Vol. 32 No. 2 • April–June 2015

International Biometric Society Internationale Biometrische Gesellschaft Société International de Biométrie

President’s Corner

IN THIS ISSUEPresident’s Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Region Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Biometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

JABES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Region News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Australasian Region . . . . . . . . . . . 5British and Irish Region . . . . . . . . 5Dutch Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Eastern Mediterranean Region . . 6Eastern North American Region . . 8German Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Japanese Region . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Western North American Region . 10

Announcements and News . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

“Biometry, the active pursuit of biological knowledge by quantitative methods.” - R.A. Fisher, 1948

Greetings!

What’s the point of the IBS? Well, my involve-ment in various Society activities over the last few months has brought this question into focus and, more importantly,

given me some clear answers. Of course, you may have your own views, and I would be very interested to hear them, either by email or in person at one of our scientific meetings. Well, there is the first and most important reason—science. Our fundamen-tal objective has to be to advance biometry and its application across the whole range of the biological sciences. This really hasn’t changed since the founding of the Society and remains just as much a challenge as it was then. Is our subject really becoming more fragmented into specialised areas than it ever was? Well maybe, but if so, the need for a society linking across all of the diverse

areas is even more vital to enable the cross-fertilisation of ideas and the “borrowing of strength” from across the different strands. Our meetings and journals are vital compo-nents in this process. As ever, our subject and particular skills can be undervalued by col-laborating scientists, and we may feel our ter-ritory under attack from the data scientists, but surely this is a case for trying to reach out and build bridges, something most eas-ily done from the security and strength of a dynamic and relevant discipline. This is most usefully done at the local level, and I know that many of our regional meetings and conferences try to do precisely this, through special topic sessions and jointly hosted events. In the same way, we need our major international meeting, the IBC, to bring us all together with topics that are both popular and familiar, but also those that are new and challenging. This is an opportunity both to meet with colleagues in your specialized area and also to experience new ideas from quite different areas and form new, unexpected, collaborations. If as scientists we retreat ever

further into our own silo, we are missing out on so much. At the core, we have a common language of statistics and probability, so there is much to be gained by venturing down new avenues. I would urge you all when at conferences to go to some sessions that you know nothing about—you may be surprised and learn much more than just hearing something that you already know.

The other vital role of the IBS is as a society of like-minded individuals. Our dual regional and international structure provides much needed support for biometricians across the world. With our free student membership we bring new blood into our community and are actively trying to support early-career members through a range of initiatives. We also have a long history of supporting biom-

BIOMETRICBULLETIN

Continued on p. 3

Several members of the IBS Executive Board posed for a photo following their meeting in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Pictured left to right: Freedom Gumedze, James Carpenter, Ernst Wit, Tae Rim Lee, Krista Fischer, John Hinde, Elizabeth Thompson, Andrea Berghold, Dee Ann Walker, Alan Welsh, and José Pinheiro.

1 Biometric Bulletin

BIOMETRIC BULLETINISSN 8750-0434

Copyright © 2015 International Biometric Society

Biometric Bulletin is published four times a year in March, June, September and December for US$40 per year by the:

International Biometric Society

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Telephone: +1 (202) 712-9049 • Fax: +1 (202) 216-9646

Email: <ibs@biometricsociety .org> Website: http://www .biometricsociety .org

The Biometric Bulletin is available to members of the Society as part of their annual dues . The views of contributions to this publica-tion should not be ascribed to the International Biometric Society . Reproduction for commercial purposes is allowed if the source is acknowledged .

EditorDimitris Karlis, Dept . of Statistics, Athens University of Economics & Business, e-mail: <karlis@aueb .gr>

Regional CorrespondentsLiesbeth de Wreede (ANed), Sally Galbraith (AR), Richard Emsley (BIR), Hein Putter (Channel Network), Axel Benner (DR), Anil Barak (EMR), Leslie McClure (ENAR), Mamadou Diedhiou (GEth), Olayemi Oluwasoga (GNi), Zofia Hanusz (GPol), Cornelia Enachesu (GRo), Peter M . Njuho (GSAf), Wellington Mushayi (GZim), Babu L . Verma (IR), Satoshi Hattori (JR), Esa Läärä (NR), Cecilia Bruno (RArg), Sophie Vanbelle (RBe), Luzia Aparecida Trinca (RBras), Novie Younger (RCAC), Anabel Forte (REsp), Robert Faivre (RF), Stefano Salvadori (RItl), Seung-Ho Kang (Rko), Andrea Berghold (ROeS), Henry G . Mwambi (SUSAN), Megan Othus (WNAR), Jialiang Li (SING), Dan Kajungu (GUgan), Agnes Ankomah (GGha), John Mwangi (GKe), Njoku Ama (GBot), Innocent Zebaze (GCam), Cristian Meza (GCl), Katja Ickstadt (CEN), Alia Sajjad (PKSTAN), Andrew Zhou (CHINA) .

International Biometric Society Executive BoardPresident: John Hinde, Ireland

President-Elect: Elizabeth Thompson, United States

Secretary-Treasurer: James Carpenter, United Kingdom

Directors: Karen Bandeen-Roche, United States; Frank Bretz, Switzerland; Krista Fischer, Estonia; Joel Greenhouse, United States; Freedom Gumedze, South Africa; Tae Rim Lee, Korea; Sharon-Lise Normand, United States; José Pinheiro, United States; Paulo J . Ribeiro, Brazil; Alan Welsh, Australia; Ernst Wit, the Netherlands; Andreas Ziegler, Germany

Editors of BiometricsJeanine J . Houwing-Duistermaat, Department of Medical Statistics and Bioinformatics, Leiden University Medical Centre, Postzone S-05-P, P .O . Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands, Tel: 31-71-5269707, Email: <j .j .houwing@lumc .nl>

Yi-Hau Chen, Academia Sinica – Institute of Statistical Science, Taipei 11529, Taiwan R .O .C ., Tel: 886-2-27871968, Email: <yhchen@stat .sinica .edu .tw>

Michael J . Daniels, University of Florida, 207 Briffin-Floyd, Gainesville, FL 32611, Tel: 352-273-1845 . Email: <mdaniels@stat .ufl .edu>

Marie Davidian (Executive Editor), North Carolina State University, Department of Statistics, Box 8203, Raleigh, NC 27695-8203, USA, Tel: +1-919-515-1940, Fax: +1-919-515-7591, E-mail: <davidian@ncsu .edu>

Editor of Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics (JABES)

Montserrat (Montse) Fuentes, North Carolina State University Department of Statistics, Box 8203, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA, Tel:+1-919-515-1921, Fax: +1-919-515-1169, Email: <fuentes@ncsu .edu>

International Business OfficeExecutive Director: Dee Ann Walker, CAE

Director of Education: Alphonsus Baggett, MEdDirector of Administration: Mik Bauer

From the EditorDear Readers,

Summer is coming fast and a series of inter-esting conferences will take place through-out the world. We hope to have reports from all of them in the forthcoming issue. In May, my region, the Eastern Mediterranean Region, had our own conference in Nevsehir, Cappadocia, Turkey. More than 250 par-ticipants from over 20 countries met in the beautiful landscape of the Cappadocia Mountains. We are proud of our region which combines different civilizations, cul-tures, languages and religions in a unique manner and brings together biostatisticians from all over. Details of this conference are reported within this issue of the Biometric Bulletin. Also, be aware that I have the honor of chairing the next EMR conference in Thessaloniki, Greece in May 2017.

