Washington Statistical Society
        Washington Statistical Society on Meetup   Washington Statistical Society on LinkedIn

December 2005

Contents:


Annual Holiday Dinner!!!

Please come join your friends and colleagues for a celebration of the holiday season.

The 2005 WSS Holiday Dinner will be held Wednesday, December 14, at the Gordon Biersch Brewery from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. Finger foods (wings, shrimp, pizza & artichoke hearts) and a and cash bar featuring Gordon Biersch Lagers. The Brewery is located at 900 F St, NW, D.C. - close to the Gallery Place Metro Station (green, yellow or red line).

$24 per person.

Send the filled-out flyer and a check payable to WSS by December 7, 2005, to Yves Thibaudeau, 1037 17Th ST S, Arlington, VA 22202. You can also contact contact Yves at yves.thibaudeau@census.gov or (301) 763-1706.

Hope to see you there!

Return to top

Judges For The 2006 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 Saturday mornings 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 science fair judge next spring, please e-mail Robert Clickner at Robertclickner@westat.com by January 25, and include your e-mail address, work and home phone numbers, your fax number and your mailing address. If you judged last spring, there is no need to contact Bob unless your e-mail address or phone number has changed. If you have any questions, please call Bob at 301-294-2815.

Return to top

SIGSTAT Topics for December 2005 to April 2006

December 14, 2005: SAS PROC MDC

The MDC (Multinomial Discrete Choice) procedure analyzes models where the choice set consists of multiple alternatives. The procedure supports conditional logit, mixed logit, heteroskedastic extreme value, nested logit, and multinomial probit models. Charlie Hallahan will be the speaker.

January 18, 2006: SAS PROC QUANTREG

The QUANTREG procedure models the effects of covariates on the conditional quantiles of a response variable by means of a quantile regression. Ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression models the relationship between one or more covariates X and the conditional mean of the response variable Y given X=x. Quantile regression extends the regression model to conditional quantiles of the response variable, such as the median or 90th percentile. Charlie Hallahan will be the speaker.

February 8, 2006: SAS PROC ENTROPY< The ENTROPY procedure implements a parametric method of linear estimation based on Generalized Maximum entropy. The ENTROPY procedure is suitable when there are outliers in the data and robustness is required, or when the model is ill-posed or undetermined for the observed data, or for regressions involving small data sets. Charlie Hallahan will be the speaker.

March 15, 2006: SAS PROC GLIMMIX

The GLIMMIX procedure fits statistical models to data with correlations or nonconstant variability and where the response is not necessarily normally distributed. These models are known as generalized linear mixed models (GLMM). The GLMMs, like linear mixed models, assume normal (Gaussian) random effects. Conditional on these random effects, data can have any distribution in the exponential family. In the absence of random effects, the GLIMMIX procedure fits generalized linear models (fit by the GENMOD procedure). Charlie Hallahan will be the speaker.

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.

Apri 19, 2006: Introduction to SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1 for Statistical Analysis

The demo begins with a quick tour through the layout of Enterprise Guide (EG) as a menu-based interface to SAS procedures.Ê Emphasis in this workshop will be on the statistical capabilities of EG.Ê In particular, a set of data (put together using enhanced features of the query builder task) will serve as a case study for a forecasting exercise. The demo will show how code generated by EG can be customized, stored, and rerun, and custom reports saved with new Report Controls Integration.

Linda Atkinson and Charlie Hallahan will be the speakers.

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, 1800 M St, NW from 12:00 to 1:00 (note new time). 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 and many links of statistical interest can be found at the SIGSTAT website, www.cpcug.org/user/sigstat/

Return to top

Email Delivery

If you did not receive this issue electronically and you have not notified us that you wish to receive the newsletter in hardcopy, please send your preferred email address to svm@mitre.org and indicate that this is your address for the WSS newsletter. To continue to receive the newsletter in hard copy, contact the WSS secretary at courtney.nreiser@census.gov or (301) 763-4142.

Return to top

Note From The WSS NEWS Editor

Items for publication in the February issue of the WSS NEWS should be submitted no later than December 27, 2005. E-mail items to Michael Feil at michael.feil@usda.gov.

Return to top

Click here to see the WSS Board Listing (pdf)
Return to top