biometric Society (sub-unit of the ROeS), having contributed in
different roles as presenter or chair of several events in the past
10 years.
In addition, Frank had served the global IBS as associate editor
for the IBS journals Biometrics (since 2007) and Biometrical Journal
(2007–2012); and as an elected IBS Council member for one period
(2010–2012). He was awarded the Susanne-Dahms-Medal in 2013
by the IBS German Region for “outstanding accomplishments for
the IBS.”
I would like to conclude this article with Frank’s vision of the global
role of the biometrics society as well as how regional and individual contributions are key to achieve this: “Moving forward, my
vision is to promote the unique identity of biometrics by clarifying
the differences in roles and needs between biometrics and the
other quantitative sciences and foster the development and application of biometrics in research, teaching and practice by means
of organizing and holding scientific meetings, supporting vibrant
working groups and publishing top-tier publications. I would like
to strengthen interdisciplinary efforts in advancing the collection
and interpretation of data in the biosciences by bridging the gap
between the statistical methodologies and their applications in the
7
day-to-day world. And importantly, I would like to promote and
support the dedicated contribution of every single member of the
ROeS to deepen the society’s impact.”
Dominik Heinzmann
British and Irish Region (BIR)
IBS-BIR Meetings in 2015
The IBS-BIR are pleased to announce the following meetings planned
for 2015:
The 5th Channel Network Conference –Nijmegen, The
Netherlands. 20-22 April 2015: There is still time to register for the
5th Channel Network Conference that is being held in Nijmegen, The
Netherlands. The conference is jointly organised by the IBS Regions
of Belgium, France, Great Britain/Ireland and the Netherlands.
The keynote speaker for the conference will be Sylvia Richardson
(Cambridge, UK). Please visit the website http://www.ibschannel2015.nl/ibs-channel-2015/ for more information.
Invited Session on Stratified Medicine, RSS Conference
2015 Monday 7 - Thursday 10 September, 2015 The IBS-BIR are
organising an invited session on the topic of ‘Stratified Medicine,’
which will be hosted at the RSS Annual Conference in Exeter, UK. The
invited session will be on Tuesday 8 September. For more details
please visit http://bit.ly/1ABpy8A.
Food Security – The Role of Biological Modelling
Thursday 8 October 2015:The IBS-BIR is planning a half-day meeting
on the theme of ‘Food Security’ to be held at Rothamsted Research,
Harpenden, UK. Further details will be available on the BIR website
in due course. Please save the date in your diary.
Michael Sweeting
Chinese Region (CHINA)
Conference Announcement
Sixth Annual International Symposium on the Evaluation
of Clinical Trials (Methodologies and Applications): In
recent years, design and data analysis are getting more and more
attention in clinical medical research. To foster dialogue among
experts in clinical trials from mainland China and abroad on design,
data analysis, and related topics, as well as to promote an interdisciplinary cooperation for future investigations, Renmin University of
China, together with the International Biometric Society of China
(IBS-China), will host the Sixth Annual International Symposium on
the Evaluation of Clinical Trials (Methodologies and Applications). This
conference will bring together biostatisticians from the United States,
Europe and East Asia regions. Some well known biostatisticians will
give keynote presentations. Scholars and experts in related fields are
warmly welcome to submit abstracts, papers and join us in July in
Beijing. Please check the website of the conference for latest information: http://www.biostat.org.cn/.
Biometric Bulletin
Andrew Zhou
Dutch Region (ANed)
Fall/Winter Meeting
The annual Fall Meeting of BMS-ANed with the topic “Social Networks
and Infectious Disease” took place on December 17 at Wageningen
University. Different aspects of social networks were highlighted in
four interesting talks. In the first talk, Mirjam Kretzschmar (National
Institute of Public Health and the Environment and University
Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands) focused on modelling the
spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) by means of social
networks. By modelling partner change rates, partnership duration
and overlapping relations, insight could be obtained in how STIs
spread, and this knowledge could furthermore be used in public
health interventions. The talk of Jacco Wallinga (National Institute
of Public Health and the Environment, the Netherlands) revolved
around the question “Who infected whom?” He showed that combining information sources, namely information on the infected cases
(such as time and place) and information on the genetic sequence of
pathogens isolated from these cases, can increase the understanding
of the underlying mechanism. Natalie van der Wal (VU University,
Amsterdam, the Netherlands) took a different perspective to using
statistical methods to analyse networks. She illustrated how multi
agent systems can be used to model and predict crowd behaviour,
by means of modelling individual emotions, and ways in which these
emotions can subsequently influence the emotions of others. The
last presentation was given by Ernst Wit (University of Groningen,
the Netherlands), who addressed the question how social networks
can be used to gain more insight in the dispersion of so called “social
epidemics”, such as smoking and drinking behaviour. The diversity of
the talks ensured that the meeting was well received by the broad
audience.
