WSS NEWS

News about activities of the Washington Statistical Society
A Chapter of the American Statistical Association

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September 2000

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Contents:

• Congratulations
• Letter from The President
• The WSS 1999-2000 Year In Review
• November 14-16, 2001:  FCSM Research Conference – Call for Abstracts
• Biometric Technologies . . . Emerging into the Mainstream
• SGE Conference 2000
• Short Courses
• Seminars
• Area Meetings and Courses (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)
• Note From The WSS NEWS Editor
• WSS People

Congratulations

President-elect
Andrew White
Treasurer
Jill Montaquila
Methodology Section Chair
Steven B. Cohen
Representatives-at-large
Brenda Cox
Stuart Scott

A round of applause goes to the following individuals who were recently elected Fellows of the American Statistical Society (ASA). This honor goes to:

Lynda Carlson, National Science Foundation
Nancy Gordon, Census Bureau
Edward Spar, COPAFS
Eric Feuer, National Cancer Institute
Barry Graubard, National Cancer Institute
Linda Pickle, National Cancer Institute
Ashish Sen, Department of Transportation
John Thompson, Census Bureau
Jay Waite, Census Bureau
John McKenzie, Jr., Babson College

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Letter from The President

Because of the advances of technology in our worksites, we will now have the ability to increase participation in WSS seminars through videoconferencing to multiple sites. We have experimented with this capability during the past year and plan to extend it to more sites. The contributions of Stuart Scott, at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in initiating this effort have demonstrated that this technology can expand the involvement of statisticians in the information and idea exchanges facilitated by our seminar program. If you know of a site that would allow more statisticians to participate please let Glenn White know as he is now coordinating WSS efforts to make this happen.

Over the years WSS has been led by individuals with a keen interest in enhancing its viability and responsiveness to the profession. WSS is financially sound and has a well qualified Board. I want to express my thanks to last year's president, Mary Batcher, for her leadership and direction. Constant attention to the activities of the organization is necessary to ensure that we continue to contribute to the professional lives of our colleagues. Our new Board members Andrew White, president-elect; Steven Cohen, methodology program chair; Stuart Scott and Brenda Cox, representatives-at-large will continue this fine tradition.

The quantitative literacy program, an important areas of focus of our profession, has been rejuvenated during the last year through the direction of Wendy Rotz. This program presents an opportunity for many others to become involved. There is a lot to do to increase our society's statistical knowledge base C beginning with elementary and high school children and extending to other activities such as the Curtis Jacobs Competition, Science Fair judging, and other community opportunities. I would like to particularly encourage those of you who just started jobs in the Washington, D.C. area to consider participating in this way.

WSS will be only as viable an organization as its membership. There are ways for everyone to be a part of WSS and contribute to professional activity in statistics in our local community. There are many opportunities to volunteer and to have a contributing role from presenting a seminar to assisting with our quantitative literacy program, serving on a committee such as membership or participating in meeting a new request. Becoming involved helps you to expand your statistical contacts and to contribute to our profession. Let me or any member of the WSS Board know of your interests or ideas.

         Cynthia Clark
         President, WSS

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The WSS 1999-2000 Year In Review

PROGRAM

The 10th Annual Morris Hansen Memorial Lecture was presented by David F. Findley of the U.S. Census Bureau on the topic of seasonal adjustment.

There were two Presidential Invited Addresses during the year. The first was a presentation by J. Keith Ord of Georgetown University and Sandy Balkin of Ernst & Young. Their talk was entitled "Structural Equations in Time Series and an Analysis of Fatal Road Accidents. Discussants were David Findley of the U.S. Census Bureau and David Banks of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The second was a presentation by K.R.W. Brewer of the Australian National University on AA (Latin) Square Deal for Voters: Fixing a Flaw in the Australian Preferential Voting System.@ Lawrence Ernst of BLS was the discussant.

In the 1999-2000 school year, Quantitative Literacy rebuilt its infrastructure for activities with the local county schools. WSS now has county coordinators in Montgomery, Prince George's, Fairfax, Charles, Calvert, and St. Mary's Counties. Wendy Rotz is heading the effort to expand activities in the schools. Carolyn Carol continues to work with the Girl Scouts of America. There has also been increased QL coordination with the ASA. This year's Curtis Jacobs winning school picked up their flier from an ASA sponsored event. The web site for the Curtis Jacobs Competition is now linked to the ASA Poster and Project Competitions: http://www.scs.gmu.edu/~wss/jacobs.html.

WSS members also continued the long-standing tradition of providing judges at five regional science fairs this year.

The WSS News editors continued their excellent work in putting together and distributing the newsletter monthly, both as paper copies and via e-mail. The Employment column editor also continued the excellent work of providing information for potential matches among employers and persons seeking employment throughout the year.

SOCIAL EVENTS

The 2000 Annual Dinner was held at the Holiday Inn-Capital in Washington D.C. The keynote speaker was the Honorable Carolyn Maloney, Congresswoman from New York City's 14th District. Congresswoman Maloney was called away for a vote before she was able to speak but she returned and updated the dinner attendees on events pertaining to sampling and the decennial census. She also took several questions from the floor.

