Menu
Log in


News & Media releases

  • 11 Mar 2020 8:20 AM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    A/Prof Ayse Bilgin (President-Elect of IASE) and I were Guest Editors for a Special Issue of the Statistics Education Research Journal published 29 Feb 2020, entitled ‘Building Future Generations of Statisticians’.

    Following on from collaborative SSA national initiatives such as STEMS2016 ‘Putting Statistics into STEM in the Age of Data’, as I noted in the SERJ Editorial pp 8-10, for many, the theme of this Special Issue has been a perennial focus, discussed at national and international fora but perhaps lacking a consolidated emphasis in the literature.

    The aim for this Special Issue was to provide such a platform for sharing the many and varied international ‘outreach’ initiatives, experiences, resources and supporting mechanisms for increasing the number engaging with the field of statistics.

    Before you view the articles perhaps you may like to consider why you were drawn to statistics and whether the work you are performing is as you’d expected it to be when you began your studies.

    SERJ Website - Special Issue 'Building Future Generations of Statisticians'

    Professor Peter Howley

    Section Chair – Statistical Education

    @peterhowley0

  • 11 Mar 2020 8:04 AM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    Screenshot of NSPC Website

    Thanks to support from the ABS, a fresh and engaging SSA NSPC website has been created – please have a look and let me know your thoughts.

    The NSPC is in its 6th year as a national activity following its 2014 pilot and continues to engage new participants annually from primary and secondary schools.

    Please inform friends, family and local schools of this enjoyable activity which engages teams of students with statistics via investigations and aligns with and supports national curriculum outcomes.

    Professor Peter Howley

    @peterhowley0

    Section Chair – Statistical Education

  • 8 Mar 2020 1:19 PM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    The SA Branch welcomed Professor Omer Ozturk, currently on sabbatical from Ohio State University, to our February meeting to speak on his work on probability-proportional-to-size ranked-set sampling from stratified populations. This is the topic of his current research, following on from many years of work on sampling methodology. Omer’s talk took us through a number of examples to demonstrate the value of finite sampling, particularly in agriculture and environmental science.

    Motivating examples included (1) the Quarterly Agricultural Survey performed by the Ohio Agricultural Statistics Department to estimate corn yield. Due to the presence of both regular farms and ‘mega farms’ auxiliary data on the farms is required to be used to ensure an appropriate sampling scheme; (2) the US Census Bureau’s Monthly Retail Trade Survey. Size data based on the previous year’s annual revenues is assumed to be approximately proportional to the current year’s revenue and can be used to optimise sampling; and (3) the Turkey Statistical Institute estimates the total apple production in Turkey. Auxiliary data identified two sub-populations, and this was able to be used to develop a sampling scheme that increased the available information.

    Omer’s work combines theory from the finite population setting, proportional-to-size (PPS) and ranked-set (RS) methodologies, and extends this to more than one population (eg, geographic regions) for a stratified PPS-RS approach. Proportional-to-size sampling requires an auxiliary variable assumed to be proportional to the outcome, and ranked-set sampling requires determining, with reasonable accuracy, the relative position of the sampled units. Omer presented results for estimating the mean, variance, and confidence intervals. Finally, he discussed methods for sample size allocation across strata including equal allocation, proportional allocation, Neyman allocation, and allocation under a fixed cost plan. Results demonstrated that stratified PPS-RS was more efficient than stratified PPS and stratified simple random sampling for all allocation procedures.

    In conclusion, Omar demonstrated that ranking information induces more structure and improves the information content of the sample. This can be extended to more complex population structures such as clustered populations, with further work to be published soon. It was an entertaining and engaging presentation.

    Key reference: Ozturk O & Bayramoglu Kavlak K. (2018). Model based inference using ranked set samples. Survey Methodology, 44(1): 1-16.

    Author: Kylie Lange

  • 24 Feb 2020 1:49 PM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    Family caring responsibilities (such as caring for children or elders) can be a barrier to conference participation. The SSA will make a number of bursaries available to people wishing to attend ANZSC2020  to help defray the additional costs of familial caring responsibilities.

    SSA members who will incur additional costs associated with familial caring responsibilities due to their attendance at ANZSC2020 are invited to apply for a bursary. These bursaries are available to people of all genders. These funds could be spent on additional childcare or eldercare expenses that would arise as a result of attendance at the conference, or on flights for an accompanying person to look after children while the awardee is at the conference, for example. Bursary awardees do not need to present work at the conference to be eligible for a bursary. The SSA has a maximum of $2000 available for these bursaries, with the maximum amount available to any one applicant being $500.