Spring Meeting
This spring, the Dutch regional section of the IBS organizes its
Spring Meeting as plenary session of the IBS Channel Meeting in the
Lindenberg Theater in the Centre of Nijmegen, from 13:00-17:00 on
Wednesday 22 April 2015. Attendance to the Spring Meeting is free,
and registration to the Channel Meeting is not required.
The focus of the meeting will be the inference of dynamic networks.
Network science initially focused heavily on static networks. However,
many real-life processes consider networks that change over time or,
at least, have an explicit time component. This afternoon will feature talks by Dirk Husmeier (Glasgow), Gerda Claeskens (Leuven),
Marco Grzegorzcyk (Groningen), Ines Wilms (Leuven) and Michael
Eichler (Maastricht), in honour of the Biometry Award 2014, awarded
to Fentaw Abegaz for the best Dutch biostatistics paper in 20122013 (“Sparse time series chain graphical models for reconstructing
genetic networks”, joint with E.C. Wit).
Annual Meeting
The Annual Meeting of BMS-ANed will be held during the Channel
Network Conference. The exact place and date will be announced
shortly.
I
BS Channel Network Conference 2015, April 20-22,
Nijmegen, the Netherlands
We are pleased to invite you for the 5th Channel Network Conference.
This biennial conference is organized by the Regions Belgium, France,
Great-Britain/Ireland and the Netherlands of the International
Biometric Society. This time it will take place in the beautiful and
lively city of Nijmegen. If you did not register yet, please do so. All
necessary information can be found on the website http://www.
ibschannel2015.nl/.
Other large statistical event: 36th Annual Conference
of the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics
2015, August 23-27, Utrecht, the Netherlands
The city of Utrecht, the Netherlands, will host the 36th ISCB Annual
Conference in 2015. The conference is a scientific forum for international exchange of theory, methods and applications of biostatistics
in medical research and practice. The conference is intended for
statisticians, clinicians and members of other disciplines, such as epidemiologists, clinical chemists and clinical pharmacologists interested
in the field of clinical biostatistics. For more information, visit http://
www.iscb2015.info/. The deadline for abstract submission is Friday
April 3, 2015.
Rosa Meijer
German Region (DR)
Working Group ‘Pharmaceutical Research’
The working group “Pharmaceutical Research” met in Munich on
November 28, 2014, discussing sub-group analysis and experiences
with the EMA guidance on missing data. About 130 participants
attended. The agenda was graced by the following talks: Tim Friede
(Uni Göttingen) Identifying subgroups of treatment responders: A
meta-analytic approach; Hendrik Schmidt (Boehringer-Ingelheim)
Subgroup analyses within & across confirmatory trials – A review of
potential issues; Armin Koch (MH Hannover) News from the guideline on sub-group analysis; Christoph Gerlinger (Bayer) Public access
to clinical trial data - Chances, risks and side effects from a statistical
viewpoint; Bodo Kirsch, Arno Fritsch (Bayer) Missing data sensitivity
analyses – Examples from two FDA Advisory Committees; Norbert
Benda (BfArM) Missing data imputation for de-facto and de-jure
estimands. ( Frank Langer, Bad Homburg)
Working Group ‘Population Genetics
and Genome Analysis’
The program for the next workshop “Biometric aspects of genome
analysis”, organized by the working group in collaboration with
GMDS and DGEpi in Heidelberg next March 5-6, can now be
ownloaded at www.biometrie.uni-heidelberg.de/StatisticalGenetics/
GenomAnalyse.
