 |
WSS NEWS |
WSS NEWS--News about activities of the Washington Statistical Society - a Chapter of the American Statistical Association
Summer 1996
|
WSS NEWS |
WSS NEWS--News about activities of the Washington Statistical Society - a Chapter of the American Statistical Association
Contents:
President-Elect
Graham Kalton, Westat
Representative-At-Large
Cylde Tucker, Bureau of Labor Statistics
Al Tupek, National Science Foundation
Methodoloy Chair
Karol Krotki
Treasurer
Carol Shettle, National Science Foundation
In granting the 1996 award, the committee cited David Findley's outstanding leadership in improving seasonal adjustment methodology for the economic times series at the Census Bureau, throughout the Federal Government, and throughout the world. The committee also noted his continuation of the work Julius Shiskin began with X©11 and his success in bringing out the X-12-ARMIA. This advanced system makes use of the most recent advances in statistical methodology and is already being used by many official statistical agencies and is likely to become the standard adopted internationally.
Dr. Findley has also written a number of papers on criteria for statistical model selection, and the properties of the information measures used to assess model fits. This work extends applications where models are not nested. He has introduced bootstrap procedures in a time series context, and looked at the implications of estimating for something other than one©step ahead forecasts.
The Julius Shiskin Award was established by the family of the late Julius Shiskin and is administered by the Washington Statistical Society and the National Association of Business Economists. The committee said that the award was intended to honor original and important contributions in the development of economic statistics and in their use in interpreting economic events. Mr. Shiskin's government career as an economic statistician spanned more than 30 years during which time he worked at the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Office of Management and Budget, and culminated at the U.S. Department of Labor as the Commissioner of Labor Statistics.
In recent years the award has also been received by Fritz Scheuren formerly of the Internal Revenue Service; Richard D. Allen of the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; Joel Popkin of Joel Popkin and Company; and Barbara Bailar of the American Statistical Association and formerly the Associate Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
The cost for the two-day seminar, which will be held at the Holiday Inn, Bethesda, 8120 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland, will be $125.00 per person. Registration will be limited to 250 participants. For further information, contact Edward Spar or Susan Cohen in the COPAFS office (703-836-0404).
Which & Why by Arlington Software is a complete, graphically- oriented decision support package that provides the means to clearly justify and document every significant decision. It is designed to organize the complex group decisions made by government agencies and other large organizations. Which & Why covers all aspects of the decision process - - from brainstorming the decision requirements, creating an ideal decision profile, and evaluating options against the profile to reporting the results -- all with graphic tools, displays and statistics. A key advantage of the software is a unique, pattern matching adjustment to weighted average scores that ensures results are consistent with objectives.
The software is available on GSA Schedule and through local resellers.
First time attendees should call Charlie Hallahan at 202-501-6928 and leave their name. Information on SIGSTAT can be obtained on the WWW at http://www.ers.usda.govsigstat and on the Members/Sigs page at http://cpcug.org.
ELECTION RESULTS
VP and President elect -- Graham Kalton
Representative-at-large -- Clyde Tucker and Al Tupek
Methodology Program Chair -- Karol Krotki
Treasurer -- Carolyn Shettle
PROGRAM
The Methodology Section presented a full program of seminars covering a variety of methodological areas.
A Statistics in Public Policy program area was developed this year.
Short Course activities were once again a success. We are sad to say that this was the last year of short course leadership by Glenn White, who has served admirably in this capacity for ten years. Short course instructors included Richard Davis, Graham Kalton, Nancy Kirkendall, Robert Wise, and David Morganstein.
WSS co-sponsored the Data Editing Workshop, one of the largest events in WSS history.
The Fifth Annual Morris Hansen Lecture was held at the Jefferson Auditorium, USDA, in October. Ivan Fellegi, Chief Statistician of Canada, presented "Criteria for Assessing Statistical Systems." Katherine Wallman, Janet Norwood and James Bonnen were discussants.
While the snow hampered the career day presentations at local schools this year, a request to provide workshops for the Girl Scouts throughout the Washington area excites WSS's Quantitative Literacy Group.
The first of two Presidential Invited Addresses titled "The Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology (FCSM): Responding to the Needs of the Federal Statistical Community, 1975 to the Future" featured a panel of speakers: Maria Gonzalez, Monroe Sirken, Stephen Fienberg, Robert Groves and Norman Bradburn. Katherine K. Wallman made the second address in June titled "Toward a Unified Federal Approach to Statistical Confidentiality." Discussants were Joe Cecil, Tom Jabine and Ed Spar.