As usual the current issue contains infor-mation from the journals of the Society as well as contributions from many regions of IBS. The Executive Board has approved the appointment of Steve Buckland as the next Editor of JABES and Stijn Vansteelandt as the Co-editor of Biometrics. Both their terms begin 1 January 2016. We wish to extend a warm welcome to both of them.

Preparations for the XXVIIIth International Biometric Conference to be held in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in July 2016 are ongoing. Visit http://biometricconference.org/ for the latest updates on this major event of the Society.

Please remember that we welcome your suggestions about the Biometric Bulletin. Ideas for feature articles also continue to be received, as we are always in need of fresh topics for this successful column. You may send any ideas to me via email – karlis@aueb.gr.

I hope you enjoy this issue.

Warmest Regards,

Dimitris Karlis

Region Key

RegionsRArg - Argentinean RegionAR - Australasian RegionROeS - Austro-Swiss RegionRBe - Belgian RegionRBras - Brazilian RegionBIR - British and Irish RegionRCAC - Central American-Caribbean RegionECU - Ecuadorian RegionEMR - Eastern Mediterranean RegionENAR - Eastern North American RegionRF - French RegionDR - German RegionIR - Indian RegionRItl - Italian Region JR - Japanese RegionRKo - Korean RegionANed - The Netherlands RegionNR - Nordic Baltic RegionSING - SingaporeREsp - Spanish RegionWNAR - Western North American RegionGBot - Botswana GCI - ChileCHINA - ChinaGEth - EthiopiaGGha - GhanaGKe - Kenya GNi - Nigeria PKSTAN - PakistanGPol - Poland GRo - Romania GSAf - South AfricaGUgan - UgandaGZim - Zimbabwe

NetworksCEN - Central European NetworkCN - Channel NetworkSUSAN - Sub-Saharan Network

Conference Website Now Open

XXVIIIth International Biometric Conference

10 – 15 July 2016Victoria, Canada

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BiometricsSeptember 2015 Issue Highlights The September issue features articles covering a range of meth-odological areas and applications. Articles include “Bayesian non-linear model selection for gene regulatory networks,” by Yang Ni, Francesco C. Stingo, and Veerabhadran Baladandayuthapani; “Set-based tests for genetic association in longitudinal studies,” by Zihuai He, Min Zhang, Seunggeun Lee, Jennifer A. Smith, Xiuqing Guo, Walter Palmas, Sharon L. R. Kardia, Ana V. Diez Roux, and Bhramar Mukherjee; “Doubly-robust dynamic treatment regimen estimation via weighted least squares,” by Michael P. Wallace and Erica E. M. Moodie; “Multiple testing for neuroimaging via hidden Markov ran-dom field,” by Hai Shu, Bin Nan, and Robert Koeppe; and “Bayesian modeling and analysis for gradients in spatiotemporal processes,” by Harrison Quick, Sudipto Banerjee, and Bradley P. Carlin.

The Biometric Practice section features “Predictive classification of correlated targets with application to detection of metastatic cancer using function CT imaging,” by Yuan Wang, Brian P. Hobbs, Jianhua Hu, Chaan S. Ng, and Kim-Anh Do; “Statistical monitoring of the Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease in China,” by Jingnan Zhang, Yicheng Kang, Yang Yang, and Peihua Qiu; “Bayesian hierarchical regression on clear-ance rates in the presence of “Lag” and “Tail” Phases with an applica-tion to malaria parasites,” by Colin B. Fogarty, Michael P. Fay, Jennifer A. Flegg, Kasia Stepniewska, Rick M. Fairhurst, and Dylan S. Small; and “Penalized regression for interval-censored times to disease progres-sion: Selection of HLA markers in psoriatic arthritis,” by Ying Wu and Richard J. Cook.

As always, lists of papers to appear can be found at the Biometrics website. Papers to appear in future issues may also be found under the “Early View” link at the Wiley-Blackwell website, which may be accessed by IBS members by visiting http://www.biometricso-ciety.org/, selecting “Biometrics” from the drop-down menu at the “Publications” link at the top of the page and accessing the “Click here” link.

Editorial Board NewsAs we reported in the last column, Co-editor Jeanine Houwing-Duistermaat’s term will end 31 December 2015, and, following IBS policy, a search committee was appointed. According to geographic convention, Jeanine’s successor should reside in Europe. The search committee has identified a nominee for the position, who must be approved formally by the IBS Executive Board.

News from Our PublisherAs we reported in the December 2014 edition of this column, our publisher, Wiley, is developing mobile apps for all of its journals using a standard template. ‘Wiley’s Journal App Service’ is initially available for Apple devices (iPhone, iPad), with a version for Android devices to follow shortly. The Biometrics app for Apple devices is in the final stages of production and should be available shortly, free to all IBS members. IBS members will be able to login to the app to access full Biometrics content on mobile devices. Articles will be presented in the Wiley “Anywhere Article” format, which was described in the June 2014 edition of this column. ‘Anywhere Articles’ are simple to navigate by touch using familiar swiping motions. IBS members will receive an announcement of the availability of the app when it “goes live” later this year.

Wiley has provided the IBS with its Annual 2014 Publisher’s Report for Biometrics. Some highlights: The journal continued to be financially strong in 2014, posting a 5% gain in net income due to the IBS over 2013. Full text downloads of Biometrics articles from Wiley Online Library exceeded 132,000 in 2014, and over 5,200 institutions in the developing world now have access to Biometrics, with readership in China making up 7% of all usage. The average time from receipt of an accepted manuscript at Wiley to publication of the final article in ‘Early View’ was 41 days in 2014.

etry in the developing world, by encouraging the formation of new regions (Ecuador is the latest on the list.) and funding travel, both for people from developing countries to go to meetings and supporting visiting presenters in developing country regions. One problem for many of the small regions is that of continuity and possible solutions for this will be to form more networks and multi-country regions. These larger groupings encourage local collaboration and provide a firmer basis for regular conferences that can move around the differ-ent countries. Not only does this allow scientific exchange between sometimes rather different statistical cultures, but it can also help to promote understanding at a human level between countries that may not agree politically. This was brought home to me by my recent visit to the EMR meeting in Turkey. The region covers Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia and Turkey—countries who have had their differences over the centuries. However, by supporting regions such as this we can play our small part in promoting peace and cooperation.