In addition to a tutorial on “Linkage analysis in the era of WGS- and
WES studies”, and an invited talk on “Microbiome data analysis”,
the program includes 15 contributions on Rare Variant Analysis,
Population Genetics, Genetic Epidemiology and Genetic Data
Integration. (Justo Lorenzo Bermejo, Heidelberg)
Axel Benner
Biometric Bulletin
8
Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR)
News from the Region
The 3rd Meeting of the Revived Israeli Biostatistics
Forum will be held in November 2015 in Haifa University, Israel, in
memory of Prof. Marvin Zelen. Prof. Zelen was a big supporter of
the EMR-IBS and participated in all EMR conferences. This meeting
will be organized by Prof. Ori Davidov (Haifa University), a former
student of Marvin. Four talks will be given on topics from areas of
Marvin’s research.
The Annual Israeli Statistical Association Conference will
be held on the 28th of May 2015 in the Central Bureau of Statistics
in Jerusalem, Israel. There will be four parallel sessions, two of them:
Missing Data (organizer: Havi Murad; Gertner Institute) and Clinical
Trials (organizer: Anat Sakov; Teva Pharmaceutical Ind. LTD) will be
held in collaboration with EMR-IBS. In addition there will be a poster
session and a competition for the best poster with a prize of $250
for the winner. Scientific Committee: Daniel Rothenstein (Chair; QBI
Enterprises Ltd.), Malka Gorfine (Tel-Aviv Univ.), Or Zuk (Hebrew
Univ.), Yair Goldberg (Haifa Univ.), Havi Murad (Gertner Institute;
President of EMR).
Frontier Science Foundation Hellas (FSF-H) is supporting student awards in honor of Prof. Lagakos. The awards include air
travel (economy class), registration fees and accommodation to Suhan
Hotel for the days of the conference, up to 1000 Euros. The winners
for the EMR conference in Cappadocia Turkey are: Mrs. Nicole Erler
from Erasmus Medical Center “Multiple Imputation for Incomplete
Predictors and Complex Outcomes: Mice vs. Sequential Bayesian”,
supervised by Dr. Dimitris Rizopoulos; Mr.Daniel Nevo from The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem “Accounting For Measurement Error
in Genomic Data and Misclassification of Subtypes in the Analysis”,
supervised by Prof David Zucker; and Mrs. Loumpiana Koulai from
MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge “Estimating the HIV
Seroconversion Time Using Biomarkers of Recent Infection”, supervised by Dr. Daniela De Angelis.
Anil Dolgun
Eastern North American Region
(ENAR)
ENAR Officers
ENAR is pleased to announce the election of the following officers:
President Elect: Jianwen Cai and Secretary: Brent Coull.These officers
will join President: José Pinheiro; Past President: DuBois Bowman;
Treasurer: Sarah Ratcliffe; and Regional Advisory Board (RAB)
Chair: Philip Reiss on the Executive Committee. Additionally, ENAR
welcomes the newest members of the Regional Committee (20152017): Paul Albert, Reneé Moore, and Mary Sammel.
The ENAR membership expresses heartfelt appreciation to all
candidates. We are fortunate to have many outstanding members
willing to commit time and energy to serve the profession and organization. Please join us in congratulating our newly-elected officers.
Dan Heitjan, 2014 ENAR Past President, chaired the Nominations
Committee. We are extremely grateful to the committee for assembling an excellent ballot.
9
2015 ENAR Spring Meeting, 15–18 March, Miami,
Florida, USA
The 2015 Spring Meeting of the IBS Eastern North American Region,
in conjunction with the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) and
section of the American Statistical Association (ASA), was held 15-18
March at the Hyatt Regency Miami, and attendees were treated to a
Tuesday night dinner cruise aboard the Biscayne Lady yacht. Special
thanks to the 2015 Program Chair Mithat Gönen and Associate
Program Chair Brisa Sánchez; IMS Program Chair Lurdes Y.T. Inoue;
Local Arrangements Chair Tülay Koru Şengül, and all of the program
committee members.
The scientific program was outstanding, covering a wide variety
of topics including data sciences (big data), genomics, clinical trials,
neuroimaging, biomarkers, health policy, electronic health records,
ecology and epidemiology. The Presidential Invited Speaker was Dr.
