Old News Items

This page contains older news items that have been retired from the active news page, but are kept as a historical record. 

If you would like to contribute news items to the ASC site, please send details to News (a) asc.org.uk. This page was last updated on 09 February, 2008.

COMPSTAT 2006, 17th Symposium of IASC, Rome, August 28 - September 1, 2006

18^th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management – SSDBM 2006

3rd - 5th July, 2006, Vienna, Austria

Scope: This international conference will bring together scientific domain experts, databases researchers, practitioners and developers for the presentation and exchange of current research concepts, tools and techniques for scientific and statistical data base applications. The 18th SSDBM will provide a forum for original research contributions and practical system design, implementation and evaluation. In keeping with the mission of the Faculty of Computer Science at the University Vienna, this year's conference will focus on applications of scientific and statistical databases to Scientific and Statistical Computing, including:

• Data and Computing on the Grid
• Data Warehousing, Registries and Integration
• Ontologies in Scientific Computing
• Exploratory Analysis and Modelling of Scientific Data

The conference will also feature invited talks, panel sessions, poster sessions, and demonstrations of research prototypes and industrial systems. SSDBM 2006 will continue the tradition of past SSDBM meetings in providing a stimulating environment to encourage discussion, fellowship and exchange of ideas in all aspects of research related to scientific and statistical data base management.

Topics: In addition to this year's focus areas, SSDBM invites original research contributions in any area related to scientific and statistical database management, including:

• Conceptual models for scientific databases
• Data modelling and representation standards
• Experiment data management
• Very large data bases
• Performance evaluation
• Scientific visualization
• Indexing and query optimization
• Managing scale and complexity in scientific data bases
• Multimedia content retrieval
• Data provenance
• Metadata management
• System architectures

Case studies of SSDBM-related applications, demonstrations, and short papers of poster sessions are also invited.

Important Dates:

• January 27, 2006: abstracts due
• February 13, 2006: papers and demonstration proposals due
• March 31, 2006: notification of acceptance
• April 21, 2006: camera ready copy due

All submissions must be made through the SSDBM web site.

Willi Grossmann, posted October 2005

ASA Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections
Student Paper Competition 2006

The Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections of the ASA are co-sponsoring a student paper competition on the topics of Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics. Students are encouraged to submit a paper in one of these areas, which might be original methodological research, some novel computing or graphical application in statistics, or any other suitable contribution (for example, a software-related project).

The selected winners will present their papers in a topic-contributed session at the 2006 Joint Statistical Meetings. The Sections will pay registration fees for the winners as well as a substantial allowance for transportation to the meetings and lodging. More details can be found at the Stat. Computing Section website at http://www.statcomputing.org.

José Pinheiro, posted September 2005

ESRC Research Resources Board Review of Non-Academic Stakeholder Engagement

'The ESRC is currently conducting a Review of Non-academic Stakeholder Engagement across its investments. The aim of the review is to inform the development of a more systematic policy (and set of initiatives) for the Board on non-academic stakeholder engagement. Within this aim is the need to identify best practice in such engagement and to assess the costs and benefits of changes in approach.

The Review is being conducted by Katalysis Ltd  It will involve wide contact with non-academic organisations in public, private and voluntary sectors and close discussion with the academic managers of the Resources. The Review will report in October 2005.

A series of interviews will be held with key stakeholders, supplemented by a questionnaire. Should you wish to participate in the Review then please download the questionnaire from the ESRC web site.

Hugh Neffendorf, posted June 2005

Triple-S group announces the publication of Triple-S XML Version 2

Since its introduction in 1994, Triple-S has been adopted by well over 40 independent survey software companies and is the only successful open standard specifically intended for survey computing. The new version includes improvements designed to broaden the scope and further extend the application of Triple-S to more problem areas whilst being compatible with the previous XML versions 1.1 and 1.2. In particular, version 2.0 adds:

• Support for hierarchical data structures
• Representations for non-numeric code values
• The option of CSV (comma-separated values) data files
• Specification of Score values (e.g. for variables representing Likert scales)
• Date and Time variables

In addition, various limits and restrictions have been rationalised to make the Triple-S specification more consistent, and make it easier for importers to cope with the potentially large variation in exports.

A copy of the Release Notes for Triple-S XML Version 2.0 is available at the triple-s web site. The Release Notes describe new features introduced over the previous Version 1.2. A copy of the complete specification document for Version 2.0 is scheduled to be available at the beginning of July.

Further information on Triple-S, including a list of implementers, is available from the website.

Steve Jenkins, posted June 2005

ESRC launch major social sciences online resource

The UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training on social and economic issues - the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) - is soon to launch a major new website in the UK.

ESRC Society Today will offer academics, students and researchers unrivalled, free access to high quality social and economic research available, planned and in progress.

As well as bringing together all ESRC-funded research, the website will allow users to cross search material from other key online resources such as SOSIG, the UK Data Archive, the Office of National Statistics and Europa among others.

It will include early findings, full-texts and original datasets and allow users to establish online discussion fora, track down researchers in particular subject fields or find details on ESRC funding and training opportunities. The emphasis will be on accessibility and ease of use and visitors will be able to register for regular news bulletins and email alerts on their areas of interest.

ESRC Society Today is currently available in test phase, and is scheduled to be launched later this year, replacing the current www.esrc.ac.uk and www.regard.ac.uk sites.

Emma Place, posted May 2005

ASA Statistical Software Competition 2005

The annual Chambers Prize for Statistical Software has been won this year by Markus Helbig of the Department of Computer-Oriented Statistics and Data Analysis at Augsburg University in Germany for his JGR (Jaguar) Software, a GUI for R.

This is the third time since the Prize was first awarded in the year 2000 that a student from Augsburg has won.

The John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award is managed by the Statistical Computing Section of the American Statistical Association. Details can be found at the ASA SCS website.

José Pinheiro, posted May 2005

ASA Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections
Student Paper Competition 2005

The Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections of the ASA are co-sponsoring a student paper competition on the topics of Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics. Students are encouraged to submit a paper in one of these areas, which might be original methodological research, some novel computing or graphical application in statistics, or any other suitable contribution (for example, a software-related project).

The selected winners will present their papers in a topic-contributed session at the 2005 Joint Statistical Meetings. The Sections will pay registration fees for the winners as well as a substantial allowance for transportation to the meetings and lodging. More details can be found at the Stat. Computing Section website at http://www.statcomputing.org.

