Washington Statistical Society
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February 2003

Contents:


Bureau of Transportation Statistics' (BTS)
Confidentiality Seminar Series

BTS is inaugurating a seminar series on confidentiality. The recent passage of the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA) of 2002 prompted this seminar series. CIPSEA provides a clear and consistent standard for the use of confidential statistical information as well as safeguards to ensure that data provided under a pledge of confidentiality are used only for statistical purposes.

The first seminar in this series will be given by Dr. Nancy Kirkendall, Energy Information Administration (EIA), on Wednesday, February 12, (see details inside) and will provide an overview of CIPSEA. She will also introduce the statistical methods used to protect the confidentiality of data released as tables and microdata files. The next two seminars will elaborate on the statistical disclosure limitation methods used for tabular data and for public use microdata. Future seminars will describe approaches used by statistical agencies to enhance researcher access to confidential statistical data under special settings or conditions (such as Research Data Centers), the role of a Confidentiality Officer, and the activities of a Disclosure Review Board.

Besides providing U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) staff an introduction to CIPSEA, other audiences for this series include:

1. Federal programs that already collect data under a pledge of confidentiality and are interested in learning about what methods other agencies use to protect tables/microdata produced from the confidential data. This series would introduce new methods of protecting confidential data released as either tables or microdata.

2. Federal offices that have Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). One of the criteria for approval of research by an IRB is that: "When appropriate, there are adequate provisions to protect the privacy of subjects and to maintain the confidentiality of data" (49 C.F.R. 11.111(a)(7)). This seminar series will also be of interest to those units within DOT that have an IRB.

These seminars are open to all.

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NCI 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
03/05/03
 Robert Gentleman
 Preprocessing and analysis of gene expression microarrays
04/02/03
 Sue Marcus
 Selection bias in the design of randomized clinical trials
06/5/03
 Joseph Ibrahim
 Bayesian analysis of gene expression micro-arrays

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

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

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APHA Abstract Submission Deadlines Extended

The American Public Health Association's (APHA 2003 Annual Meeting will be held in San Francisco, CA on November 15-19, 2003. Due to technical problems, some deadlines for abstract submissions have been extended.

Please check APHA web site at www.apha.org/meetings for information on your Section, SPIG, or Caucus.

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Interface 2003 Call For Participation

March 12-15, 2003
Sheraton City Centre Hotel
Salt Lake City, UT, USA

http://www.math.usu.edu/~iface03/

Program Chairs: Michael Minnotte & Juergen Symanzik (Utah State University)

The Interface Foundation of North America invites you to join Interface

2003, the 35th SYMPOSIUM ON THE INTERFACE, that brings together top researchers from universities, government agencies, and industry, working on the interface between statistics and computer science. This year's conference topic is on "Security and Infrastructure Protection" and will bring in additional researchers working in this field.

The Keynote address will be given by James R. Thompson, Noah Harding Professor of Statistics, Rice University: "Considerations of Inspection for Homeland Security with Cross Linkages to Quality Control, Game Theory, and Stochastic Simulation".

Short courses will he held by David Marchette ("Statistical Methods in Computer Security") and Jeff Solka ("Topics in Computational Statistics with MATLAB").

Sessions will include invited, refereed, and contributed paper sessions. Individuals who wish to participate in a contributed session should register and submit an abstract by February 5, 2003. Please visit the Interface 2003 Web site at http://www.math.usu.edu/~iface03/ for further details, including a full list of invited speakers.

The preliminary program is accessible at http://www.math.usu.edu/~iface03/sessions_bydate.html

A printable (pdf) version of the 2nd announcement is accessible at http://www.math.usu.edu/~iface03/Announce_2nd.pdf

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SIGSTAT Topics for February 2003 to May 2003

February 12, 2002 - PROCs MI & MIANALYZE in SAS/STAT

SAS/STAT software, Version 8, introduces the experimental MI and MIANALYZE procedures for creating and analyzing multiply imputed data sets for incomplete multivariate data. Multiple imputation provides a useful strategy for dealing with data sets with missing values. Instead of filling in a single value for each missing value, Rubin's (1987) multiple imputation procedure replaces each missing value with a set of plausible values that represent the uncertainty about the right value to impute. These multiply imputed data sets are then analyzed by using standard procedures for complete data and combining the results from these analysis. No matter which complete-data analysis is used, the process of combining results from different imputed data sets is essentially the same. This results in statistically valid inferences that properly reflect the uncertainty due to missing values.

The MI procedure is a multiple imputation procedure that creates multiply imputed data sets for incomplete p-dimensional multivariate data. It uses methods that incorporate appropriate variability across m imputations. Once the m complete data sets are analyzed using standard SAS/STAT procedures, PROC MIANALYZE can be used to generate valid statistical inferences about these parameters by combining the results.

February 26, 2002 - "Live Graphs" [joint presentation with the DCSUG Desktop SIG]

Dave DesJardin, formerly of the Census Bureau, will use SAS JMP and Insight to show how to easily generate "live" graphs effectively displaying statistical data.

March 12, 2003 - R Graphics

Brian Monsell will demonstrate how to generate graphs using the R statistical package (such as time series plots and Trellis graphs), and show off some of his favorite "stupid R tricks."

April 9, 2003 - SAS 9.0

Linda Atkinson will present a demo of the latest release of SAS.

May 14, 2003 - SAS/IML Workshop 2.0

SAS/IML Workshop is a graphical user interface and extension of SAS/IML software that enables you to explore data interactively using standard statistical graphics and tables. IML Workshop provides an integrated development environment for writing, debugging, and executing IML programs. IML Workshop also implements the IMLPlus programming language, which is an enhanced version of the IML programming language. IMLPlus provides new language features such as the ability to call SAS procedures and external C/Fortran/Java functions. IML Workshop requires a PC running the Microsoft Windows operating system.

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 S3031 (Food Safety and Nutrition Room), 1800 M St, NW from 12:30 to 1:30. Enter the South Tower and 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 and 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 April 2003 WSS NEWS should be submitted no later than February 25, 2003. E-mail items to Michael Feil at michael.feil@usda.gov.

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Click here to see the WSS Board Listing (pdf)
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