David L. DeMets, the Max Halperin Professor of Biostatistics and former Chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, speaking about “Big Data,
Big Opportunities, Big Challenges.” Dr. Tilmann Gneiting, Group
Leader at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS)
and Professor of Computational Statistics at the Karlsruhe Institute
of Technology (KIT) in Germany presented the IMS Medallion Lecture,
entitled: “Uncertainty Quantification in Complex Simulation Models
Using Ensemble Copula Coupling.”
Several full and half-day short courses were offered and were a
resounding success! Additionally, shorter tutorials were presented,
as well as roundtable luncheons, offering participants an opportunity
to interact with experts in a smaller venue. A workshop, Fostering
Diversity in Biostatistics, was held on the opening Sunday, organized
by Co-chairs Dr. Sean Simpson and Dr. Simone Gray. The Junior
Researchers’ Workshop: Junior Biostatisticians in Health Research, was
held on Saturday, and was organized by Kimberly Drews.The Council
for Emerging and New Statisticians held a student mixer on Monday
night and a Tuesday luncheon, providing networking opportunities
for students and recent graduates.
2015 JSM 8-13 August, Seattle, Washington, USA
The Joint Statistical Meetings will return to Seattle Washington in
2015, and ENAR is fortunate to have Olga Marchenko be our representative to the Program Committee. Be sure to check the JSM
website frequently for updates to the program: http://www.amstat.
org/meetings/jsm/2015/program.cfm.
2016 ENAR Spring Meeting, 6-9 March, Austin, Texas,
USA
Stay tuned for information about the 2016 ENAR Spring Meeting
at the JW Marriott in Austin, Texas! Please send ideas about invited
sessions to Program Chair Wei Sun ([email protected]) or
Associate Program Chair Laura Hatfield ([email protected].
edu). Michael Daniels is the Local Arrangements Chair, and we look
forward to learning about what Austin has to offer!
Biometric Bulletin
ENAR Continues the WebENAR Series
The ENAR webinar series continues this spring, with the 8 May webinar: “Thoughts on Interpretable Machine Learning”, presented by Dr.
Cynthia Rudin, Associate Professor of Statistics at MIT CSAIL and
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
More details can be found at: http://www.enar.org/education/index.
cfm.
The 2015 Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting
The Biometric Society of Japan is one of the six sponsoring organizations of the meeting, and the 2015 Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting
will be held on 6–9 September at Tsushima Campus of Okayama
University in Okayama. The Biometric Society of Japan is organizing
the Biometric Symposium and several invited sessions.
Satoshi Hattori
Leslie McClure
Spanish Region (REsp)
Japanese Region (JR)
The 2014 Biometric Seminar
The Biometric Seminar “Multiplicity Issues in Clinical Trials” was held on
19-20 December 2014 at the Campus Plaza Kyoto. On the first day,
introductory lectures on multiplicity issues in clinical trials and statistical methods for multiplicity adjustment for unstructured hypotheses
were presented. On the second day, lectures on methods for structured hypotheses, including gatekeeping procedures, were made.
Practical issues on these methodologies were also discussed. Totally,
115 people attended the seminar.The Biometric Society of Japan will
publish a special issue of Japanese Journal of Biometrics, which consists
of several papers by the lectures of the seminar.
The 2015 Special Lecture
The 2015 Special Lecture of the Biometric Society of Japan was held
on on 9 January 2015 at Kyoto University. Forty-seven people
attended the lecture. Prof. Tosiya Sato (Kyoto University) made his
talk entitled “The ICH Statistical Guideline: the Origin of the concepts of trial statistician, FAS, and non-inferiority trial”. He worked
on developing the ICH E9 Guideline as an academic representative
in Japan. He explained about the organization of ICH, shared his
experience in development of the Guideline and discussed current
issues in clinical trials.
The Biometric Workshop
The Biometric Society of Japan has released a statement on clinical research and an ethical guideline for biostatisticians. The release
is partly motivated by recent social problem in Japan concerning
inappropriate data handling in several medial researches. For an
educational purpose, the Society held the ‘Biometric Workshop’ on
9 January, 2015 at Kyoto University. In addition to lectures on the
statement and the guideline, interactive group work was done to fix
and improve understandings of the statement.