José Pinheiro, posted October 2004

New Reports from the Social Research Association

Commissioning Social Research: A Good Practice Guide (2nd Edition)

The first edition of this guide was issued in 1994. This second edition amplifies and updates the material in the light of subsequent events, feedback received and further deliberation on the issues. 

SRA Ethical Guidelines 2002

Last year, an SRA Working Group reviewed, revised and extended the SRA Ethical Guidelines: partly to address legislative changes over the years in human rights and data protection, but also to meet increased public concern about the limits of inquiry.  The aim of these guidelines is to enable the social researcher's individual ethical judgements and decisions to be informed by shared values and experience, rather than to be imposed by the profession. The guidelines therefore seek to document widely held principles of research and to identify the factors which obstruct their implementation. They are framed in the recognition that, on occasions, the operation of one principle will impede the operation of another, that social researchers, in common with other occupational groups, have competing obligations not all of which can be fulfilled simultaneously. Thus, implicit or explicit choices between principles will sometimes have to be made. The guidelines do not attempt to resolve these choices or to allocate greater priority to one of the principles than to another. Instead, they offer a framework within which the conscientious social researcher should, for the most part, be able to work comfortably. Where departures from the framework of principles are contemplated, they should be the result of deliberation rather than of ignorance.

Further details of the reports and how to download them are available from the SRA site.

SRA, posted May 2003

K-BASE The knowledge base on statistical data editing

While developing and implementing statistical editing techniques, statisticians acquire expertise that is worth sharing across statistical agencies. A public data base is a good vehicle to disseminate a set of techniques with related terminology. This site offers a prototype knowledge base developed with materiel from the UN-ECE* work sessions. Take the time to navigate through the glossary, the system evaluations, the experiences and the technical papers.

Do not hesitate to send comments on the content or the structure of the site.

Claude Poirier, Statistics Canada, posted February 2001, link updated September 2003

NEW RELEASE! UNISTAT Light Edition for Excel

UNISTAT Ltd have released a scaled-down version of UNISTAT Statistical Package. UNISTAT Light has all advanced 2D/3D scientific graphics features of the unlimited product. It also features the full suite of parametric, nonparametric and goodness of fit tests, ANOVA, general linear model, post-hoc tests, linear regression with model building facilities and sample size and power procedures. With these features, UNISTAT Light is probably still one the most comprehensive statistics add-ins for MS Excel and offers exceptional value for money.

You can download a trial version and buy UNISTAT Light online at: http://www.unistat.com/list.html

European Conference on Quality and Methodology in Official Statistics (Q2004)

24-26 May 2004 in Mainz, Germany

Q2004 is the first conference in a series of biennial scientific gatherings covering important methodological and quality-related topics of relevance to the European Statistical System (ESS). Its aim is to bring together people representing the current thinking and new developments in the field of quality and methodology in Europe and the world. Conference topics encompass all aspects of the quality of official statistics, ranging from data quality to the implementation of quality management tools and models.

Special features of Q2004 include:

• three full day training courses on 24 May 2004 presented by internationally renowned experts
• the presentation of the implementation of the LEG on Quality recommendations
• sessions regarding the results of the European project "Data Quality in Complex Surveys within the New European Information Society (DACSEIS)"

Proposals for contributions are invited, to be received by 30th November 2003. Please find the detailed list of conference topics at the Q2004 web site. Here you will also find further details concerning the registration, the conference site, the organisers, and the conference programme.

Thomas Körner and Werner Grünewald, posted October 2003

Measuring Government Performance
Statistics Users' Council Annual Conference

Thursday 13 November 2003, at the Royal Society, sponsored by the Statistics Commission

Are the statistics available for impartially monitoring government performance? The conference will consider the practical problems involved, both in achieving valid measures of performance and locating responsibility for the essential elements – deciding what to monitor – setting targets – devising the performance measures/indicators.

Click here to download the programme and Booking Form (PDF, 349Kb). An announcement can also be found on the National Statistics site.

Ian MacLean, posted September 2003

COMPSTAT 2004, 16th Symposium of IASC, PRAGUE, August 23-27, 2004

16th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management SSDBM 2004

21st-23rd June, 2004 Santorini, Greece

Topics: Research papers discussing database issues of Spatiotemporal, Sensor Databases, Bioinformatics, Geological Databases and Data Mining are particularly welcome, however, original research papers on  any area related to scientific and statistical database management are invited. Topics include: Conceptual Models, Data Integration, Visualization, System Architectures, Metadata Management, Query Optimization, Continuous Queries over Data Streams, Data Reduction and Approximation, Data Knowledge and Management, Multimedia Data Management and Data Warehouses.

Further details and information can be obtained from the conference web site.

Important Dates: 

• January 19: Paper abstracts due

• January 25: Full and industrial papers as well as panels, tutorials, demos due.

• March 29:  Notification About acceptance

• April 16: Camera Ready due

Babis Papageorgiou, posted September 2003

THE 2001 CENSUS: How to benefit from the new free Census data

Now that the small area data are arriving, what benefits will result for practitioners?

The Market Research Society Census & Geodemographics Group has organised a one-day seminar to be held on Wednesday, 2nd July, 2003 from 10.00 - 16.00 at The Society of Chemical Industry, Belgrave Square, London SW1. As usual, ASC members benefit from the same discount as MRS members for this event.

After generating considerable publicity over the last two years, the bulk of the data from the 2001 Census are being published. A very knowledgeable team of speakers has been assembled to brief users on the details of what is now available, and what types of products are likely to be derived from the new Census data.

The innovations inherent in the 2001 Census will be showcased, and delegates will learn how this will bring benefits to user communities in Market Research and Marketing. Census Access means that, for the first time, Census data will be effectively ‘free at the point of use’. This will undoubtedly lead to a much greater take-up of the data.

The Census Area Statistics will form an input to a new generation of neighbourhood classifications; what might we expect? How will the new Samples of Anonymised Records be used? What new developments might we look forward to?

Further details and a booking form are available from the MRS web site.

Sue Trenhaile, posted May 2003

Great expectations: the social sciences in Britain

The Commission on the Social Sciences has now completed its review of the state and health of the social sciences in Britain – covering such subjects as business and management, education, economics, geography, parts of law, politics, psychology, social policy and administration, social work and sociology. The sector spans the universities, government and practitioners in many fields. The university sector’s annual social sciences income alone is around £2.8bn, of which about 20% is research income. The review was funded by DfES, by HEFCE and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

There is much to celebrate in British social sciences – but equally a significant number of things which can be improved. The Commission’s 160 page report is now being printed and makes 60 recommendations to various parts of government, the funding councils, the Economic and Social Research Council and other research funders, and to universities and other important ‘players’.