As I mentioned in my last column, the Executive Board met in April

President’s CornerContinued from p. 1

in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, after the Channel Network Conference (involving Belgium, British and Irish, French, and Netherlands Regions). They discussed many aspects of the running of the Society and future plans for IBCs, publications, and support to regions. I am delighted that we now have in place and are operating funding streams to support:

• Travel by developing country members to IBS Regional and International meetings (Awards Fund Committee);

• Travel for short course presenters/speakers to developing coun-try region meetings (Education Committee);

• The Young Statisticians’ Competition at IBCs (IBS).

In addition, we are working on establishing a new funding stream to support Network and inter-Region activity that will be run by Representative Council. In advance of this, the Executive Board has already given support to some activities of this type, including a Polish Region session at the recent German Region meeting, funding for young statisticians from Central American and Carribean Region to attend the Spanish Region meeting in September, and support

Continued on p. 4

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Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics (JABES) Editor Report The Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics (JABES) is busy preparing for many exciting events upcoming in 2015. JABES would also like to announce that the Best AE Award is presented every year to one Associate Editor who has gone above and beyond committing time, hard work, and effort into making this a successful journal. We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Best AE Award for 2014 is Dipankar Bandyopadhyay. Congratulations and thank you for all your hard work!

This year, JABES will be hosting an invited session at the ENAR Conference prepared by our own Associate Editor, Muali Haran. The session is titled “Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics Highlights” and will feature several interesting papers. The session will include E. M. Schliep’s “Multilevel Latent Gaussian Process Model for Mixed Discrete and Continuous Multivariate Response Data,” D. Senturk’s “Nonlinear Varying-Coefficient Models with Application to a Photosynthesis Study,” J. Grego’s “Limited-Information Modeling of Loggerhead Turtle Population Size,” and J. Huang’s “Analysis of Variance of Integro-Differential Equations with Application to Population Dynamics of Cottong Aphids.”

Additionally, there will be a showcase session at JSM 2015 in Seattle prepared by Dipankar Bandyopadhyay. The session titled “Advances in space-time covariance estimation and serially-dependent extremes” will feature work by R. G. Niyogi’s “Low-rank Spatially Varying Cross-Covariance Estimation,” B. Li’s “Nonparametric Space/Space-Time Covariance Estimation,” B. Reich’s “Modeling Serially-Dependent Extremes,” and will also feature a discussion by Sudipto Banerjee. Also at JSM there will be an Editorial Board Meeting and luncheon to thank our board for all the hard work they put into make JABES a successful journal.

There will also be a special issue of JABES to be released in 2015,

co-edited by Dan Nettleton and Rob Templeman. This issue will be titled “Statistical Genomics and Transcriptomics in Agriculture” and will feature many articles discussing cutting-edge techniques.

In the upcoming issue of JABES to be released there will be several exciting papers on new statistical methodologies and processes. The papers included will be “Rachel S. McCrea and Byron J. T. Morgan, Analysis of Capture – Recapture Data” by J. Royle; “Assessing the Performance of Model-Based Clustering Methods in Multivariate Time Series with Application to Identifying Regional Wind Regimes” by A. Hering; “Improving the efficiency and precision of tree counts in pine plantations using airborne LiDAR data and flexible-radius plots: model-based and design-based approaches” by G. Melville; and “Analysis of Genetic Association Studies Incorporating Prior Information of Genetic Models” by G. Zheng, W. Zhang, Q. Li, J. Xu, A. Yuan, and J. Gastwirth. It will also include book reviews such as, a review by H. An for Statistical Methods for Dynamic Treatment Regimes: Reinforcement Learning, Causal Inference, and Personalized Medicene by B. Charkaborty and E. Moodie; a review by J. Hannig for Essential Statistical Inference by Boos and Stefanski; a review by K. Irvine for Handbook of Spatial Point-Pattern Analysis in Ecology by T. Wiegand and K. Moloney; as well as a review by J. Ahn for Statistical Thinking in Epidemiology by Y. Tu and M. Gilthorpe.

For more information on upcoming issues, the editorial board, and the aim and scope of the journal please visit our website www.editorialmanager.com/jabe. We also accept submissions of books to review in the upcoming issues of JABES. To submit a book for review please contact Mikyoung Jung at mjun@stat.tamu.edu.

Montse Fuentes, Editor-in-Chief

for an East Africa meeting in November being organised by the Ugandan Region. These developments explicity target what I think that our Society should be for—we can and will do more. We are in a good position to move forward, but this requires ideas and enthu-siasm from our members to make things happen. Only then can we make better use of our human and financial capital to achieve our aims for science and society.

Finally, a few updates that I hope also reflect my aims for the Society. On the topic of journals, allow me to welcome our newly appointed editors—Stijn Vansteelandt as Co-editor of Biometrics and Steve Buckland as Editor of JABES. Let us wish them well in continuing the strong tradition of our journals and providing a broad platform to serve the publishing interests and needs of our members. Plans continue for IBC2016 (10-15 July 2016, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) and the International Programme Committee seem to have done a wonderful job of crafting a programme of invited

sessions. Thanks to all those who submitted proposals. This pro-gramme will be announced shortly on the IBC2016 website (www.biometricconference.org). There is certainly a wide range of topics, with something to appeal to everyone and plenty of opportunity to take that dip into something new. The same will certainly be true of the contributed programme, which has a submission deadline of 6 January 2016 – save the date, and see the conference website for details. Laura Cowen, as Chair of the Local Organising Committee, has been doing an amazing job in pulling things together for the meeting venue, accommodations, and the social programme. And as if planning a conference was not enough, she had a new baby daughter this week. So Laura, congratulations and best wishes from the IBS – I hope to see you both in Victoria next July at what I am sure will be a great scientific and social meeting in true IBS tradition.

John Hinde john.hinde@nuigalway.ie

President’s CornerContinued from p. 3

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Region News Australasian Region (AR)Australasian Biometric Conference, 2015

Biometrics by the Harbour Hobart, Tasmania 29 November – 3 December 2015Save the Date: On behalf of the Australasian Region of the International Biometric Society we invite you to join us for our biennial conference. Share your work with colleagues working with statistical tools on problems in the biosciences, including ecology, agriculture, biomedical science, public health, environmental science and forestry. We have an exciting line-up of invited speakers with still more to come. So far, the list includes: Rosemary Bailey (University of St Andrews), Adrian Bowman (University of Glasgow), Richard Emsley (University of Manchester), Jay Ver Hoef (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Alaska), Thomas Lumley (University of Auckland), Otso Ovaskainen (University of Helsinki), and David Warton (University of New South Wales).

The conference will be held at one of Hobart’s oldest hotels – Hadley’s Orient Hotel (http://hadleyshotel.com.au), located in the heart of Hobart. Hobart itself is well known for its history, natural beauty, food and culture, and as a gateway to pristine wilderness. Come and enjoy a world-class conference in a stimulating environment!

Registrations are expected to open mid-June. More announcements are imminent. Details will be available from http://www.biometricso-ciety.org.au/conferences.html once they are confirmed.