The 2015 Annual Meeting of the Biometric Society of
Japan
The 2015 Annual Meeting of the Biometric Society of Japan was
held on 12–13 March, 2015 at Inamori Hall in Shirankaikan, Kyoto
University, Kyoto, Japan. An invited session on statistical issues in brain
researches was presented. Prof. Shigeyuki Matsui (Nagoya University),
who is the winner of the Biometric Society of Japan Award 2014 for
Outstanding Scientific Contribution, gave a lecture on his perspective
to further potential of biostatistics. Totally, 20 contributed oral or
poster presentations were given. A tutorial seminar was also held
on efficient use of medical record data in risk assessment of drugs.
XVth Spanish Biometric Conference & Vth IberoAmerican Biometric Meeting Conference (CEBEIB2015)
Online abstract submission is now open for CEB-EIB2015. Instructions
for abstract submission, conference registration and other details
(scientific program, scholarships and awards, etc.) are available on the
conference website: http://www.ehu.eus/en/web/ceb-eib2015/home.
For any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Important Dates:
Online abstract submission deadline: 5 May 2015
Notification of acceptance:
15 June 2015
Registration (Early Bird):
10 July 2015
Anabel Forte
Western North American Region
(WNAR)
2015 WNAR Election Results
Congratulations to Susanne May from the University Washington,
WNAR President-elect; Mary Redman from the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center, WNAR Treasurer; Dongseok Choi from
Oregon Health Science University, WNAR Program Coordinator;
Nichole Carlson from the University of Colorado Denver and
Ken Newman from United State Fish and Wildlife Service, WNAR
Regional Committee Representatives; and Carl Schwarz from Simon
Fraser University, WNAR IBS Council Representative.
Special thanks go out to Brad Biggerstaff, outgoing WNAR Pastpresident; Dean Billheimer and Sarah Emerson, outgoing Regional
Committee Representatives; and Christine McLaren, outgoing IBS
Council Representative, for their efforts and dedication to WNAR.
We would like to thank all the WNAR members who volunteered
to be candidates for these offices. WNAR is fortunate to have so
many talented members willing to dedicate their time and energy
to WNAR, which makes each election a choice among outstanding
individuals.
Biometric Bulletin
10
2015 WNAR Meeting
The 2015 WNAR/IMS Meeting will be in Boise, Idaho from 21-24
June hosted by Boise State University. Boise is located on the Boise
River in southwestern Idaho and is the capital and most populous
city in Idaho. There are a number of recreational activities available
in Boise, including extensive hiking and biking opportunities in the
foothills north of the town. The Boise River is a common destination
for fishing, swimming, and rafting. The local organizer is Kyungduk Ko.
Details about the meeting will be posted on the WNAR web page,
www.wnar.org, as they become available.
2015 WNAR Student Paper Competition
WNAR sponsors students who enter the student paper competition. All entrants receive their registration fees and banquet dinner
ticket for free. Monetary prizes will be awarded to the best papers
in written and oral competitions. Information on the 2015 WNAR
Student Paper Competition, registration information, and program
details for the meeting will be posted as they become available:
http://www.wnar.org. We look forward to seeing you there.
Megan Othus
Announcements and News
IBS on LinkedIn - Join our Group &
Get Connected to Colleagues Across
the Globe
IBS has created a LinkedIn Group for biometrics industry professionals to become a part of…and network
with your colleagues instantaneously! Post discussions
to the Group and get comments/feedback from Group
members on their perspectives or experiences. A great
benefit of this Group is that it’s a very easy and free way to communicate with your colleagues who live all around the world. Being
connected to the IBS Group will allow you to see other connection
possibilities as well and broaden your professional network. The possibilities are endless. Join our Group today by visiting www.linkedin.
com, and search under Groups for ‘International Biometric Society.’
Survey about Biometric Bulletin
During the IBS conference last summer in Florence, the
Communication Committee of IBS decided to run a web-based survey in order to gather some opinions about the website and other
communication tools, including the Biometric Bulletin (BB hereafter).