    The application form is available here. Applicants need to confirm they are a member of SSA, and intend to attend ANZSC2020. A short statement is required on how attendance at ANZSC2020 would be beneficial for their career, and details of the requested funds. Successful applicants would be reimbursed upon presentation of ANSZC2020 registration confirmation and receipts/invoices. The deadline for applications is March 25 2020, with decisions to be communicated to applicants by April 6 2020 (the Early Bird Registration deadline of ANZSC2020).


  • 10 Feb 2020 3:09 PM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    There will be a pre-conference workshop at ANZSC in July on logistic regression in Autostat. We have a trip report from the BayesComp workshop in January, which was attended by members of the Bayes SSA section. The ISBA Program Council have extended the early registration and poster submission deadlines for the ISBA World Meeting and BAYSM (June/July, 2020). A reminder about ABC in Grenoble (March, 2020) and announcement of an SMC workshop in Madrid (May, 2020).

    There will be a pre-conference workshop “From machine learning to statistical modelling (Frequentist & Bayesian), via logistic regression in Autostat” held on Sunday, July 5, prior to the Australian Statistical Society and New Zealand Statistical Association Conference (ANZSC) on the Gold Coast. This year Griffith University has planned 70 workshops and other training events, delivered by 20 presenters, on statistics or mixed (quant/qual) methods. Several workshops introduce a Bayesian approach for particular models, with computing in Autostat and/or R. There are also introductory workshops on

    “Understanding Probability”, and “Classical vs Bayesian Statistical Modelling.” All workshops are advertised a few months ahead here.  Please have patience with a new process for attendees external to Griffith University to

    enrol in workshops here.

    j-ISBA mixer at BayesComp 2020, L to R: Georgios Vasdekis (Warwick); Andrea Bertazzi (TU Delft); Joshua Bon (QUT); Joris Bierkens (TU Delft); and Sebastiano Grazzi (TU Delft). Photo courtesy Akihiko Nishimura (UCLA)

    The biennial BayesComp workshop, sponsored by the Bayesian computation section of ISBA, took place January 7-10 in Gainesville, Florida. The conference promotes original research into computational methods across all strands of Bayesian research. This year’s plenary talks included cutting-edge topics such as Continuous-time MCMC, variational inference (VI), as well as Bayesian analysis of large-scale time series. The advancement of methodology for high-dimensional and complex models was a persistent theme of the conference. An underlying theme of research present in many talks was the move away from more traditional, exact, Bayesian methods, to alternative methods that are approximate or robust to model misspecification. 

    The 5th Bayesian Young Statisticians Meeting (BAYSM) will take place in Kunming, China from June 26-27, 2020. Deadline for submission of abstracts is March 29. Due to concerns about the current coronavirus epidemic, the ISBA Program Council have extended the early-bird registration deadline for the ISBA World Meeting (Kunming, China, June 29 – July 3) until May 15. They will keep submission of contributed posters open until May 15 as well. More details about the conference programme are available here.

    A workshop on Approximate Bayesian Computation, ABC in Grenoble, will be held in France on March 19 and 20. More details are available here.

    A workshop on Sequential Monte Carlo methods, SMC 2020, will be held in Madrid, Spain, May 27 – 29. More details are available here.

    Executive Committee, Bayes Section of SSA (Chris Drovandi, Clara Grazian, David Frazier, Sama Low-Choy & Matt Moores)

    Twitter: @BayesSSA

    https://statsoc.org.au/Bayesian-Statistics


  • 28 Jan 2020 8:24 AM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    Editors: Helen MacGillivray, Robert Gould, Jim Ridgway

    The special issue of Teaching Statistics will be published in 2020 as an e-book, titled Teaching Data Science and Statistics: senior school or introductory tertiary.

    A variety of chapters is envisaged, with a small number of invited chapters, and most oriented to classroom-ready ideas, case studies and/or materials embodying good teaching practice. Each of the latter type of chapter should focus on one or more aspects of statistical data investigations and data science. Authors will find valuable guidance in Unit 1 of the framework of the International Data Science for School Project (IDSSP). Case study approaches should embody classroom-ready implementation, with a rich data context with a number of variables.

    Chapters should be between 2,000 and 4,000 words, and no more than 5,000 words, including references, figures and any appendices. Resources such as data, code, notes for teachers/instructors, and videos, may be placed in an online repository. Authors may wish to provide short, dynamic videos.