Travel Awards to Assist IBS Members from Developing CountriesThe IBS Awards Fund Committee has instituted a program to assist IBS members from developing countries to attend conferences sponsored by IBS Regions or Networks, such as Biometrics by the Harbour. For more information, please visit: http://www.biometricso-ciety.org/travel-grant-application/.

Statistical Ecology and Environmental Monitoring (SEEM) 2015 Queenstown, New Zealand 21-26 June 2015The Statistical Ecology and Environmental Monitoring (SEEM) 2015 Conference is set to take place from June 21 – 26 in beautiful Queenstown, New Zealand. We are privileged to have Bryan Manly as our honorary speaker, with other invited speakers Ken Pollock, Andy Royle, Kerrie Mengersen, David Warton, Shirley Pledger and Murray Efford. We hope that you will come and join us as we talk ecology, environmental sciences and statistics while taking in the surroundings. For more information see www.maths.otago.ac.nz/SEEM2015.

—Matthew Schofield

Eco-Stats ’15: Technological Advances between Ecology and Statistics Sydney, Australia 8-10 December 2015Ecologists and statisticians have much to gain from working together. This conference has been designed as a collaborative forum for researchers with interests in ecology, statistics, or both. It is a follow-up to the 2013 meeting, whose outcomes were recently published in the April special issue of Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Formal proceedings will start on December 8th with “Skills-Building Day”, a series of computer-based tutorials covering topics spanning the interests of conference speakers. Then world leaders from ecol-ogy and statistics are paired up to present their own perspectives on five topical issues (analysis of metagenomics data in ecology, occupan-cy modelling with imperfect detection, analysing counts along stream networks, modern capture-recapture, and estimating biodiversity turnover), and roundtable discussions will provide opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration on these topics. Also featured will be a contributed poster session where participants can turn the topic of conversation to their own research. Invited speakers include Otso Ovaskainen (University of Helsinki), Jay Ver Hoef (NOAA Alaska), Rachel Fewster (University of Auckland), Darryl Mackenzie (Proteus Wildlife Research Consulting) and Alan Welsh (Australian National University).

Registration and abstract submissions now open. Further details at http://www.eco-stats.unsw.edu.au/ecostats15.html. Hope to see you there!

—David Warton

Vanessa Cave

British and Irish Region (BIR) Introducing the new BIR President, John MatthewsJohn Matthews is a medical statistician at Newcastle University. He completed his PhD at LSHTM with Michael Healy, followed by three years as a post-doc in Oxford with Peter Armitage before moving to Newcastle University, where he has been an academic medical stat-istician since 1987. He considers himself squarely on the biostatistical wing of the BIR but is keen to encourage synergy between all the dis-ciplines represented in the Biometric Society to take full advantage of our diversity. John is especially keen that members take advantage of the multi-national structure of our Society, as was well exemplified by the excellent recent Channel Network Conference held in Nijmegen, jointly run by the British & Irish, Belgian, Dutch and French Regions.

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processes consider networks that change over time, or at least have an explicit time component, and this dynamic nature of networks was discussed from different perspectives. The afternoon featured talks by Dirk Husmeier (Glasgow), Gerda Claeskens (Leuven), Marco Grzegorzcyk (Groningen), Ines Wilms (Leuven) and Michael Eichler (Maastricht), and Fentaw Abegaz (Groningen).

Rosa Meijer

Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR)Highlights from the 8th EMR-IBS Conference The 8th Conference of the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the International Biometric Society (EMR-IBS) was held in a modern and newly built Convention Center of the Nevsehir Haci Bektas Veli University located at the Cappadocia Region of Turkey, during May 11-15, 2015.

The conference venue.

The conference was very successful and attracted about 260 par-ticipants from 20 different countries around the world, including the guest of honor, IBS President, John Hinde. Havi Murad, EMR former President, would like to thank John for his good advice and interest-ing discussions during the conference.

IBS President, John Hinde with former EMR President, Havi Murad.

The Chair of the conference was Refik Burgut from the Department of Biostatistics of the Cukurova University, and the Co-chair was Ergun Karaagaoglu from the Department of Biostatistics of the Hacettepe University, Turkey.

John Matthews, President of the British and Irish Region.

Donald Preece Memorial DayOn Thursday, 17 September, at Queen Mary University of London, there will be a memorial day for Donald Preece, statistician, combi-natorialist, and organist. The meeting is supported by Queen Mary University of London and the British Combinatorial Committee, in association with the BIR and RSS. Registration is now open, and fur-ther details can be found at the meeting website: www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~pjc/dapday.html.

Michael Sweeting

Dutch Region (ANed)IBS Channel Network Conference 2015 This year’s IBS Channel Network Conference was held from April 20 to April 22 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. With Sylvia Richardson (MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, UK) as keynote speaker, three invited sessions with the topics “Confounder Modelling and Selection”, “Integrated Population Modelling” and “Dynamic Prediction”, 15 contributed sessions, two sessions with poster lightning presenta-tions and two short courses on splines and INLA, the Scientific Committee, together with the Local Organizing Committee, put together a very interesting and diverse program.

In addition to the excellent scientific program, a nice social program was organized. On Monday afternoon a poster session with food and drinks was organized, and on Tuesday the conference dinner was held in a unique old fort along the River Waal which was reachable by boat.

The, for Dutch standards, very enjoyable weather played its part as well, and all in all everyone had a great conference. Hereby we would like to thank all participants, and of course the Local Organizing Committee and the Scientific Committee, who put a lot of effort into making this conference a success.

Spring MeetingRight after the Channel Network Meeting, the annual Spring Meeting of the Dutch Region took place. This satellite meeting, organized by the 2014 Biometry Award winners, Fentaw Abegaz and Ernst Wit, had as the topic “Inferring dynamic genetic networks”. Where network science initially focused heavily on static networks, many real-life

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Pictures from the Opening Ceremony.

It was a five-day conference with two full-day and one half-day courses, 20 invited and 12 contributed sessions (totally 108 talks and 50 posters presenting from 20 different countries). On the first day of the conference, there were three preconference courses entitled “Joint Latent Class mixed models with application with the R-package lcmm” by Hélène Jacqmin-Gadda and Cecile Proust-Lima from INSERM & University of Bordeaux, France, “Bayesian methods in Follow Up Studies” by Emmanuel Lesaffre and David Dejardin from Erasmus Medical Center, the Netherlands and “Analysis of transcriptomics data in drug discovery” by Ziv Shkedy from Hasselt University, Belgium.

To celebrate the legacy of Marvin Zelen, a lecture titled “Ordered Regressions with Applications” was given by Ori Davidov from University of Haifa, Israel, and a reception was organized with the sponsorship of Frontier Science Foundation-Hellas.

According to EMR tradition, Havi Murad, the former President of EMR, organized a joint Italian-EMR-Spanish session with four con-tributed talks given by two Italian and two Spanish biostatisticians.