The web-based survey was conducted during November-December
2014. All members of IBS received an email for participating in the
survey. 539 of them filled the web questionnaire. In this short note
we will present some of the interesting findings of the survey with
respect to the BB. More information may be reported in a forthcoming issue. The data can be used as a basis for examining the
penetration of the BB to our members but also as a basis for further
comparisons in the future.
We emphasize that the participation is far from being considered as
a random sample representative of the population of all members,
but we feel that some interesting trends, either considered as just
indicative can be derived. I present the main findings with small (minimum) commentary on the numbers.
Figure 1 refers to the “status” of the participants. This is self-reported,
and every participant could refer to more than one status. The great
majority were regular members as expected, though an interesting
portion of student members also participated.
Figure 1. Information about the participants.
11
Biometric Bulletin
Figure 2 depicts the responses on whether they read the BB every
quarter.The proportion of those that never read is up to 5.2%. I find
encouraging the fact that over 80% and more read the BB.
Figure 3: How do you prefer to read the BB?
Figure 2: Do you read the BB?
It is also interesting to see Table 1 where the proportions of readers
have been divided by status. We are using only the more important
statuses, namely ‘Student,’ ‘Regular’ and ‘Retired.’ Student members
have a different pattern, with more “no responses” but also much
smaller proportion for “Always.” It seems that students are less committed with the BB.
Students
Always
Sometimes
Never
No response
11.5
53.8
11.5
23.1
Regular
Members
35.1
50.5
4.9
9.5
The last question attempted to rank the regular articles of BB giving
a score from 1 (less important) to 5 (most important). The means
(and the number of respondents in parenthesis) can be seen in
Figure 4. The ‘Meetings Calendar’ has the largest mean but close
enough are the ‘News,’ the ‘Region News’ and the ‘Feature Article.’ It
seems that the differences are not important, and thus most components of the BB are of similar importance.
Retired
37.5
40.6
3.1
18.8
Table 1: Proportion (in %) of responses about reading per subscription status.
Figure 3 refers to the way they read BB. A question of interest is
whether new technologies should be adapted for forthcoming issues.
The current case is that BB is delivered as a PDF file, and the access is
available through this. There are discussions on an HTML version, so
technologies on how the issues were read are important. The larger
proportion reads on a screen while there are many subscribers that
still print the issue. As expected retired persons still prefer to print
the BB (32% versus 18% for students and 19% for regular members).
Tablet usage is almost the same across the three categories, but
again the retired members have better proportion on this – 14% for
retired, 5% for students and 8% for regular members.
Figure 4: Importance of regular BB articles.The number refers to the mean
over the respondents; the number in parenthesis is the number of valid
responses.
There was also a question on the format, whether we have to switch
to an HTML format in the near future. The responses can be seen
in Figure 5. The majority supports that both (PDF and HTML) versions should be available. Comparing PDF versus HTML directly, the
choice of HTML wins.
Biometric Bulletin
12
Figure 5: Barplot for the different platforms for the BB.
I would like to thank all participants for the feedback they provided.
I think that the information is highly important, and we will try our
best to improve in all feasible issues mentioned.
13
Biometric Bulletin
An Innovative Approach to Improving Research Capacity in Africa –
The Role of the Research Methods Library of Alexandria (RMLA)
Musa Abubakar Kana, MBBS, MPH, MWACP, FMCPH
RMLA Regional Centre
Kaduna State University
Nigeria
[email protected]
It has been observed that resource limited parts of the world like Africa produce less science than it could.
This is illustrated by the fact that only 3% of all publications come from developing countries; despite the
fact that 27% of the scientists and 80% of the population live in developing countries. A primary reason for
this is Stataphobia, which is the fear of research design and statistics, and not having access to people who
can help. Sadly, 80% of all rejected articles are due to poor research methods.
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
From 283 BC until AD 391, Egypt’s Great Library
of Alexandria was the repository of knowledge
for the ancient world. In 2002, the Bibliotheca
Alexandrina was rebuilt to resemble a flying discus
at the approximate site of the ancient library.