This announcement is an invitation to attend the launch of the report.
Please feel free to draw this to the attention of appropriate colleagues.

The report will be launched by Charles Clarke MP, Secretary of State for Education and Skills, at 7pm on Tuesday 25 March 2003 in the Lecture Hall of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, 12 Great George Street (on the corner of Parliament Square), London SW1P 3AD. The timing was dictated by Mr Clarke’s availability. He has indicated a particular interest in the relationship between social science and public policy. A map showing the RICS location is available.

I would be delighted if you or a colleague could join us on this occasion. The launch is likely to take up to an hour and will be preceded by tea and coffee from 6:30pm and followed by refreshments. It would be helpful to know in advance if you are able to attend. This is most conveniently done by informing Kathy Hamilton on 020 7040 4112 or k.l.hamilton (a) city.ac.uk

David Rhind
Chairman, Commission on the Social Sciences

Kathy Hamilton , posted March 2003

Using External Data in Market Research, 31^st March 2003

Enhancing your research through effective use of complementary data sources
The Market Research Society Census & Geodemographics Group

We live in an information rich age. It seems that every transaction we undertake today will make it onto a data source for tomorrow. How is the market research industry using the vast array of alternative data sources currently available on the market? Is the research you are about to undertake as cost effective as it could be? From sampling through to the final report, how can the addition of external data generate added value for your client? With the imminent release of 2001 data, how can you make the best use of the methodological improvements made to the Census?

In this seminar, experts with experience across all data sources will answer these questions and discuss the implications and advantages of their use with you. Chairing the day will be Professor Martin Callingham, formerly Group Market Research Director for Whitbread plc and now visiting Professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. Martin has been a leading figure in the research industry for many years and, as co-author of the Best Technical paper at the 2001 MRS Conference, continues to contribute to leading edge research. With his vast experience of the issues under discussion, Martin is ideally placed to guide you through the day.

Full details of the event, including the registration form can be found on the MRS web site.
Note that ASC members receive the MRS member's discount for this event.

Sue Trenhaile, posted February 2003

IASC-IFCS Joint International Summer School, July 23th-30th, 2003

Classification and Data Mining in Business, Industry and Applied Research Methodological and Computational Issues

The 7th Summer School of the European Regional Section of the International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC), is jointly organised with the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), and hosted by the Laboratory of Statistics and Data Analysis (LEAD), Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Lisbon. The JISS-2003 will be devoted to the methodological, computational and application aspects of Data Mining/Knowledge Discovery techniques in Large Surveys with a particular attention to Marketing Research, Customer Satisfaction Analysis, Finance & Banking Marketing, Quality Control, E-Commerce Analysis, Web Mining and Text Mining.

The lectures will address both the classical and the most recently developed methods and algorithms within the framework of:

• Exploratory and Confirmatory Multivariate Analysis
• Latent variable soft modelling
• Symbolic data analysis
• Data reduction
• Clustering
• Classification Trees
• Association Rules
• Combining Data from Different Sources
• Missing Data
• Survey Sampling
• Visualisation tools and techniques

All lectures will be complemented by solutions of real problems and case studies.

Further details and application forms are available from lead.paginas.sapo.pt/JISS-2003.htm

posted February 2003

AMRADS Training Workshop in Metadata

Ljubljana, 12 – 14th March 2003

This training workshop will take place over 3 days and will be aimed at middle managers responsible for implementing metadata systems and the related training.

The workshop will comprise lectures, group discussions and exercises and will be led by the team from the University of Edinburgh, with invited experts for specific sessions. An overview of the metadata concept will be provided, followed by a number of sessions detailing a whole organisation approach to metadata systems and highlighting organisational and user implications. Specific aspects of metadata will also be considered, notably terminology, data capture and dissemination. By the end of the event participants should be able to train colleagues within their own environment.

It will be possible to support travel and subsistence costs for a number of participants.

More details will be available soon, but if you would like to attend, please contact karen.barrie (a) ed.ac.uk

Further details of AMRADS can be found at amrads.jrc.cec.eu.int

Dr Joanne Lamb, posted December 2002

ASA Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections
Student Paper Competition 2003

The Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections of the ASA are once again co-sponsoring a student paper competition on the topics of Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics. Students are encouraged to submit a paper in one of these areas, which might be original methodological research, some novel computing or graphical application in statistics, or any other suitable contribution (for example, a software-related project). The selected winners will present their papers in a topic contributed session at the 2003 Joint Statistical Meetings. The Sections will pay registration fees for the winners as well as a substantial allowance for transportation to the meetings and lodging (which in most cases covers these expenses completely).

Additional important information on the competition can be accessed on the website of the Statistical Computing Section, www.statcomputing.org. A current pointer to the website is available from the ASA website at www.amstat.org.

Lionel Galway, posted October 2002

Technology effectiveness award

A brand new award from the ASC working in partnership with the Market Research Society which will be presented at the MRS/BMRA Research Excellence and Effectiveness Awards in London in November. If you have developed some outstanding survey or statistical software or technology that will astound our judging panel, why not consider entering it for this award. We welcome entries across the spectrum of survey research, from social research to market research and from around the world. More information and Entry form.

Tim Macer, posted May 2003

An Expert's View of the Web

A pioneering Internet site to help students, academics, professionals and others find out which web sites leading social scientists find invaluable in their research has been launched by Bristol University. Called 'Expert's Choice'; the new site can be found on the Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) at www.sosig.ac.uk/experts-choice

Experts from a range of disciplines and sectors, as well as more 'popular' experts such as the Rt Hon Charles Kennedy, MP, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, and author Kate Pullinger, were asked to recommend their favourite web site and describe how they found the site useful.

SOSIG, which is part of Bristol University's Institute for Learning and Research Technology, receives over a million hits a month. SOSIG helps students, academics, researchers and professionals find the highest quality social sciences, business and law related information on the Internet.

Debra Hiom, Co-Director of SOSIG at Bristol University, said: ' The recommendations by experts have been made available to help inspire a new generation of social scientists to use the web.' 

Debra Hiom, posted February 2002

NAG launches new data mining components 

The Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) is launching a set of Data Mining Components - a collection of numerical algorithms designed to aid data mining modelling processes. The components offer statistical and machine learning software to be used at each stage of the data mining process - from data cleaning through data transformation to model building. They can be called in either 'essential-inputs-only' mode for rapid prototyping, or if necessary users can switch to 'full interface' mode for greater control and enhanced performance. 