    Timeline

    • Submissions to be made online to Teaching Statistics via ScholarOne.
    • Deadline for submissions, 25th April, 2020.
    • Referee reports to authors by 30th June, 2020.
    • Deadline for revised submissions, 31st August, 2020.
    • Proofs to authors by 15th October, 2020.
    • Deadline for corrections to proofs, 22nd October, 2020.
    • Issue compilation, 29th October, 2020.
    • Issue approved, 7th November, 2020.
    • To printer and published online, 14th November, 2020.
    • Published in print, 21st November, 2020.

    Teaching Statistics, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14679639, is published by Wiley on behalf of the Teaching Statistics Trust. It is intended for all those who teach statistics to students aged up to 19 years. The emphasis is on good practice in teaching statistics and statistical thinking in any context. Teaching Statistics seeks to inform, enlighten, stimulate, guide, correct, inspire, entertain and encourage. Teaching Statistics is a refereed journal, with double-blind reviewing.

    For more information contact the Teaching Statistics editor h.macgillivray@qut.edu.au . Also see Teaching Statistics, 42 (1).

    Helen MacGillivray


  • 21 Jan 2020 12:13 PM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    The Statistical Society of Australian and CSIRO/Data61 are delighted to announce the inaugural winners of the Betty Allan travel award as:

    •  Karen Lamb who will visit the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication in Cambridge
    • Sharmala Thuraisingam who will visit the University of Calgary and attend the North American Primary Care Research Group Conference

    The award of $3000 each is to support early career female statisticians in Australia to travel anywhere in the world in order to further their career.

    There were 14 applications for what should have been just one award, but the judging panel recommended two awards because they were so impressed with the quality of the applications.

    The president of the Statistical Society of Australia, Adrian Barnett, said, “The quality of the applications was inspiring. It proves that we have incredible early career female statisticians in Australia. But it did make the final decision very difficult.”

    Frances Elizabeth (“Betty”) Allan (1905 to 1952) was CSIRO’s first statistician and provided statistical support across the organisation. She also lectured in mathematics and statistics at Canberra University College and Australian Forestry School. When she married in 1940 she was forced to retire, which was the law for female public servants.

    The award will be open again in 2020 with applications called for in November. For details on last year’s application click here.

  • 13 Jan 2020 2:33 PM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    Adriano Polpo, Associate Professor at UWA, spoke in the June meeting about Optimal Sample-Size-Dependent Significance Levels. The talk was based on the work (DOI: 10.1080/00031305.2018.1518268) published on the The American Statistician special issue about “Statistical Inference in the 21st Century: A World Beyond p < 0.05”. It can be seen that this is a hot topic given the number of publications in this issue is over 40. But Adriano and his coauthors address or revisit the nuances of hypothesis testing in the classical approaches in order to prepare the way for their approach to what has recently been a vexed question involving whether or not or how to use p-values?

    For those who do not know Adriano, he has recently taken up his position at UWA having come from the Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil, where he spent 12 years. He originally got his PhD from the University of Sao Paulo in the year 2005 and has also taken post-doctoral study at Florida State University.  He was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, but also has dual citizenship with Italy.  On the other hand, he does not confess to speaking Italian. Interestingly he tells me that he learnt English by using the computer.

    The statisticians know of the inconsistency, or paradox, in the current classical tests of significance that are based on p-value statistics that are compared to the canonical significance levels (10%, 5%, and 1%). Adriano and his colleagues argued that researchers do not need to completely abandon the p-value, rather, they should instead stop using significance levels that do not depend on sample sizes. A testing procedure was presented, with a significance level that is a function of sample size, obtained from a generalized form of the Neyman–Pearson Lemma.

    At the conclusion of his talk several people dined afterwards and continued discussions at the  Bateman Chinese Malaysian Eating House.

    Brenton Clarke

  • 13 Jan 2020 2:29 PM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    On the 12th November 2019 Cathryn Lewis who is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Statistics at Kings College London, University of London received her Frank Hansford-Miller Fellowship medal, and led the audience in a tour through some of her research in a talk titled “Polygenic risk scores to predict risk of disease, hype, hope and statistical reality”. Cathryn has been working at her present position for 20 years and describes herself as someone who works on applied statistics.  This is very fitting as Frank was very enthusiastic for applied statistics and the benefit that it could bring to the whole of society.   Cathryn trained as a mathematical statistician, receiving a BA from Oxford, then a Masters and PhD from the University of Sheffield, before moving to do a postdoctoral work at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA. Here she was involved with discovering the link between the BRCA1 gene and the risk of breast cancer, which has motivated a lot of interest in genetics and risk ever since. She returned to England taking up her current position which she has worked at apart from short sojourns off for having children.  