Frontier Science Foundation-Hellas (FSF- H) supported the partici-pation of young researchers in honor of Prof. Steve Lagakos, provid-ing three awards to students with the best submitted abstracts. The winners were Nicole Erler (Erasmus Medical Center), Daniel Nevo, (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Loumpiana Koulai, (MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge).

Pictures from the student awards.

In addition to the scientific part of the conference, there was also an excellent social program. The Welcome Reception took place at the Red Valley, and the participants enjoyed the sunset over the valley with local Turkish wine. The social program consisted of an excursion to the Goreme Open Air Museum, Pasabag, Devrent, Honey Valleys and an exciting gala dinner full of great flavours and traditional Turkish Night shows.

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Pictures from the excursion to the Goreme Open Air Museum.

The conference covered a wide range of different topics related to biostatistics, biometrics and epidemiology, and provided an excellent opportunity for scientific and social interchange for the biostatisti-cians and related experts from various fields. Full details of the meet-ing can be found in http://biostat.cu.edu.tr/emr2015/.

News from the RegionDuring the 8th EMR-IBS Conference there were also some impor-tant business meetings related to EMR. Following is a summary of decisions and suggestions made during the General Meeting of EMR members in Cappadocia:

1) IBS members will have reduced registration fees to the Bi-annual EMR Meeting. The local organizers of the meeting will register the IBS non-member participants as members of IBS locally by sending the appropriate amount for annual IBS dues directly to the IBS Business Office, together with the details of these participants. This was added to EMR By-laws by a vote during the meeting.

2) The Turkish Region has statistical meetings and bio-statistical meetings as in Israel. Havi Murad advised them to organize several sessions in collaboration with EMR-IBS in the statistical meetings. This will enhance knowledge and awareness to EMR-IBS and help increase membership.

3) The next EMR meeting will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece in May 2017. It was decided to invite the Italian region to hold their regional conference together with EMR.

4) During the EMR meeting in Cappadocia there was a request from the students to receive information about post-doc proposals. Havi Murad has suggested that the EMR Publicity Officer will send this information twice a month to the updated distribution list of EMR students from the Chapter Roster of IBS.

5) Havi Murad suggested that the new EMR committee will use services of tele-meetings (advanced conference calls) given by IBS Office to meet between conferences.

6) Havi Murad suggested organizing a short course in a developing country of EMR, such as Bulgaria, with financial support from IBS, to increase membership from Bulgaria in EMR.

New officers for the forthcoming period (2015-2017) were announced. The new officers of the EMR for the next two-year period will be:

President: Ilker Unal (Cukurova Univ., TURKEY)Secretary: Yair Goldberg (Haifa Univ., ISRAEL) Publicity Off.: Giota Toulumi (Univ. Athens, GREECE)Vice-president: Christos Nakas (Univ. of Thessaly, GREECE)

Country Representatives:Bulgaria: Denitsa Grigorova (Sofia Univ.) Cyprus: Demetris Lamnisos (European Univ. of Cyprus)Greece: Christos Nakas (Univ. of Thessaly)Israel: Ittai Dattner (Haifa Univ.)Turkey: Yasar Sertdemir (Cukurova Univ.)

EMR would like to thank the previous Executive Committee and especially Havi Murad, the former President of the region, for her precious involvement.

It was also decided that the next EMR conference will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece between 8-12 May in 2017. More details about the forthcoming conference will be announced soon.

Anil Dolgun

Eastern North American Region (ENAR)ENAR WebinarsBe sure to check the ENAR Webinar website for updates regarding the upcoming webinar series, as well as for links to past webinars: http://www.enar.org/education/index.cfm.

2015 JSM 8-13 August, Seattle, Washington, USAThe 2015 JSM will convene at the Washington State Convention Center from 8–13 August. The theme of the 2015 meeting is “Statistics: Making Better Decisions”. ENAR has been instrumental in helping to put together an outstanding program, including spon-soring many sessions. These sessions include invited presentations about biomarkers in cancer clinical trials, benefit-risk assessment for medical products and diagnostics, decision making in complex sys-tems, Bayesian methods in big data, subgroup analysis issues, recent advances in mental health clinical trial design, evaluation of strategies to assess cardiovascular risk, and cancer genomics and translational research. ENAR has also co-sponsored many contributed sessions, as well as special presentations, such as: introductory overview lec-tures (personalized medicine, new perspectives in spatial and spatio-temporal data analysis, statistical issues in computational neurosci-ence, and recent advances in machine learning and data mining), the ASA President’s Invited Address (“The Role of Analysis in Supporting Strategic Decisions”, delivered by Christine H. Fox from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics), the Deming Lecture (“Reliability: The Other Dimension of Quality”, delivered by William Meeker

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from Iowa State University), the ASA President’s Address (“Statistics: Making Better Decisions”, delivered by David Morganstein from Westat), and the Fisher Lecture (“R.A. Fisher and the Statistical ABCs”, delivered by Steven Fienberg from Carnegie Mellon University). ENAR received many proposals for invited and topic-contributed sessions and thanks everyone who put forth an idea. ENAR extends a huge thank you to Olga Marchenko from Quintiles for serving on the Program Committee for the 2015 JSM. For more details about the upcoming JSM meetings, please see: http://www.amstat.org/meet-ings/jsm/2015/index.cfm.

2016 ENAR Spring Meeting, 6-9 March, Austin, Texas, USAThe 2016 ENAR Spring Meeting will take place in Austin, Texas at the JW Marriott Austin. The Program Committee is soliciting suggestions for invited paper session. Please suggest ideas and potential speak-ers and/or develop a formal proposal. Proposals on topics that have broad potential scientific impact are particularly encouraged. Invited sessions are 105 minutes long, and different formats are encouraged, such as sessions with four speakers, three speakers plus a discussant, or a panel discussion. The invited session proposals will be selected by the Program Committee, which includes a Program Chair, an Associate Chair, 11 ASA representatives of ASA sections, and four ENAR at-large members. One participant may be a speaker/panelist in at most one invited or contributed session. The deadline for sub-mission is 15 June, 2015. Formal invited proposals can be submitted at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ENAR2016. To informally sug-gest ideas, topics or names of potential speakers, contact: Wei Sun (weisun@emial.unc.edu), Program Chair or Laura Hatfield (hatfiled@hcp.med.harvard.edu), Associate Chair. More details about the 2016 Spring Meeting can be found at: http://www.enar.org/meetings.cfm.

2016 JSM 30 July-4 August, Chicago, Illinois, USAThe Joint Statistical Meetings will be held in Chicago, Illinois in 2016, and ENAR is fortunate to have Bin Nan be our representative to the Program Committee. If you have ideas for the meeting, feel free to contact Bin: bnan@umich.edu.

2017 ENAR Spring Meeting, 12-15 March, Washington, DC, USAStay tuned for information about the 2017 ENAR Spring Meeting in Washington, DC!