NAG Data Mining Components are designed to be used in C++, Visual Basic and Java. At launch the components are available for Windows, Linux and Sun Solaris systems; other implementations may be available on request. 

posted January 2002

Statistical Science Web moved to new address

The Statistical Science Web (StatWeb) has recently moved to a new domain, www.statsci.org. The site is designed to provide an all-in-one guide to statistical science resources, with special attention to Australian resources. At the time of writing, I believe that it is the most active site in Australia devoted to statistical science.

StatWeb started life as a bookmark file. I posted it to the Web, in August 1996, as a way of getting students started on the Web. I called it initially A Guide to the Web for Statisticians reflecting the idea that it included many resources which would be useful to statisticians even if not specifically aimed at statisticians. The site was given its current name in November 1999 with a refreshed hierarchical structure.

The original concept was that StatWeb would not attempt to include a primary listing for every useful site but would link to key sites from which all other resources could be reached quickly.

Generalised Linear Latent and Mixed Models (GLLAMM) procedure available for Stata

The Stata program gllamm is available, via the web site www.gllamm.org.

The program fits a large range of multilevel regression models and multilevel factor (or IRT) and structural equation models. The responses can be of mixed type including continuous responses, counts, duration/survival data, dichotomous, ordered and unordered categorical responses and rankings. (See the manual for more information.)

Adaptive quadrature is available for all models. This method tends to give better parameter estimates with fewer quarature points than ordinary quadrature. Adaptive quadrature often works when ordinary quadrature fails.

Posterior means (depending on the context these are empirical Bayes predictions, residuals or regression factor scores) and posterior standard deviations of the random effects, factors and latent variables can be obtained for all models.

Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, posted November 2001, updated September 2003

Technovate
Worldwide Technology and Innovation Conference and Exhibition

Cannes France
26-28 January 2003

Announcement and Invitation for Contributions

Deadline for submission: 9 August 2002

The Business Information & Customer Intelligence Industry is moving forward and ESOMAR is moving with it! After a series of five very successful Net Effects conferences and a first exploration of CRM, we now advance Technology & Innovation as the framework to define and understand the integration of Market Research, the Internet, CRM Analytics, Data Mining and New Media channels.

This new ESOMAR platform will gather marketers, technologists and researchers to share thoughts, ideas, and issues while promoting discussions across a broad array of integrative topics.

We are looking for high calibre presentations under the framework described above that will focus on the importance of market research techniques, processes, and methods in an emerging technology and innovation-driven world - and ideas that will spark debates and stimulate thought and fresh discussions. Preference is given to client/agency case studies that are international in scope, that demonstrate the impact for the industry.

Presentations should provide innovative ideas and solutions that offer new advances in the area of customer insights and customer marketing. These innovative approaches could either give marketers the ability to better listen, understand and serve their customers, or simply allow them to better identify and reach customers in new and better ways. The role of technology may be central to marketing innovation, but contributions that leverage technology development to facilitate marketing solutions will answer the challenges and opportunities in front of us. Details of the submission process and requirements can be found on the conference announcement page.

Randy Banks, posted June 2002

SSDBM 2002, Edinburgh, 24 - 26 July 2002

Registration is now open for the 14th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management, hosted by Edinburgh and Napier Universities, and the full programme is available on the web site.

This international conference will bring together scientific domain experts, databases researchers, practitioners and developers for the presentation and exchange of current research on concepts, tools and techniques for scientific and statistical database applications. This year the conference will focus on two priority themes, Bioinformatics (genomic and biodiversity informatics), and Statistical Metadata.

The conference will continue the tradition of past SSDBM meetings in providing a stimulating environment to encourage discussion, fellowship and exchange of ideas in all aspects of research related to scientific and statistical database management.

Joanne Lamb, posted June 2002

Euroworkshop on Statistical Modelling - Model Building and Evaluation

General Information: 
The Euroworkshop on Statistical Modelling is a workshop project funded by the European Commission. The workshop on Model Building and Evaluation is the third and final event in series of workshops with the topics Mixed Models and Nonparametric Models. It will be held from 31st October to 3rd November, 2002

Topic: 
Generally speaking, every model is plausible as long as it is not falsified. The falsification of models however is the most challenging point in science. This holds in the same for statistical models. To provide valid Statistical Models that fulfill the task of modelling reality, it is of fundamental importance to consider the model building process in more depth and to check and validate fitted models by means of model diagnostics. The workshop is intended to consider our "modelling toolbox" critically, rather than considering one particular model critically. This includes areas like "Traditional Model Diagnostic Tools", "Graphical Model Diagnostics", "Model validation using smoothing techniques", "Bayesian Models and their validation" as well as "Bootstrapping and its role in model evaluation". Model validation does not only mean to check one particular model at hand (like a typical testing procedure), but also, if not more importantly, to check whether the entire model class being applied is valid. In short the focus is on the question: "Are we modelling the right things with our model and how can we validate and evaluate this".

Keynote Speakers (confirmed January 2002): 

• Anthony Davison, Switzerland
• Jeffrey Hart, USA
• Sandford Weisberg, USA.

Programme: 
The workshop is designed to have five keynote lectures and further contributed presentations. The number of participants is limited to 30, where 1/3 of the participants are Young Researchers who can be supported by the European Commission in form of travel grants and free accommodation. Young Researchers are particularly encouraged to participate actively by presenting their work.

Location: 
The workshop will take place in Schlo Hhenried, Bernried near Munich, Germany. Schlo Hhenried is a Bavarian castle, located at the Starnberger See, the most famous outdoor recreational area of Munich.

Organisers: 
Gran Kauermann, (Coordinator), Glasgow, UK; Adrian Bowman, Glasgow, UK; Herwig Friedl, Austria; John Hinde, UK ; Emmanuel Lesaffre, Belgium.

Gran Kauermann, posted January 2002

Data-Clean 2002 

29th-31st May 2002, Jyvaskyla, Finland 

Aim 
This conference will be devoted to techniques for dealing with erroneous and missing data in large scale statistical data processing. Such data represent a fundamental problem for the data systems of official statistical agencies as well as private enterprises. In particular, the conference will focus on the identification and correction of errors and outliers in data and on imputation for missing data values. Although this topic is not a new one, the focus will be on recent developments in the application of computer intensive methods to these problems, particularly those based on the application of neural net and related methods, and their comparison with more established methods. 