    Cathryn noted that while she was in London reading about Frank she was struck by the quote “He was a rather eccentric Englishman who adopted Australia as his home after he retired from the UK”. On arriving in Perth, she could now see exactly why he had done this and volunteered to say that if we have any tutorial posts in 10 years time she would certainly be interested.

    The synopsis of Cathryn Lewis’ talk started with an introduction to genetics and polygenic risk scores, analysis methods, challenges, and a return to quote Frank Hansford-Miller.

    She introduced the discovery of DNA and highlighted the work of Rosalyn Franklin, somewhat overlooked when discussing the discovery of DNA in 1953 by Crick and Watson.

    She then talked about why a statistician may be interested in DNA by alluding to the fact that there were 3 billion base pairs in the DNA which would take us 50 years to type out one letter at a time, but pointed out there were 0.1 % of these pairs distinguished us as individuals.  While 0.1% is small this percentage of 3 billion is quite an amount of data.  She went on to discuss the link or hypothesis that various alleles could lead to increased risk of disorders such as depression.  The genetics technology now looks at sites across half a million sites at one time examining the whole genome at one time.  There are matrices of data, and each row is examined at one row at a time, and individuals are examined for cases and controls.  There are adjustments for ancestry. Essentially for each SNP a logistic regression is carried out so that one gets an odds ratio for a particular increased risk of a particular allele.  The studies involve P-values which are adjusted for the large numbers of tests carried out.

    In comparison to other disorders “hits” due to particular gene types only began for depression in 2015.  Risks on a polygenic scale now lead to risk scores for every individual that give you information on risk of the disorder.  Methods involve weighted scores across all SNP’s..  There are considerations of correlation and independence

    Results involve scores that have roughly a normal distribution, and then interest is in the tails.

     How do we predict outcomes for cases and controls?

    We were led through various statistical methodologies of Cohen’s D and Nagelkerke’s R.

    Depression has a prevalence disorder of 15%.    Some discussion ensued about course of illness.

    A discussion of risk in other areas put the ideas of screening for various disorders in perspective, and it was pointed out that predictions of disorder were not the same for African as opposed to European cases whereupon ancestry is important.

    There is still a need to increase the predictive ability.  We have gone from a yes/no genetic description to a polygenic risk on a normal scale.

    To remind us of the aptness of her work Cathryn pointed to a quote from

    Frank “We have been become too technical and should ask “How is this piece or research going to help humanity””

    and challenged us all to play a part in making statistics relevant to society.  She closed her talk with a picture of the double helix in the DNA tower at Kings Park.

    Brenton R Clarke

  • 8 Jan 2020 9:34 AM | Marie-Louise Rankin (Administrator)

    The following email, received by the SSA today, may be of interest to the statistical and mathematical community:

    "To: The Adhering Organizations of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) 

    Dear colleagues

    The 8th Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), see 

    https://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org

    will take place in Heidelberg, Germany during September 20–25, 2020.

    At HLF all winners of the Fields Medal, the Abel Prize, the ACM A.M. Turing Award, the Nevanlinna Prize, and the ACM Prize in Computing are invited to attend. In addition, young and talented computer scientists and mathematicians are invited to apply for participation. 

    The previous HLFs have been an exceptional success. The HLF serves as a great platform for interaction between the masters in the fields of mathematics and computer science and young talents.

    Applications for participation at the 8th HLF are open in three categories: Undergraduates, PhD Candidates, and PostDocs. See the webpage https://application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/site/index.php

    for the online nomination form. Please note that in compliance with European data protection law all previous login information and nominator accounts were deleted.

    The IMU Adhering Organizations and national mathematical societies can nominate young researchers. 

    Nominated persons get “priority treatment”, but, since there may be too many nominations, they have no acceptance guarantee. During the nomination process you will be asked for an Org-ID, which is IMU93258 for the IMU. The deadline for application is February 14, 2020.

    IMU asks its Adhering Organizations to distribute this information among their national mathematical 

    communities, if possible, through the newsletters of the national mathematical societies.

    The HLF was initiated by the late German entrepreneur Klaus Tschira, and is supported by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Association for Computing Machinery, as well as the International Mathematical Union.

    Regards

    Helge Holden

    Prof. Helge Holden
    Secretary General of the International Mathematical Union
    https://www.mathunion.org
    Phone:+47-92038625" 

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software