BOARD ACTIVITIES

AWARDS

ELECTION RESULTS

President-elect: Andy White
Representatives-at-large: Brenda Cox, Stuart Scott
Methodology Section Chair: Steve Cohen
Treasurer: Jill Montaquila

A WORD OF THANKS

         Mary Batcher
         Past President, WSS

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November 14-16, 2001:  FCSM Research Conference – Call for Abstracts

To have a paper or demonstration considered for presentation, an abstract of at least one page will be required by December 1, 2000. Abstracts should include a brief description of the paper, up to four key words, the presenter's name, affiliation, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and E-mail address. Submit an ASCII text file by E-mail (or a hard copy by fax or mail). To submit abstracts or obtain additional information, contact:

Stephen Cohen
Office of Survey Methods Research
Room 4915
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Washington, DC 20212
Phone: 202-691-7400
Fax: 202-691-7426
E-mail: fcsm@ccmail.census.gov

Information on the conference can also be found on the FCSM web site, www.fcsm.gov.

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Biometric Technologies . . . Emerging into the Mainstream

The Conference is scheduled for two days, September 13 and 14, 2000, and will be held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD, USA.

The registration fee is $150 per person and includes coffee breaks, lunches, an evening reception, and conference materials. This year we have included a students' registration fee of $75 that includes all of the above except for the reception. In addition to the speakers and panel sessions, over a dozen Supporting Organizations will have exhibits and demonstrations available.

Please check the Biometric Consortium 2000 Conference web page for detailed information, including information on the conference hotel, and registration (mail-in/fax and on-line) at http://www.nist.gov/bc2000.

Recent events sponsored by the Biometric Consortium, such as the 1999 conference and BioAPI Users and Developers Seminar, have been fully booked. We would like to suggest to BC members and colleagues to register as soon as possible, before the Conference announcements and publicity about the event reach the general public.

We are very pleased to announce that Stephen Walker, a widely recognized expert and leader in information security technology and policy, is scheduled to deliver the opening address.

Steve Walker is the President of Steve Walker & Associates and is Principal of Walker Investment Funds, a venture fund focused on companies in the mid-Atlantic area. He currently serves on several Boards of Directors and was formerly President and CEO of Trusted Information Systems, Inc. (TIS), a leading supplier of firewalls and encryption products. Before its purchase by Network Associates in 1998, TIS had become a publicly traded company, employed more than 350 people, and had offices throughout the world. Mr. Walker is a 22-year veteran of the US Department of Defense (DoD) at NSA, ARPA and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He was one of the elite members of a team responsible for the development of the ARPAnet. He is nationally recognized for his pioneering work on the DoD Computer Security Initiative, establishment of the National Computer Security Center and the Defense Data Network.

Conference sessions will address:

• Private industry and Government applications and initiatives in Biometrics and related technologies (e.g., smart cards)
• Recent advances in biometric technologies
• Research
• Assurance
• Metrology
• Standards

Some of the topics that will be examined include:

• *** Biometrics technologies... Emerging into the mainstream ***
• What are the technological issues and challenges looming ahead?
• What are the user requirements?
• What standards are available or are being developed?
• How is interoperability achieved?
• How assurance is achieved?
• What novel applications of biometrics does the industry envision for secure personal authentication and identification?

The Conference is open to the Consortium members and to the general public. Please help us circulate this announcement to individuals from private industry, Federal/State/Local governments, academia, executives from private industry, Government officials, information technology users and developers, law enforcement officers, system integrators, personal authentication and information security educators, students of these technologies and anyone that wishes to know how biometrics will play a role in their future.

For newcomers to the technology we will offer the Seminar: "Introduction to Biometric Technologies". The 45 minutes seminar will be given immediately following the first day's lunch break to attendees new to the field. No additional fee is required to attend.

In addition to NIST's Information Technology Laboratory and NSA's Information Assurance Research Office, this year's conference will be co-sponsored by the Biometrics Management Office (operated by the US Department of the Army), GSA's Federal Technology Service/Office of Smart Card Initiatives, and NIST's Advanced Technology Program. More Information on the sponsors can be obtained through the conference's web page.

The preliminary list of the Conference's Supporting Organizations and Exhibitors include: ANADAC/Identix Inc., BioAPI Consortium, Bionetrix, Gemplus, the International Biometric Industry Association, IriScan, Inc., Keyware Solutions, LLC, Mitretek Systems, Mytek Technologies, Inc., the Ottawa Telephony Group (OTG,Inc.), Precise Biometrics, RAND, and SAFLink Corp.

For more information about BC2000, please contact: Fernando L. Podio of the Information Technology Laboratory of NIST at bc2000@biometrics.org or at (301) 975-2947.

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SGE Conference 2000

The theme of the conference will focus on the reactions, responses and revisions inherent in the "new economy". Is technological change ushering in a sustained increase in worker productivity and restructuring business enterprises and industrial structures? How have the new technologies affected the efficiency of market? What are the new forms of compensation and are they being defined and measured accurately? What are the social and economic implications of the new technologies? What challenges face policymakers in understanding the "new economy" and managing it? What are the implications of global market inter-dependencies for the making of economic policy? Does the new economy also present new challenges for the regulatory environment? Public and private economists, statisticians, researchers and representatives from the political arena are invited to present their research and discuss their findings.

For more information please visit the SGE web site at http://www.sge-econ.org/conference.html.

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Note From The WSS NEWS Editor

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WSS People

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First posted August 31, 2000
Last modified August 31, 2000

Webmaster: Dan Jacobs, Maryland Sea Grant