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November 2002

Contents:



The 2002 Morris Hansen Lecture

The Washington Statistical Society is pleased to announce the twelfth in the annual series of lectures to honor the memory of Morris Hansen. This lecture series is made possible by a grant from Westat, where Morris Hansen was senior statistician for 20 years and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors at the time of his death.

This year the Morris Hansen lecture series will have its first panel discussion. Panelists are Eleanor Singer, Norman Bradburn, and Katherine Wallman.

Eleanor Singer is currently serving as Senior Research Scientist, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. She has written widely on survey research methods, with special emphasis on privacy attitudes of individuals and their influence on survey response. Her research has touched on many of the important issues in survey methodology: informed consent, incentives, effects of interview length, refusal conversion, and their effect on survey response rates. She has focused on analyzing these issues in particular for the Nation's Decennial Census. She has been an active member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the American Statistical Association. She has received the American Association for Public Opinion Research's Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement.

Norman M. Bradburn is currently serving as Assistant Director for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation, on leave from the University of Chicago. There he is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Business, the College, and the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies. He has written widely on survey research methods and is a pioneer in developing the application of cognitive psychology to the study of nonsampling errors. His recent work has been on cognitive psychological explanations for behavioral reporting errors, particularly telescoping errors, and on context effects in attitude surveys. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was Chairman of the National Academy's Committee on National Statistics from 1993 to 1998.

Katherine K. Wallman currently serves as Chief Statistician at the United States Office of Management and Budget. In this capacity, she is responsible for overseeing and coordinating Federal statistical policies, standards, and programs; developing and advancing long-term improvements in Federal statistical activities; and representing the Federal government in international organizations such as the United Nations Statistical Commission. During her tenure in this position, Ms. Wallman has placed particular emphasis on increasing collaboration among the agencies of the Federal statistical system, strengthening the protection of confidential statistical information, fostering improvements in the scope and quality of Federal statistics, and making the products of the system more readily accessible to the public. She is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Founder Member of the International Association for Official Statistics. In 1992, she served as President of the American Statistical Association.

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Judges For The 2003 Science Fairs

Volunteers are needed to represent the Washington Statistical Society next spring as judges in five regional science fairs in Northern Virginia, suburban Maryland and the District of Columbia. Since 1986, WSS has provided special awards at these fairs to students whose projects demonstrate excellence in data analysis or the application of statistical methods. Those who have participated in this activity have very much enjoyed the opportunity to interact with the students and to observe the widely diverse projects which are presented. The fairs are held on a Saturday morning in mid-March to mid-April. The only time required is that one Saturday morning, plus one weekday lunchtime meeting to discuss judging strategy.

If you would like to be a WSS science fair judge next spring, please e-mail Lee Abramson at lxa@nrc.gov by January 10, and include your work and home phone numbers, your fax number and your mailing address. If you judged last spring, there is no need to contact Lee unless your e-mail address or phone number has changed. If you have any questions, please call Lee at 301-415-6180.

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Annual Holiday Dinner!!!

Please come join your friends and colleagues for a celebration of the holiday season. The 2002 WSS Holiday Dinner will be held Tuesday, December 3, at the Star Saloon across from Ford's Theater. Hope to see you there!

Reservations must be received by November 29, 2002. Simply fill out the 2002 Holiday Flyer (PDF).

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Statistical Colloquia

The National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Prevention sponsors a monthly Statistical Colloquia Series. This season's schedule should be of interest to many of you. Check the website below for updates including abstracts as they are posted.

Address: Executive Plaza North; Conference Room G (usually); 6130 Executive Boulevard Rockville, Maryland.

Bring photo ID, and check in with the guards at the entrance.

Date
     
Speaker
     
Topic
11/6
Jun Liu
Preprocessing and analysis of gene expression microarrays
12/4
Victor Kipnis
The OPEN study/Statistical Issues in Dietary Measurement Error
1/8
Blossom Paterson
Latent variable analysis in the complex sampling setting/ Nutritional Questionnaires
2/5
Joseph Ibrahim
Bayesian analysis of gene expression micro-arrays
3/5
Robert Gentleman
Preprocessing and analysis of gene expression microarrays
4/2
Sue Marcus
Selection bias in the design of randomized clinical trials

For Additional Information:
Office of Preventive Oncology
301-496-8640

On the Web:
DCP Stat Series: http://www3.cancer.gov/prevention/pob/fellowship/colloquia.html

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Probability and Statistics Day

The Department of Statistics at the George Washington University will hold the Mid-Atlantic Probability and Statistics Day on November 16, 2002. Contributed talks (15 minutes) on topics of interest to Statisticians from academia, industry and government are planned.