Leslie McClure

German Region (DR)The German Region gathered for its 61st Annual Biometric Colloquium 15-18 March 2015 at the region’s past Vice-president’s, Katja Ickstadt’s, university in Dortmund where she is Dean of the School of Statistics. The other local organizer within the Program Committee was Jörg Rahnenführer. President and Vice-president of the region changed roles, so Tim Friede is President for the next two years, and Jürgen Kübler is Vice-president for another year. Elections resulted in an even younger and now predominantly female Advisory Board. IBS President, John Hinde, visited and gave a plenary lecture on Translational Statistics. Hans-Peter Piepho was awarded the Susanne-Dahms-Medal for outstanding accomplishments for the International Biometric Society and its German Region.

From left to right: DR President, Tim Friede; IBS President, John Hinde; host, Katja Ickstadt; DR Vice-president, Jürgen Kübler; Jörg Rahnenführer for the Scientific and the Organisation Committees at the 61st Biometric Col-loquium of the German Region in Dortmund. (Foto: Sebastian Krey).

Hans-Peter Piepho (l.) receives the Susanne-Dahms Medal for outstanding accomplishments for the IBS and the DR from DR President, Jürgen Kübler (r.).

Two tutorials: Reproducible Research (Benjamin Hofner and Lutz Edler) and MiSeq, HiSeq, RNA-Seq, ChiP-Seq, … -Seq: What’s that and what for? (Tanja Zeller, Johanna Mazur, Carmen Dering), 49 sci-entific sessions, and a dozen administrative meetings were attended by hundreds of participants. Program and abstracts are online still. Some contributions were distinguished: The Young Statisticians‘ Session, the poster winning the Poster Award, and the talks on the papers that won the Young Talents Awards, namely: Christiane Fuchs, Munich, for the article, Parameterizing cell-to-cell regulatory heterogeneities via stochastic transcriptional profiles in PNAS, Markus Pauly, Ulm, for the article, Asymptotic permutation tests in general factorial designs in JRSSB, and Tobias Bluhmki, Ulm, for the master’s thesis, Wild Bootstrapping Nelson-Aalen Estimates with Application in Health Services Research.

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DR President, Jürgen Kübler, Young Talents—Tobias Bluhmki, Christiane Fuchs, and Markus Pauly, and DR Vice-president ,Tim Friede (from left to right) at the Biometric Colloquium in Dortmund. (Foto: Sebastian Krey).

The lifelong learning session, Statistics in Practice, by Els Goetghebeur covered Causal Inference in Practice: Methods for the Contruction and Comparison of Standardized Risks to Measure Quality of Care across Centers. There was a special lecture for pupils and one for the general public: Being Ill in the Internet Age. Within IBS’s Central European Network, speakers from the Polish Region were invited, and their talks were recorded on video for the IBS website: Marcin Kozak: Communication between agricultural scientists and statisti-cians: a broken bridge?, and Pawel Krajewski, Pedro Madrigal: On functional data analysis applied to interpretation of next-generation sequencing experimental results.

Several working groups announced their meetings (see calen-dar), and Thomas Kneib invited the next Biometric Colloquium to Göttingen, where it will be part of the joint convention of four societies of statisticians.

Axel Benner

Japanese Region (JR)The 2015 Annual Meeting of the Biometric Society of JapanThe 2015 Annual Meeting of the Biometric Society of Japan was held on 12-13 March, 2015 at Inamori Hall in Shirankaikan, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan. Totally, 180 people attended the meeting. In an invited session on statistical issues in brain researches, five researchers made their presentations, whose topics include clini-cal and statistical issues in brain data analysis. Prof. Shigeyuki Matsui (Nagoya University), who is the winner of the Biometric Society of Japan Award 2014 for Outstanding Scientific Contributions, talked about his past and current researches and showed his perspective to further direction to biostatistics. The Biometric Society of Japan conferred the BSJ Honorary Award on Dr. Tetsuhisa Miwa (National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences) for his contributions to the Society and the Young Biostatistician Award on Dr. Yoshiomi Nakazuru (Pfizer Japan Inc.), for his publication on a multiple com-parison procedure in a recent issue of Japanese Journal of Biometrics.

The 2015 Japanese Joint Statistical MeetingThe Biometric Society of Japan is one of the six sponsoring organiza-tions of the meeting, and the 2015 Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting will be held on 6-9 September at Tsushima Campus of Okayama University in Okayama, Japan. The Biometric Society of Japan is

organizing the Biometric Symposium entitled “How to promote sound medical researches?” Recently, inappropriate handling of data in medical researches has been a serious social issue in Japan. In the symposium, it will be discussed how biostatisticians can contribute to conduct sound medical research from various viewpoints. The Biometric Society of Japan is also organizing two more invited ses-sions. One session provides an opportunity for continual education on the statement and the guideline on research ethics, which the Society has been released. In the other session, Dr. Nakazuru, who is the winner of the Young Biostatistician Award conferred by the Society, will talk about his recent publication.

EAR-BC2015 and the Biometric SeminarThe East-Asia Regional Biometric Conference (EAR-BC) is held bi-annually by five Asian regions. The fifth EAR-BC will be held on 20-22 December at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. The first announce-ment will be released soon. As a satellite meeting, the Biometric Seminar will be held just before or after EAR-BC 2015 at Kyushu University. Methodological and practical issues on missing data in clinical trials will be discussed.

Satoshi Hattori

Western North American Region (WNAR)2015 WNAR MeetingThe 2015 WNAR/IMS Meeting will be in Boise, Idaho from 21-24 June hosted by Boise State University. Boise is located on the Boise River in southwestern Idaho and is the capital and most populous city in Idaho. There are a number of recreational activities available in Boise, including extensive hiking and biking opportunities in the foothills north of the town. The Boise River is a common destination for fishing, swimming, and rafting. The local organizer is Kyungduk Ko. Program details are posted on this year’s WNAR conference web page, http://math.boisestate.edu/wnar2015/.

Megan Othus

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Note: The IBS Awards Fund Committee is still receiving applications for travel funds to regional conferences in 2015. If you are a mem-ber from a developing country with an interest in attending an IBS Regional conference, please submit an application online at http://www.biometricsociety.org/travel-grant-application/.

IBS Appoints Two Journal EditorsJABESThe Executive Board has approved the appointment of Steve Buckland as the next Editor of JABES. His three-year term of office will begin 1 January 2016. He will follow Montserrat Fuentes, who is completing her term of office.

Buckland has an outstanding international reputation in statistical ecology. His research focus is on capture recapture and distance sampling, but he has also made substantial contributions in other areas such as state-space modeling. Buckland’s work has been cited over 18,000 times and he has published more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Buckland was one of the key founders of the Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM) at the University of St. Andrews. He served as CREEM’s first Director (1999-2004) and held the role again from 2009-2014. The center has an international reputation and receives short- and long-term visitors from around the world.