ADMINISTRATION
The furlough contributed to low attendance and a substantial loss from our first short course. Combined with delayed receipt of dues paid through ASA, some cashflow problems arose. The Board took steps to balance the financial books. The most influential changes are reduced mail costs (faxing the calendar to building reps, e-mail newsletters, decreased size of the newsletter) and requiring that social events be revenue neutral. As a result, the year ended with a positive financial outlook and a vote not to increase dues for next year.
WSS historian Rich Allen prepared the most comprehensive edition ever of "WSS Past and Present." We distributed it at the annual dinner and open board meeting.
SOCIAL
This year's December Holiday Party was held at Bombay Palace. BLS won the "party hardiest" title for having the most attendees.
The annual dinner took place at Bish Thompson's in Bethesda Maryland. This year's speaker was Larry Williams, Projects Editor for the Knight- Ridder Newspapers, Washington Bureau, who spoke on "Statistics and the Media: Getting Comfortable Together." Victor Cohn, Research Fellow, ASA and former science editor of the Washington Post provided comments.
AWARDS
The 1996 Shiskin Award winner is WSS member David Findley.
The 1996 ASA Chapter Service Award went to Fritz Scheuren.
The WSS Presidents' Service Award was presented at the annual dinner to Vince Massimini (for developing the process that now distributes the newsletter electronically to more than 210 members), Michael Greene (for converting the monthly notices from mail to a fax list notification), and Dan Rope (for developing WSS's World Wide Web page) for their initiative and development of electronic communications processes for WSS. Thanks for other contributions to WSS's increased timeliness, lower cost and improved service related to electronic activities also go to Jim Gentle of GMU who is providing the WWW site, WSS NEWS Editor, Mike Feil, for providing an e-mail version of the newsletter, Michael Cohen for bulletin board activities, and Elizabeth Sweet for putting the Board of Directors on line.
This year's Curtis Jacobs Award went to Neil Crabtree, Steven Jakubiak, Doug Weber, and Jordan Valliere from Rocky Run Middle School in Virginia for their group project "Student Use of the Internet."
The WSS Outstanding Graduate Students Awardees are Stephanie Brown (JPSM), Kostas Fokianos (UM), Hasan Hamdan (AU), Yan Liu (GWU), and Yiheng Zhu (GMU).
WSS presented awards to 50 Washington area students at five regional science fairs this spring. This year, for the first time, the first place winner (or winners) at each of the five fairs received a cash award ($200) plus a T-shirt thanks to a contribution from The Gallup Organization. The volunteer judges also deserve a special thanks.
I would like to thank the 1995-96 WSS Board, committee members, speakers and other volunteers for the many successes achieved in this unusual year. It has been my pleasure to serve the innovative and dedicated people who volunteer their time to make our Society effective. I'd like to thank past president Sue Amhed for always being available when advice was needed. I'm sure that I speak for incoming President Phil Kott as well in encouraging members of WSS to always feel free to share their ideas and concerns with board members. Such communication is essential to assure that our Society continues to evolve, improve service to our members, and maintain our important traditions.
Ron Fecso
Past President, WSS
Email items to mfeil@helix.nih.gov or FAX items to Mike Feil, (301) 443-4045.
President Past President
Phil Kott (703) 235-5211 Ron Fecso (703) 235-5211
ext 102 ext 142
President-Elect
Graham Kalton (301) 251-8253
Secretary Treasurer
Elizabeth Sweet (301) 457-4860 Carolyn Shettle (703) 306-1780
WSS Program Chairs
Agriculture & Natural Resources Economics
Mike Steiner (202) 690-2486 Linda Atkinson (202) 219-0934
Robert Latta (202) 586-1385 Art Kennickell (202) 452-2247
Methodology Public Health and Statistics
Julia Bienias (301) 457-2696 Vance Berger (301) 594-5756
Karol Krotki (202) 944-5243 Julie Legler (301) 493-6832
Public Policy Quality Assurance & Physcial Sciences
Carolee Bush (202) 366-6946 Harold Johnson (202) 606-7758
Phil Ross (202) 260-5244 Amrut Champaneri (202) 268-2299
Paul Zador (301) 294-2825
Social & Demographic Statistics Statistical Computing
Mike Horrigan (202) 606-5905 Bob Jernigan (202) 885-3170
Myron Katzoff (703) 670-8917 Mike Fleming (703) 235-5213
ext 170
Short Courses Data Collection Methods
Fritz Scheuren (703) 549-1120 Brad Edwards (301) 294-2021
Linda Stinson (202) 606-7228
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Employment
Bill Arends (202) 720-6812
WSS NEWS Editors
Mike Feil (301) 443-1330
Membership
Antionette Martin (202) 254-5409
Renee Miller (202) 254-5507
Fritz Scheuren (202) 549-1120
Videotapes
Mel Kollander (202) 973-2820
Quantitative Literacy
Shail Butani (202) 606-6347
Local Arrangement
Robie Sangster (202) 606-7517