Topics 

• Neural networks and related computer intensive classification methods for data editing and imputation for data editing and imputation.
• Modern robust techniques for outlier detection and correction. Error localization with erroneous observations.
• Tree-based classifiers for data editing and imputation.
• Bayesian methods for error detection and imputation.
• Multiple imputation.
• Graphical tools for data validation and checking.
• Classical data editing and imputation methods

Call for Abstracts 
We invite abstracts of 200 to 300 words for contributed papers. We are especially interested in papers that present innovative methods. Also software demonstrations and evaluations are welcome. Your abstract (English) should include the presenter's name, affiliation, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address. 

The deadline for abstracts is March 4, 2002. 

Submissions can be made via the DataClean 2000 website or to 
Pasi Koikkalainen, DataClean Organization Chair, University of Jyvaskyla, Department of Mathematical Information Technology, P.O.Box 35, FIN-40351 Jyvaskyla, Finland. 

John Charlton, posted January 2002

Eurostat invites applications from additional Expert Evaluators

The European Commission call for experts to assess and evaluate proposals and projects is still open. This includes projects in the Eurostat Epros programme. The projects selected so far focus on Official Statistics, but have much wider application, covering questionnaire design and management for surveys, variance estimation, dissemination databases, GIS presentation, Metadata, to select just a few topics. Experts are paid €250 per day, and organisations can claim 80% overheads.

Applications are invited with a view to adding to the list of experts to evaluate proposals for IST projects. Additional information and guidelines for applications are available from the Cordis web site (http://www.cordis.lu/expert-candidature/).

For those interested in research projects in statistics, you are encouraged to complete this form if you would like to be an evaluator of EPROS projects. In the box no. 34, Discipline code, it is suggested that you use at least the code "0590 – statistics", and in question 7 that you tick the programme 112 "Information Society" and all four key actions (1121 to 1124).

Andrew Westlake, posted December 2001

Open Meeting on the Draft Code of Practice for National Statistics

There is an 'Open Meeting' on the Draft Code of Practice at 1500 hrs on Monday 28th January 2002 at the Royal Statistical Society, London.

The speakers scheduled are Len Cook (National Statistician) and Sir John Kingman (Chair of the Statistics Commission).

The Code of Practice itself seems an innocuous document in that it summarises what the ONS believes is its current practice. But the chance to debate that practice is unprecedented and the opportunity to do so in such an open-ended situation is unlikely to be ever be repeated.

The situation is 'open-ended' because the Code promises the production of a number of Protocols covering problem areas. Only two sets of Protocols are published with the Code itself. One set of draft Protocols is for Consultation arrangements between the National Statistician and Ministers. The other is about Release Practices. Only the subject matter is given for another 11 protocols promised. 

The promised protocols cover:

The idea of these Protocols seems quite new, and it may be difficult for the ONS to ignore suggestions made about what these Protocols should say. There will probably be some discussion of these protocols on the Radstats and unemployment-research email lists.

The status of the Draft Code of Practice is that of a Consultation Document. The Consultation period ends on 28th March.

Ray Thomas, posted December 2001

ASA Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections
Student Paper Competition 2002

The Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections of the ASA are co-sponsoring a student paper competition on the topics of Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics. Students are encouraged to submit a paper in one of these areas, which might be original methodological research, some novel computing or graphical application in statistics, or any other suitable contribution (for example, a software-related project). The selected winners will present their papers in a topic contributed session at the 2002 Joint Statistical Meetings. The Sections will pay registration fees for the winners as well as a substantial allowance for transportation to the meetings and lodging (which in most cases covers these expenses completely).

Additional important information on the competition can be accessed on the website of the Statistical Computing Section, www.statcomputing.org. A current pointer to the website is available from the ASA website at www.amstat.org.

Lionel Galway, posted November 2001

14th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management SSDBM 2002

24th-26th July, 2002 Edinburgh, Scotland

Scope: This international conference will bring together scientific domain experts, databases researchers, practitioners and developers for the presentation and exchange of current research on concepts, tools and techniques for scientific and statistical database applications. The 14th SSDBM will provide a forum for original research contributions and practical system design, implementation and evaluation. 

This year the conference will focus on two priority themes, Bioinformatics (genomic and biodiversity informatics), and Statistical Metadata. The priority areas will be supplemented with tutorials, invited talks or panel sessions and illustrated with demonstrations of research prototypes and industrial systems. SSDBM 2002 will continue the tradition of past SSDBM meetings in providing a stimulating environment to encourage discussion, fellowship and exchange of ideas in all aspects of research related to scientific and statistical database management.

Topics: Research papers discussing database issues of Bioinformatics and Statistical Metadata are particularly welcome however, original research papers on any area related to scientific and statistical database management are invited. Topics include: Conceptual models, Data Integration, System architectures, Metadata management, Query Optimisation, Data and Knowledge Management, Visualisation, Knowledge discovery and Data mining, Multimedia data management, Data warehouses and Spatio-temporal data. Case studies of SSDBM applications, Demonstrations and short papers for poster sessions are also invited.

The electronic paper submission site is now open.

Further details and information can be obtained from the conference web site or by email.

Important Dates: 

• Submission of Abstracts: 25th January 2002 
• Submission of Papers: 1st February 2002 
• Notification of Acceptance: 5th April 2002 
• Camera ready copies: 26th April 2002 
• Conference: 24th - 26th July 2002

Jessie Kennedy, posted December 2001

Competition for the Best Presented Poster at Compstat 2002

Prize donated by the ASC

As part of ASC efforts to maintain our links with IASC and the Compstat conferences, the committee has agreed to continue to fund a prize to encourage participants presenting material through posters to give more attention to the design and presentation aspects of their work.

Details of the competition and the winners for the Compstat 2000 are available here.

Andrew Westlake, posted July 2001

ASC supports students at IASC/IASS Summer School on Knowledge Discovery and Large Surveys

The series of IASC Summer Schools for young researchers continued in 2001, this time as a joint venture with the Survey Statistician's section of the ISI. The ASC, which is formally affiliated to the IASC, assisted in the formulation of the programme, and provided scholarships to assist two candidates who might otherwise not be able to attend. A report on the School, including details of and comments from the two students supported by the ASC, appears on another page.

Andrew Westlake, posted July 2001

Major Software Vendors to Implement triple-s

New implementations of the triple-s survey interchange standard are to be developed for users of packages from SPSSmr and CfMC.

With the support of SPSSmr and the triple-s group, ATP Ltd is to create a program that will produce a triple-s file from a Quantum job. The project is due to be completed by early summer, and the resulting program will be freely available at no cost. Initially, the program will be available for use on Windows, Solaris, and SCO Unix. Programs and documentation will be available on the triple-s site for downloading.