Research Methods Library of Alexandria (http://ssc.bibalex.org/helpdesk/introduction.jsf) is one of the
largest and comprehensive collections of research methods on the web, which presents an innovative
approach to improving research capacity. The RMLA represents a one stop Library to answer research
methods questions. This visionary project is promoted by Dr. Ismail Serageldin (Founding Director of
Bibliotheca Alexandrina) and is being hosted and supervised by the Egypt’s Library of Alexandria. Currently,
there are 48 centers (and expanding) participating in the Research Methods Library of Alexandria program. The RMLA is a global initiative and partnership driven by Professor Ronald LaPorte, Drs. Faina Linkov
and Eugene Subnikov, as well as over 80 collaborators that have a shared vision of sharing knowledge. The
partnership of the International Biometric Society and RMLA will expand the collaboration for promoting
the teaching of research methods.
Biometric Bulletin
14
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
THE FOURTEENTH ANNUAL JANET L. NORWOOD AWARD
For Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Statistical Sciences
The Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
is pleased to request nominations for the Fourteenth Annual Janet L. Norwood Award for Outstanding
Achievement by a Woman in the Statistical Sciences. The award will be conferred on Wed 9/9/2015. The award
recipient will be invited to deliver a lecture at the UAB award ceremony, and will receive all expenses, the award,
and a $5,000 prize. Acceptance of the award is conditional on delivering the lecture at UAB on 9/9/2015.
Eligible individuals are women who have completed their terminal degree, have made extraordinary contributions
and have an outstanding record of service to the statistical sciences, with an emphasis on both their own scholarship and on teaching and leadership of the field in general and of women in particular and who, if selected, are
willing to deliver a lecture at the award ceremony. For additional details about the award, please visit our website
at http://www.soph.uab.edu/awards/norwoodaward.
How to nominate: Please send a full curro;;;lbcxiculum vitae accompanied by a letter of not more than two pages
in length describing the nature of the candidate’s contributions. Contributions may be in the area of development
and evaluation of statistical methods, teaching of statistics, application of statistics, or any other activity that can
arguably be said to have advanced the field of statistical science. Self-nominations are acceptable.
Please send nominations to:
David B. Allison, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor, Quetelet Endowed Professor of Public Health, Associate Dean for Science; Director,
Office of Energetics; Director, Nutrition Obesity Research Center [email protected]
Deadline for receipt of nominations is Fri 6/26/2015. Electronic submissions of nominations are encouraged. The
winner will be announced by Mon 7/6/2015.
Previous Recipients:
1. (2002) Dr. Jane F. Gentleman: Dir, Div Health Interview Statistics, NCHS & VP ASA
2. (2003) Dr. Nan M. Laird: Henry Pickering Walcott Prof, Biostatistics, Harvard
3. (2004) Dr. Alice S. Whittemore: Prof & Co-Chair, Health Research & Policy, Stanford
4. (2005) Dr. Clarice R. Weinberg: NIEHS Biostatistics Branch Chief
5. (2006) Dr. Janet Turk Wittes: Pres, Statistics Collaborative Inc.
6. (2007) Dr. Marie Davidian: Distinguished Prof, Statistics at NC State
7. (2008) Dr. Xihong Lin: Prof, Biostatistics, Harvard
8. (2009) Dr. Nancy Geller: Dir, NHLBI Office of Biostatistics Research
9. (2010) Dr. L. Adrienne Cupples: Prof, Biostatistics & Epidemiology, Boston University
10. (2011) Dr. Lynne Billard: University Prof, University of Georgia
11. (2012) Dr. Nancy Flournoy: Prof, Statistics, University of Missouri
12. (2013) Dr. Kathryn Roeder: Prof, Statistics, Carnegie Mellon University
13.(2014) Dr. Judith D. Singer: Senior Vice Provost, Faculty Development & Diversity, James Bryant Conant Prof,
Education, Harvard University
15
Biometric Bulletin
Biometric Bulletin
16
MEETINGS
2015
1-3 July
5th Channel Network Conference
Nijmegen, the Netherlands
http://www.ibschannel2015.nl/
Summer School ‘Analysis of Event Times: Basics and
New Challenges’
Strobl am Wolfgangsee, Austria
