WSS NEWS

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

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February 1999

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Contents:

• Herriot Award Nominations Sought
• International Symposium on Forecasting
• 1999 FCSM Research Conference -- November 15-17, 1999
• Interacting With Statistics: Designing Interfaces to Statistical Databases
• Federal Statistical System Study Records Archived
• SIGSTAT Schedule - March and April 1999
• Employment Opportunities
• Courses
• Seminars
• Area Meetings and Courses (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)
• Note From The WSS NEWS Editor
• WSS People

Herriot Award Nominations Sought

After the sudden death in May, 1994 of Roger Herriot, an Associate Commissioner for Statistical Standards and Methodology at the National Center for Education Statistics, the Washington Statistical Society, the Social Statistics and Government Statistics Sections of the American Statistical Association established an award in his memory to recognize individuals who develop unique approaches to the solution of statistical problems in federal data collection programs.

The award is intended to reflect the special characteristics that marked Roger Herriot's career:

• Dedication to the issues of measurement
• Improvements in the efficiency of data collection programs; and
• Improvements and use of statistical data for policy analysis.

The award is not restricted to senior members of an organization; nor is it to be considered as a culmination of along period of service. Individuals at all levels, from entry to senior, federal employees, private sector employees, or employees of the academic community, may be nominated on the basis of the significance of the specific contribution.

The recipient of the 1999 Roger Herriot Award will be chosen by a committee of representatives of the Social Statistics Section and Government Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association and a representative of the Washington Statistical Society. Roger Herriot was associated with and strongly supportive of these organizations during his career. The award consists of an honorium of $500 and a framed citation.

Joseph Waksberg (Westat), Monroe Sirken (National Center for Health Statistics), Constance Citro (National Academy of Sciences), Roderick Harrison (U.S. Bureau of the Census), and Clyde Tucker (Bureau of Labor Statistics) are previous recipients of the Herriot Award.

A nomination form can be obtained by contacting Daniel Kasprzyk at 202-219-1588, 202-219-1325 (fax), or e-mail: Daniel_Kasprzyk@ed.gov. All nomination forms should be returned to the Roger Herriot Award Committee, c/o Daniel Kasprzyk, 4906 Colonel Contee Place, Upper Marlboro, MD 20772-2875.

Completed nomination forms must be received by May 14, 1999.

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International Symposium on Forecasting

Detailed information about the symposium is available at the website, http://ifsm2.ifsm.umbc.edu/ISF. Links are to related conferences, such as the Federal Forecasters Conference (FFC) also being held locally, on June 24, 1999, with the theme "Forecasting in the New Millennium". Abstract submissions deadline for the FFC is March 19, 1999, also to Karen Hamrick.

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1999 FCSM Research Conference
November 15-17, 1999

To obtain additional conference and registration details or to be added to the conference mailing list, contact: Ruth Detlefsen, Bureau of the Census Bureau, Room 2641-3, Washington, D.C. 20233; Phone: 301-457-2665, Fax: 301-457-1343, and E-mail: fcsm@ccmail.census.gov. Periodic updates concerning the conference may be found on web site http://www.bts.gov/fcsm.

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Interacting With Statistics:
Designing Interfaces to Statistical Databases

Michael D. Levi, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA
Frederick G. Conrad, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA

Suppose you move to a new neighborhood. You might want to know if you should worry about crime, whether the local schools are good, or whether the drinking water is clean. In each of these cases the relevant information exists in statistical databases (SDBs). Whether a typical information seeker can find the information, however, is another question.

The purpose of this workshop is to foster the development of better, more usable interfaces to statistical databases: large, numeric data sets concerned primarily with social science. We will focus on the human-computer interaction (HCI) problems that are peculiar to communicating requests for statistical information and presenting the results in a usable form. The outcome of the workshop will include a catalogue of HCI problems related to statistical information, a set of implemented solutions with accompanying commentary, and a set of research topics.

Workshop participants must have concrete experience developing interfaces to statistical databases. Applicants should send a 3 - 5 page position paper headed with name and contact information and a one-paragraph biographical sketch. The paper should summarize the types of statistical data sets they work with, the type of usability problems their intended audience typically faces, and one or more useful interfaces they have either designed or evaluated which attempt to overcome these problems. If possible, please email the paper using ASCII, HTML, or Microsoft Word.

Position papers must be received by February 26. Submitters will be notified of selection by March 26. Accepted workshop participants will be charged a registration fee of US$150 for the two-day workshop and are expected to register for and attend the CHI conference.

The workshop Web site is http://cpcug.org/user/hamilev/chi99/index.htm

The conference Web site is http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi99/

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Federal Statistical System Study Records Archived

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SIGSTAT Schedule - March and April 1999

The March SIGSTAT meeting on the 3rd will be a demo of JMP from SAS. JMP, a point-and-click statistical package for data exploration and model building, was originally available only on the Macintosh. A Windows version is now available.

The April SIGSTAT on the 21st will be a demo of the SAS/ETS Time Series Forecasting System (TSFS). The TSFS is a menu interface to the forecasting capabilities of SAS/ETS. Through simple point-and-click operations the best forecasting model (selected from a preset list of models) can be quickly found for a number of time series.

*(Note March's meeting is on the 1st Wednesday)

All SIGSTAT meeting are held in Waugh A on the 3rd floor of 1800 M St, NW. Directions to the meetings and a full schedule can be found on the SIGSTAT website www.econ.ag.gov/sigstat/. First-time attendees should contact Charlie Hallahan at 202-694-5051 or hallahan@econ.ag.gov to leave your name for admittance to the building.

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Note From The WSS NEWS Editor

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WSS People

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First posted January 25, 1999
Last modified February 1, 1999

Webmaster: Dan Jacobs, Maryland Sea Grant