Raz Khan, chairman of IT services firm ATP, expressed his "pleasure at being able to be involved in a project that will bring such immediate and obvious benefits both to our own customers and to the wider research data processing community".

Also this month, but separately, CfMC, producers of the widely used SURVENT CATI software, has announced that they are to provide an export facility so that SURVENT users can export their surveys to any package that supports the triple-s standard.

Keith Hughes, a founding member of the triple-s group, commented - "We are gratified to see major software companies like SPSSmr and CfMC adopting the triple-s standard. Adoption is of benefit both to the users of the many packages that implement triple-s, and to developers who can concentrate their efforts on their own unique functionality rather than having to implement multiple imports and exports. We would especially like to thank ATP for their work on this project, which they are doing entirely free of charge."

Users in the Market Research community can help increase the number of packages that support triple-s by asking their software vendors when they will be implementing the standard.

The triple-s group will continue to develop the standard and is currently seeking funding to this end.

Contacts

• Keith Hughes - 01235 769210
• Raz Khan - 020 8878 4695
• Website - http://www.triple-s.org

Laurance Gerrard, posted May 2001

Research in Official Statistics - preparation of new Framework Programme

As you well know, Eurostat has for a long time actively promoted the development and use of new methods and technologies in official statistics. The main mechanisms to implement this activity have been the European Union Research and Development framework programmes, in which R&D in statistics has steadily grown in importance. 

First steps to plan future research in official statistics beyond the present 5th Framework Programme are now being taken. The European Commission has accepted a proposal for the Framework Programme 2002-2006 in February 2001. In the proposal, statistics and statistical indicators are mentioned in several places. 

Eurostat launched the planning of the statistical contents of the next Framework Programme by inviting a group of international experts, Tim Holt, Carl-Erik Särndal and Michel Volle, to propose a new plan for a research programme in official statistics. On the basis of their work, Eurostat has now produced a white paper 'Mid and Long-term Challenges in Research and Development for Official Statistics'. With this document Eurostat wishes to open a consultation among official statisticians, academics, researchers, key users and suppliers of statistical data. It should also engage the business community that both supplies and uses official statistics for decision making. 

I hope that the resulting Research and Development Plan will reflect views of the future needs as completely as possible. Therefore, I invite the entire statistical community to participate actively in the discussion on our future research needs. The final plan will be based on the results of this consultation. 

The consultation document/questionnaire is now available on the VIROS website for downloading and commenting. The document asks for specific comments and questions, placed in boxes throughout the text. These are intended to help both the respondents and Eurostat. By no means are they intended to inhibit more wide-ranging or more radical submissions. 

Responses and comments should be sent by e-mail to Jean-Louis Mercy, by June 30, 2001. To stimulate discussion, replies will be made available, with the permission of the authors, on the same website as they are received. 

Photis Nanopoulos, Director, Eurostat

Nicholas Maine, posted May 2001

SSDBM Preliminary Programme published

The 13th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management will be held on July 18 – 20, 2001 at the George W. Johnson Center, on the scenic campus of George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. This international conference brings together scientific domain experts, database researchers, practitioners, and developers for the presentation and exchange of current research and on concepts, tools, and techniques for scientific and statistical database theory and applications. SSDBM will provide a forum for original research contributions and practical system design, implementation, and evaluation. The conference will also feature keynote talks, panel sessions, poster sessions, short tutorials and demonstrations of research prototypes and industrial systems.

The Preliminary Programme has just been published - click here - though it is still subject to final confirmation.

Larry Kerschberg, posted April 2001

OMG ADM SiG to discuss XML Questionnaires in Paris

XML based Questionnaires will be discussed by the ADM (analytical data management) SiG at the Paris Meeting of the OMG on 23/24 April. The agenda for the meeting is now available. If you would like to participate, please contact the SiG Chair.

The ADM group are well aware that many organisations and projects are or have been involved in the design of questionnaires, and are using modern technology to assist organisations and individuals to respond accurately to the questions, and to automate both the response process and the collection and post collection processes. Many recent developments involve the development of a questionnaire in XML. The European Commission 5th Framework R&D project IQML (Intelligent Questionnaire Markup Language) is one such initiative.

Many statistical offices are also implementing XML based questionnaire systems. Software houses specialising in survey systems are also implementing XML based systems.

There have even been some efforts to harmonise this work and publish XML based standards in an open forum, and the interest in harmonisation is growing - see www.opensurvey.org.

The meeting will be of interest to organisations that have developed a data model or an XML specification for a questionnaire, or have developed questionnaire software that uses XML. If you would like to present your project, then please contact the Chair. Contributions, lasting from 5 to 45 minutes are welcome.

Chris Nelson, posted January, revised March 2001

EU IST Work Programme 2001 - call for proposals

A call for proposals is open, with a deadline for the 25th April 2001 on "Socio-economic analysis and indicators for the information society", under Cross-programme Action (CPA) 7 of the IST workprogramme 2001. For more information, please visit the Cross-programme Action 7 website.

This call has been published in the context of the Information Society Technologies (IST) programme which is one of the specific programmes run under the 5th RTD Framework Programme of the European Community. An information day concerning this Action Line will be held:

Date: 2 March 2001 
Venue: Centre Albert Borschette, Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Brussels, room OD 
Time: from 10:00 to 16:30 hrs

During the day, you will receive information about the content and focus of the new Cross-programme Action. In addition, possibilities and rules for participation will be explained. You will also be offered the possibility to briefly present yourself and your research interests and to meet other potential proposers and Commission officials for the exchange of ideas and plans for co-operation.

Nicholas Maine, Eurostat, posted February 2001

IASC/IASS Summer School on Knowledge Discovery and Large Surveys

As previously announced, the series of IASC Summer Schools for young researchers will continue in 2001, this time as a joint venture with the Survey Statistician's section of the ISI. The ASC is assisting in the formulation of the programme, and will be supporting scholarships to assist those candidates who might otherwise not be able to attend. The full announcement, including the programme of lectures and a registration form, is available here (Acrobat file, 216Kb), and any amendments will appear on the Summer School web pages. 

The closing date for applications to participate has been put back to 30^th March.

Vincenzo Esposito, posted February 2001

New EU project on Metadata - Members Invited

METANET 
A network of excellence for harmonising and synthesising the development of statistical metadata
is a part of the European Union 5^th framework Research and Development program. The activities are based round four Working Groups.