Buckland’s letter of interest demonstrated a keen interest to take over the editorship of JABES. He stood out among the candidates because he had innovative ideas about how to improve JABES and increase its impact on our field.

Buckland has extensive editorial experience. For example, he has served as an Associate Editor (AE) for Biometrics for more than 10 years (that’s five two-year terms) and was recognized

by an Executive Editor of Biometrics for his outstanding work for the journal. He has also served as an AE for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics, Ecology, and Ecological Monographs.

BiometricsStijn Vansteelandt was appointed by the Executive Board as the Co-editor of Biometrics with a term beginning 1 January 2016. Stijn will succeed Jeanine Houwing-Duistermaat, who is completing her term as Co-editor.

Vansteelandt is a Professor of Statistics in the Department of Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics at Ghent University, Belgium, and Honorary Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Public Health, UK. He obtained his Masters Degree in mathematics in 1998 and a PhD in 2002 from Ghent University, and did part of

Steve Buckland, the next Editor of JABES, beginning 1 January 2016.

Announcements and NewsIBS Awards Fund Made Trip to Cappadocia Possibleby Denitsa Grigorova, PhDDue to the financial support (750$) from the International Biometric Society I had the opportunity to participate in the 8th Conference of the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the International Biometric Society. I was the only participant from Bulgaria, and I am the only regular member of EMR-IBS from Bulgaria at the moment. I hope that I will be able to involve more people from Bulgaria into the Society, as I am the Bulgarian representative in EMR for the period from May 2015 until May 2017.

I had very fruitful stay in Turkey. I met some familiar faces I previously had met in Florence, Italy last year at the 27th International Biometric Conference. Although I did not know most of the participants in Turkey, I made many new contacts with biostatisticians within the region, as well as from all over the world.

I had a meeting with the President of IBS, John Hinde, the President of EMR-IBS, Havi Murad, and the representatives of the countries in the region. We discussed some issues regarding the organization and initiatives of our region.

One specific initiative that we discussed is the possibility of organizing a short course in Biostatistics (the discussed topics are Longitudinal data analysis and Survival analysis) in Bulgaria (Bulgaria is in the list of developing countries). I hope that I will be able to involve some of my colleagues, students and some physicians I am in connection with and provoke interest within them in the scientific fields and activities of the Society.

I hope to be able to visit the next 9th Conference of EMR-IBS which will be held in Thessaloniki in Greece. I am really very grateful for the opportunity to participate in the 8th Conference of EMR-IBS. Many thanks to the IBS.

Denitsa Grigorova (center) enjoyed a tour of Cappadocia as part of the EMR Conference, accompanied by colleagues, Davide Paolo Bernasconi (Italy) and Ezgi Cabuk (Turkey).

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his postdoctoral research at the Department of Biostatistics of the Harvard School of Public Health, USA.

His research interests are in the analysis of longitudinal and clustered data, methods for missing data and causal infer-ence, semi-parametric inference, family-based genetic association studies, analysis of outcome-dependent samples and phylo-genetic inference. He has served as AE for Biometrics from 2006 to 2012 and currently serves

as AE for the journals, Biostatistics (since 2010), Epidemiology (since 2013), Epidemiologic Methods (since 2011) and the Journal of Causal Inference (since 2011).

Vansteelandt serves/has served the International Biometric Society (IBS) as a board member of the Quetelet Society (Belgian Region of the IBS), as coordinator and steering member of the Channel

Network of the IBS, as board member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of the IBS, and as Representative Council member of the IBS.

We welcome these two distinguished members as editors of the Society’s journals and look forward to their contributions.

IBS on LinkedIn - Join our Group & Get Connected to Colleagues Across the Globe

IBS has created a LinkedIn Group for biometrics indus-try professionals to become a part of…and network with your colleagues instantaneously! Post discussions to the Group and get comments/feedback from Group members on their perspectives or experiences. A great

benefit of this Group is that it’s a very easy and free way to com-municate with your colleagues who live all around the world. Being connected to the IBS Group will allow you to see other connection possibilities as well and broaden your professional network. The pos-sibilities are endless. Join our Group today by visiting www.linkedin.com, and search under Groups for ‘International Biometric Society.’

Stijn Vansteelandt, new Co-editor of Biometrics, beginning 1 January 2016.

IBC2016 Save-the-Date• 28 July 2015 – Call for Submission of Contributed Papers

• 28 December 2015 – Conference registration opens

• 6 January 2016 – Deadline for submission of contributed papers

• 7 March 2016 – Notification of acceptance of contributed papers

• 1 April 2016 – Deadline for ‘early bird’ registration

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INTERNATIONAL

BIOMETRIC

SOCIETY

SUMMARY OF 2014 ACCOUNTS

President 2014-2015

John Hinde (British and Irish Region)

Past President: Clarice Demétrio (Brazilian Region); President Elect: Elizabeth Thompson (Western North American Region)

Secretary/Treasurer 2014-2016: James Carpenter (British and Irish Region); Executive Director: Dee Ann Walker

Registered office: 1444 I Street, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005, USA

Summary Accounts for 1 Jan 2014 to 31 Dec 2014

The full financial report is available on request from James.Carpenter@lshtm.ac.uk

Net assets 1 Jan 2014: $2,176,663.74 (excluding restricted funds)

Income

category Amount % Of Total

Expense

category

Amount % Of Total

Dues $220,644.96 18.6% Governance $189,679.09 17.3%

Investment $65,601.06 5.5% Administration $84,082.59 7.7%

Publications $404,983.43 34.1% Programs $23,246.53 2.1%

IBC & SC $495,931.79 41.8% IBC & SC $581,823.71 53.1%

TOTAL $1,187,161.24 100% Services $59,965.58 5.5%

Membership $48,016.70 4.4%

Publications $108,344.80 9.9%

TOTAL $1,095,159.00 100%

Income 2014 Expenditure 2014 2014 Surplus Net Assets 1 Jan 2015

(excluding restricted funds)

$1,187,161.24 $1,095,159.00 $92,002.24 $2,268,665.98

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JOIN A TEAM OF INNOVATORS AT MCMASTER

Two Faculty Positions in BiostatisticsThe Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (CE&B) at McMaster University is seeking two outstanding candidates for faculty positions in biostatistics at the Associate or Full Professor rank. The academic rank, appointment category, and salary will be commensurate with the experience and expertise of the selected candidates. These positions will be part of a vibrant and highly successful research group at PHRI which has over 38 researchers and 260 research staff including 20 statisticians and 8 biometric programmers. The PHRI conducts high impact, large, multi-centre clinical trials and observational trials, many of which have changed medical practice. The PHRI is the highest ranked research institute in Canada and was ranked no. 7 in the world in 2012. The PHRI publishes about 300 papers each year with a high proportion in leading clinical journals. The PHRI is seeking two mid-to-advanced-career biostatisticians for a senior research position and a deputy director leadership position within the group.