http://www.biometrische-gesellschaft.de/fileadmin/AG_Daten/Weiterbildung/PDFs/
Sommerschule2015.pdf
11-15 May
6-10 July
26-29 May
8-10 July
20-22 April
8th Eastern Mediterranean Region Conference
Cappadocia, Turkey
http://biostat.cu.edu.tr/emr2015
30th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling
Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria)
http://ifas.jku.at/iwsm2015/
XXXV National Conference of the Spanish Statistical
Society and IX Conference of Official Statistics
Pamplona, Spain
http://www.seiopamplona2015.es/es/
28 May
Summer School ‘Semi- and nonparametric methods in
Biometry’ of Working Group Nonparametric Methods
Reisensburg near Ulm, Germany
10 July
The Annual Israeli Statistical Association Conference
Jerusalem, Israel
40 Years Berliner Colloquium Statistical Methods in
Empirical Research
Berlin, Germany
7-10 June
11-12 July
The 5th Nordic-Baltic Biometric Conference
Reykjavik, Iceland
6th Annual International Symposium on the Evaluation
of Clinical Trials (Methodologies and Applications)
Beijing, China
http://www.biostat.org.cn/
14-17 June
2015 WNAR/IMS Annual Meeting
Boise, Idaho
www.wnar.org
19-22 July
2015 Statistical Computing
Günzburg, Germany
15-19 June
Joint Meeting of the International Biometric Society
Austro-Swiss and Italian Regions
Milan, Italy
http://www.ibs-roes.org/iroes-2015/
23-24 June
Summer Meeting of Working Group Agricultural
Experiments
Potsdam-Bornim, Germany
http://www.biometrische-gesellschaft.de/en/arbeitsgruppen/landwirtschaftliches-versuchswesen/
termine.html
24-26 June
Adaptive Designs and Multiple Testing Procedures
Cologne, Germany
17
20-24 July
Joint 60th Brazilian Regional Meeting and 16th
Brazilian Symposium of Applied Statistics for
Agricultural Experimentation
Presidente Prudente, Sao Paulo, Brazil
http://sigeve.ead.unesp.br/paginas/din.php?p=40
26-31 July
60th ISI World Statistics Congress
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
http://www.isi2015.org/
5-8 August
7th Regional Meeting of RCAC in Conjunction with the
25th Colombian Statistics Symposium
Quindio, Columbia
http://simposioestadistica.unal.edu.co/
Biometric Bulletin
MEETINGS (Cont.)
8-13 August
The Joint Statistical Meeting
Seattle, Washington
http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2015/program.cfm
23-27 August
36th Annual Conference of the International Society for
Clinical Biostatistics
Utrecht, the Netherlands
http://www.iscb2015.info/
3rd Meeting of the Revived Israeli Biostatistics Forum
Haifa, Israel
29 November – 3 December
2015 Australasian Biometric Conference
Hobart, Tasmania
http://www.biometricsociety.org.au/conferences.
html
30 November – 4 December
The International Biometric Society Australasian Region
Conference
Hadley Hotel, Horbart, Tasmania, Australia
http://biometricsociety.org.au/
5-9 September
Annual Conference of the German Association for
Medical Informatics
Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences in
Krefeld
http://www.gmds.de/tagungen/2015/index
2016
6-9 September
6-9 March
2015 Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting
Okayama, Japan
2016 ENAR Spring Meeting
Austin, TX
7-10 September
2015 RSS Conference
Exeter, United Kingdom
http://www.statisticsviews.com/details/
event/6814541/Royal-Statistical-Society-2015International-Conference.html
23-25 September
14-18 March
62nd Biometric Colloquium (within the 4th Joint
Statistical Meeting of the Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft
Statistik, “Statistics under one Umbrella”)
Göttingen, Germany
http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/485701.html
10-15 July
XVth Spanish Biometric Conference and Vth IberoAmerican Biometric Meeting
Bilbao, Spain
http://www.ehu.eus/en/web/CEB-EIB2015
XXVIIIth International Biometric Conference
Victoria, Canada
http://biometricconference.org/
8 October
2018
Food Security—The Role of Biological Modelling
Harpenden, United Kingdom
15-16 October
November
8-13 July
Methodological Challenges in Biomedical Research
Freiburg, Germany
http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/imbi/symposium2015
XXIXth International Biometric Conference
Barcelona, Spain
http://www.biometricsociety.org/
28-30 October
Jamaica Statistics Symposium
Kingston, Jamaica
https://www.facebook.com/JamStatSymp
Biometric Bulletin
18