• Methodology and tools
• Harmonisation of metadata - structure and definitions
• Best practice for migration
• Adoption issues

We are hoping to recruit Members to the Groups at the first conference. This is open to all interested parties, although the numbers are limited. It will be held in Voorburg, Netherlands from 2^nd - 4^th April. To find out more and to register click here - deadline 18^th February.

Adam Taylor, posted January 2001

2001 A Data Odyssey: Collaborative Working in the Social Science Cyber Space

The International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST) will hold its 27^th annual conference with the International Federation of Data Organizations (IFDO) from May 14 - 19, 2001. The conference will be convened in Amsterdam, capital of The Netherlands.

Call for Papers

The conference program committee invites submissions for paper presentations, panel discussions, poster & demonstration sessions and workshops for the IASSIST/IFDO Conference.
Proposals due by January 22^nd 2001
and should be sent to iassist2001 (a) niwi.knaw.nl. The conference program committee will send notification of arrival when the (first) proposal has been received. The committee will send notification of acceptance by February 9th 2001.

Edith de Leeuw, posted December 2000

Major joint EU conference on methods and tools: ETK and NTTS 2001

The European Commission is pleased to announce two major joint conferences on methods and tools for Official Statistics in Europe: 
ETK '2001 - Exchange of Technology and Know-How
NTTS '2001 - New Techniques and Technologies for Statistics
in Crete, from 18 to 22 June 2001.  They will offer a unique opportunity to all of those participating in the European Statistical Systems to meet individual researchers, and colleagues from private/public scientific institutions who are active in developing new tools and methods.

A number of sessions will run in both conferences, covering topics from the point of view of both new research needs and development and research results that can be transferred. They are:

• automated data capture,
• metadata,
• quality, 
• registers,
• statistical disclosure control, 
• time series analysis and seasonal adjustment.

A Call for Papers is open, and abstracts should be submitted by 15th February. Further details are available.

Nick Maine, posted December 2000

Further call for New Economy Projects from Eurostat

The cross-programme action 8 of the IST workprogramme 2000 has been re-opened for calls for research proposals, in relation to, and to support, the new political initiative of the European Union "eEurope". Completed proposals must reach the Commission by 15th January 2001.

The Commission considers that the conceptual, methodological and practical problems of the measurement of the new information society and economy are not all resolved and that further research in that field is needed in order to be able to produce statistics and indicators which will form the basis of the new policy developments. The call is thus limited to the "indicators" part of the action line and reads as follows:

"CPA 8 (Statistical tools, methods, indicators and applications for the information society). This is open to all specified action types. The scope of this call is limited to the 'definition, measurement and exploitation of new socioeconomic statistical indicators for the information society'. Proposers are encouraged to focus on the priorities of the eEurope Action Plan."

The types of actions eligible for this call are defined in the workprogramme as "RTD, thematic networks, best practice actions, and non-take-up accompanying measures"

In order to prepare their proposals, the proposers may benefit from the following information:

• The eEurope action plan
• A document jointly produced by DG Information Society and Eurostat, describing in a non-prescriptive way some of the research issues in the field of new indicators for the new economy, and listing the projects addressing the issues already selected in the previous calls of the 5th Framework Programme and from the 4th Framework Programme

If you need more information, please do not hesitate to contact us. Details of all available documents are on the call page.

Jean-Louis Mercy, posted November 2000

New web site for MR Programmers

I have been looking for a site that has in-depth information on survey programming for common survey software tools (e.g. tips, tricks, code examples). I didn't have much luck finding the type of information I was looking for so, I have developed a VERY basic site using free web resources that I hope may fill this need. I am not a web designer and I did not spend a lot of time on this so, please don't expect too much from it. If people find that it is a useful tool, I will put as much time as I can into it.

http://www.homestead.com/surveyprograms/

I would also like this site to contain any custom programs that you may have developed to add features to existing survey tools. If you are willing to share, please email the source code and/or setup files for these programs to the address on the site.

Mike Day, posted November 2000

ASA Statistical Computing Section Student Paper Competition 2001

The Statistical Computing Section of the ASA is sponsoring a student paper competition on the topic of Statistical Computing. Students are encouraged to submit a paper in this area, which might be original methodological research in statistical computing, some novel computing application in statistics, or any other suitable contribution (for example, a software-related project). The selected winners will present their papers in a topic contributed session at the 2001 Joint Statistical Meetings in Atlanta. The Section will pay registration fees for the winners as well as a substantial allowance for transportation to the meetings and lodging (which in most cases covers these expenses completely).

Information on the competition can also be accessed on the website of the Statistical Computing Section. A current pointer to the website is available from the ASA website at www.amstat.org. 

Lionel Galway, posted September 2000

News from The Frame

The latest issue of The Frame, Survey Sampling's (SSI) complimentary newsletter, has just been posted on SSI's web site, WorldOpinion (www.worldopinion.com). This special issue is dedicated to sampling for Internet research. It is full of e-sampling-related articles that will be sure to interest you.

A listing of all the articles can be found at: http://www.worldopinion.com/newsstand.taf?f=p&id=1000

Diane Urso, posted September 2000

IASC/IASS Summer School on Knowledge Discovery and Large Surveys

The series of IASC Summer School for young researchers will continue in 2001, this time as a joint venture with the Survey Statistician's section of the ISI. An initial announcement, with some details of the dates and programme, is available. The ASC is assisting in the formulation of the programme, and will be supporting scholarships to assist those candidates who might otherwise not be able to attend. The announcement will be updated when the full list of lecturers and topics is available, probably in the Autumn.

Andrew Westlake, posted September 2000

Competition for the Best Presented Poster at Compstat 2000

Prize donated by the ASC

Following our involvement in the 1998 Compstat conference in Bristol, the ASC committee offered to fund a prize to encourage participants presenting material through posters to give more attention to the design and presentation aspects of their work.

Details of the competition and the winners are available here.

Andrew Westlake, posted August 2000

National Statistics launched, with new web site

This site contains the latest comprehensive range of official UK statistics and information about statistics as well providing free access to a selection of recently released publications in downloadable pdf format.

Our site is organised around themes to help you find things more easily. Themes are a simple way of classifying the huge variety of official statistics produced. They resemble chapters in a book. There are 13 separate themes, and each theme deals with a distinct and easily recognisable area of national life.

The site also includes a soon-to-be-expanded selection of the latest economic indicators. This table will be refreshed as soon as possible after the release of new figures.

Greg Phillpotts, posted June 2000

Current Index to Statistics

A new informational web site has been initiated for the Current Index to Statistics. 