Qualifications include a PhD or equivalent in biostatistics, an established record of research in statistics related to high impact clinical trials, knowledge of regulatory needs, a significant track record of publications in high impact peer-reviewed journals and participation as PI or Co-I on peer reviewed or industry funded research, experience in developing statistical methods for clinical trials, epidemiology and health research, and proficiency with statistical applications in observational studies, clinical trials and/or health services research. An excellent record of collegiality and collaboration and the ability to work and communicate with clinicians are essential for these positions. Experience in the application and teaching of biostatistics in health research and statistical consultation with clinician researchers are important attributes.

Statistical research at PHRI and in the Department is typically motivated by problems encountered in clinical studies. Given the large and varied data sets currently existing at PHRI, the selected candidates will have numerous opportunities to conduct methodologic research. However the ideal candidates would combine applied statistics, supervision of study designs, and statistical analyses with the opportunities to conduct methodologic research on related issues. All prospective candidates are encouraged to review the information available at the PHRI website (www.phri.ca) and to review key articles published by PHRI researchers in the last few years.

The successful applicants will contribute to relevant educational programs at McMaster such as the Health Research Methodology Graduate Program, Master of Public Health Program, and the Bachelor of Health Sciences Program. They will lead the development of graduate courses in genetic statistics and consult on research programs through the Population Health Research Institute and CE&B.

McMaster University is “research intensive” and regularly rated as the most innovative university in Canada. Located mid-way between the Niagara Peninsula and Metropolitan Toronto, it offers an unparalleled social, cultural and recreational living environment, and a challenging academic career in one of Canada’s première health universities. The Department is world renowned for the pioneering nature and high quality of its research and education programs. CE&B provides an exciting academic environment, operating on a collegial model with interdisciplinary research teams and a mentorship program for junior faculty. For more information about CE&B, visit http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/ceb and for information about the Faculty, go to http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca.

Applicants are invited to submit a curriculum vitae, a statement of research interests and academic goals, and the names of three referees to: Dr. Holger Schünemann, Department Chair, Dr. Salim Yusuf, PHRI Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Health Sciences, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1 Tel. 905 525 9140 ext. 24931 email: chairceb@mcmaster.ca

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be considered first for this position. McMaster University is strongly committed to employment equity within its community and to recruiting a diverse faculty and staff. The University encourages applications from all qualified candidates, including women, members of visible minorities, Aboriginal persons, members of sexual minorities and persons with disabilities.

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MEETINGS201524–26 June Workshop “Adaptive Designs and Multiple Testing Procedures” of Working Group Adaptive Designs and Multiple Testing ProceduresCologne, Germanyhttp://www.biometrische-gesellschaft.de/en/arbeits-gruppen/adaptive-designs-multiple-testing-procedures.html#c82

25–26 June Summer Meeting of Working Group Agricultural ExperimentsPotsdam-Bornim, Germanyhttp://www.biometrische-gesellschaft.de/en/arbeits-gruppen/landwirtschaftliches-versuchswesen/termine.html

1-3 JulySummer School ‘Analysis of Event Times: Basics and New Challenges’Strobl am Wolfgangsee, Austriahttp://www.biometrische-gesellschaft.de/fileadmin/AG_Daten/Weiterbildung/PDFs/Sommerschule2015.pdf

6-10 July30th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria)http://ifas.jku.at/iwsm2015/

7–10 JulySummer School ‘Introduction to Nonparametric Methods of Working Group Nonparametric Methods’Reisensburg near Ulm, Germanyhttp://www.uni-ulm.de/mawi/statistics/upcoming-events/sommerschule-der-ag-nichtparametrische-meth-oden-ibs-dr.html

10 July40 Years Berliner Colloquium Statistical Methods in Empirical ResearchBerlin, Germany

11-12 July6th Annual International Symposium on the Evaluation of Clinical Trials (Methodologies and Applications)Beijing, Chinahttp://www.biostat.org.cn/

19-22 July2015 Statistical Computing Günzburg, Germany

20-24 JulyJoint 60th Brazilian Regional Meeting and 16th Brazilian Symposium of Applied Statistics for Agricultural ExperimentationPresidente Prudente, Sao Paulo, Brazilhttp://sigeve.ead.unesp.br/paginas/din.php?p=40

26-31 July60th ISI World Statistics CongressRio de Janeiro, Brazilhttp://www.isi2015.org/

5-8 August7th Regional Meeting of RCAC in conjunction with the 25th Colombian Statistics SymposiumQuindio, Columbiahttp://simposioestadistica.unal.edu.co/

8-13 AugustThe Joint Statistical MeetingSeattle, Washingtonhttp://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2015/program.cfm

23-27 August36th Annual Conference of the International Society for Clinical BiostatisticsUtrecht, the Netherlandshttp://www.iscb2015.info/

2–5 September9th International Conference on Multiple Comparison Procedures MCPHyderabad, Indiahttp://www.mcp-conference.org/hp/2015/

5-9 SeptemberAnnual Conference of the German Association for Medical InformaticsNiederrhein University of Applied Sciences in Krefeldhttp://www.gmds.de/tagungen/2015/index

6-9 SeptemberThe 2015 Japanese Joint Statistical MeetingTsushima Campus of Okayama University, Okayama, Japan

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MEETINGS (Cont.)

7-10 September2015 RSS ConferenceExeter, United Kingdomhttp://www.statisticsviews.com/details/event/6814541/Royal-Statistical-Society-2015-International-Conference.html

23-25 SeptemberXVth Spanish Biometric Conference and Vth Ibero-American Biometric MeetingBilbao, Spainhttp://www.ehu.eus/en/web/CEB-EIB2015

28 September–2 OctoberECAS Course on Statistical Analysis of Network DataHerrsching, Germanyhttp://www.statistik.lmu.de/ecas/index.html

8 OctoberFood Security – The Role of Biological ModellingHarpenden, United Kingdom

15-16 OctoberMethodological Challenges in Biomedical ResearchFreiburg, Germanyhttp://www.imbi.uni-freiburg.de/symposium2015

28-30 October Jamaica Statistics SymposiumKingston, Jamaicahttps://www.facebook.com/JamStatSymp

November 20153rd Meeting of the Revived Israeli Biostatistics ForumHaifa, Israel

29 November – 3 DecemberThe International Biometric Society Australasian Region Conference: Biometrics by the HarbourHadley’s Orient Hotel, Horbart, Tasmania, Australiahttp://www.biometricsociety.org.au/conferences.html

20-22 DecemberEast-Asia Regional Biometric Conference (EAR-BC 2015) and the Biometric SeminarKyushu University Station-I for Collaborative Research, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

20166-9 March2016 ENAR Spring MeetingAustin, TX

14-18 March62nd Biometric Colloquium within DAGStat Convention 2016Göttingen, Germanyhttp://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/485701.html

10-15 JulyXXVIIIth International Biometric ConferenceVictoria, Canadahttp://biometricconference.org/

20188-13 JulyXXIXth International Biometric ConferenceBarcelona, Spainhttp://www.biometricsociety.org/

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