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The Jeanne E. Griffith Mentoring Award

On receiving the Roger Herriot Award in June 2001, Jeanne Griffith said: "One of the most rewarding aspects (of Federal statistics) for me was the opportunity to promote creative activities and energies among my staff ."

Dr. Griffith died in August 2001 after working for more than 25 years in the Federal statistical system. Throughout her career, and especially in her senior management positions at the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Science Foundation, one of Jeanne's highest priorities was to mentor and encourage junior staff to learn, to grow, and to recognize and seize career opportunities as they came along.

This is to announce the establishment of The Jeanne E. Griffith Mentoring Award. The purpose of the award is to encourage the mentoring of younger staff in the Federal statistical system.

This award is co-sponsored by the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy, the Council for Excellence in Government, the Washington Statistical Society, the Social Statistics and Government Statistics Sections of the American Statistical Association, and the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics. It will be presented yearly to a mid-level supervisor, generally at the GS-14 or GS-15 level, who is nominated by coworkers and supervisors, and chosen by the Award Selection Committee.

The first of these yearly awards will be presented in 2003. Submission of nominations should begin in November 2002; nominations will be due back by April 1, 2003; and the Award Committee will make its determination of the award winner by May 1, 2003. The award will consist of a $1,000 honorarium and a citation.

The winning mentor will be selected for his or her efforts in supporting the work and developing the careers of younger staff. Such efforts would include the following types of activities:

  • Working with junior staff to help develop their skills, knowledge, experience, self-confidence, and insights into organizational functioning;
  • Advising junior staff to help them develop career opportunities, networking skills, and contacts;
  • Making resource support available for junior staff attendance and oral presentations at meetings, training courses, and conferences;
  • Providing opportunities for junior staff to participate in meetings with higher level officials and staffs of other agencies and to represent the office at external meetings;
  • Offering informal feedback and coaching to assist junior staff in developing analysis, writing, presentation, and other professional skills.
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For further information on the award, contact Ed Spar, Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS) by phone: 703-836-0404; fax: 703-684-3410; or by e-mail: copafs@aol.com. A nomination form can be obtained by contacting Ed Spar or downloaded from the COPAFS website at http://www.copafs.org. All nomination forms should be returned to the Jeanne E. Griffith Mentoring Award Committee c/o COPAFS, 1429 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22314 by no later than April 1, 2003.

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SIGSTAT Topics for Fall-Winter 2002/2003

November 13, 2002: SAS Enterprise Guide

Enterprise Guide software brings the full power of SAS to business analysts, statistical analysts and SAS programmers in a PC client application via an easy to use point-and-click user interface. This Windows client connects to Version 8 SAS System servers and provides access any data types supported by the SAS System, uses the execution power of the server to run any SAS processes, and returns professional reports and graphics to your PC. Enterprise Guide also provides you with web deployment and repeatability of your analysis and results.

December 11, 2002: SAS Graph-n-Go

Graph-n-Go is an interactive application for producing simple or complex graphical representations of data. It can be used for data exploration or for creating presentation-quality graphical images that can be printed or imported into documents.

SIGSTAT is the Special Interest Group in Statistics for the CPCUG, the Capital PC User Group, and WINFORMS, the Washington Institute for Operations Research Service and Management Science.

All meetings are in Room 3056, 1800 M St, NW from 12:30 to 1:30. Enter the South Tower & take the elevator to the 3rd floor to check in at the guard's desk.

First-time attendees should contact Charlie Hallahan, 202-694-5051, hallahan@ers.usda.gov and leave their name. Directions to the building & many links of statistical interest can be found at the SIGSTAT website, www.cpcug.org/user/sigstat/

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Note From The WSS NEWS Editor

Items for publication in the January 2003 WSS NEWS should be submitted no later than November 26, 2002. Please e-mail items to michael.feil@usda.gov.

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First posted October 29, 2002
Last modified November 03, 2015

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