The Current Index to Statistics is a bibliographic index to publications in statistics and related fields. The CIS Extended Database (CIS-ED) includes coverage, in most cases from 1974 (or first issue if later) to the present (currently, volumes published in 1998) from 111 "core journals" (and pre-1974 coverage for a number of them), selected articles since 1974 from about 900 additional journals, and about 8000 books in statistics published since 1974. Each year, the Extended Database is updated with an additional year of coverage. A Print Volume is also produced annually containing listings for the most recent year. CIS is a joint venture of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

To demonstrate CIS searches and as a service to the statistics profession, we offer free access for searching of two subsets of the CIS database.
The American Statistician database, a special project supported by the American Statistical Association, includes complete coverage of The American Statistician from its inception to the present.
Records of the entire database are freely accessible with a lag behind the current edition. This service now includes records through 1992.

Alan Zaslavsky, posted June 2000

Technical Committee formed for Triple-S version 2

The triple-s group (Geoff Wright, Computable Functions; Keith Hughes, Merlinco; and Steve Jenkins, Mercator) have formed a Technical Committee to work on the development of triple-s version 2. The committee will consist of the three named above, plus Ed Ross, author of Quantum and co-founder of OpenSurvey, and Paul Peterson, head of software development at SPSSmr.

It is expected that the new version of triple-s will be available within a year from now. Unlike triple-s 1.1, which is available in both unmarked text form and in XML, triple-s version 2 will be available in XML only.

The triple-s group are also at work on software designed to run with the XML edition of triple-s version 1.1. An HTML survey description generator and a codebook (top-line results) generator are under development. All software produced by the group will be available as open source software through OpenSurvey.

More information on triple-s can be found at www.triple-s.org, and for the Open Survey initiative at www.opensurvey.org.

Keith Hughes, posted April 2000

Papers from ASC Conference featured in MRS publication

The Winter 1999/2000 edition of the International Journal of Market Research (The Journal of the Market Research Society, Vol. 42 Issue 1) reproduces three of the papers presented at the ASC International Conference in Edinburgh, September 1999.

The selected papers are:

• A consumer-orientated framework of brand equity and loyalty by Rory P. Morgan
• Automating questionnaire design and construction by Stephen Jenkins and Tony Solomonides
• The routing structure of questionnaires by Jelke Bethlehem

The links go to the abstracts of the papers within this site, from where the presentations can be accessed. The full proceedings of the conference, with all the papers, can be ordered from the ASC Publications page.

Randy Banks, posted March 2000

New Market Research Discussion Lists at Marketing-Lists.Com

CMR Group's Marketing-Lists.Com site has greatly extended the number of list offerings available. In addition to facilitating it's first newsletter, Kleinman-Weekly, in association with mrnews.com, the full range of lists currently available is:

Established Lists: MR Software (issues relating to the use of market research software), Online-Research. (online research) and Sampling (list sourcing, methodologies, etc). There are new lists covering geographical areas (MR-Canada, MR-Deutschland, MR-EEurope, MR-France, MR-Nederlands, MR-Pac-Rim, MR-Scandinavia and MR-USA). Further new lists will be announced next month.

You can sign up to any of the lists by visiting Marketing-Lists.Com online at www.marketing-lists.com.

Chris Dent, posted March 2000

R&D in statistics: Funding opportunities under the 5th EU Research programme

Further information is available from the research web site.

Jean-Louis Mercy, posted March 2000

Meta-Data: the key to accessing Data and Information

The Statistical Computing Section of the RSS is organising a half day meeting about Meta-Data on Wednesday 29th March, at the RSS premises in Errol Street, EC1 (nearest tubes Old Street and Barbican). Details of the programme and abstracts of the talks can be found on the section web site.

The meeting starts at 2pm, and non-members are welcome to attend.

Andrew Westlake, posted March 2000

New website about Geography of The Netherlands

In December 1999, the Royal Dutch Geographical Society (KNAG) opened a website in the English language to support the international delivery of geographical information. The website is aimed at authors; publishers; researchers; geography teachers and anyone with an interest in The Netherlands. On www.geography.nl you will find online information on the geography of The Netherlands and see which publications, wall-maps and other items on Dutch geography — all available in several international languages - you can order from the Royal Dutch Geographical Society. Furthermore, the website offers the opportunity to order information on demand. We can provide you with texts, photographs, maps, graphs and figures to fulfil any general or specific question on the geography of The Netherlands.

Prof. Dr. J.H.J Terwindt, posted January 2000

CAST - a new approach to teaching statistics on a computer

Doug Stirling reports the release of CAST, a new computer-based introductory statistics textbook. CAST uses over 300 interactive diagrams and animations to explain statistical concepts and methods. It takes a modern data-based approach to teaching statistical methods and covers all topics that would be included in an introductory course.

No charge will be made for using CAST in the year 2000. It can be accessed at http://cast.massey.ac.nz. A separate version containing only the interactive diagrams is available for use in lectures.

Doug Stirling, posted January 2000

Time to set standards

Tim Macer reports from the International Conference of the Association for Survey Computing in Edinburgh for the MRS Research Magazine.

This was no gathering of the geeks. ASC99 offered many original and well-presented accounts of all imaginable uses of technology in survey research, served with generous helpings of practical advice and refreshing candour about what works and what does not.

Tim Macer, posted December 1999

New Methodologist Posts at ONS

The ONS is taking forward a new programme of work to expand and improve the quality of statistics. Several opportunities exist to play an important part in statistical analysis and the development of statistical and related methods and in a new review programme for official statistics. More details can be found on the ONS web site at www.ons.gov.uk/news_f.htm. The closing date for applications was 5th January 2000.

Andrew Westlake, posted December 1999

Professor Hugh Neffendorf and Dr David Martin to lead new development in collaborative research

Diana Elder, posted December 1999

Government papers on an Independent National Statistical Service

The Government has recently published a white Paper, "Building Trust in Statistics", which is their response to the consultation exercise on their Manifesto commitment to an independent national statistical service. They have also published a summary of responses to the previous Green Paper, Statistics: A Matter of Trust. Both these documents can be found at the ONS web site news page, from where they can be downloaded as Adobe Acrobat files.

Andrew Westlake, posted October 1999

Statistical Software Competition

The Statistical Computing Section of the American Statistical Association announces the first competition for the John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award. Details can be found at the ASA SCS website.

Andrew Westlake, posted October 1999

Multilevel Modelling book available for down-load

The book Applied Multilevel Modelling by Joop Hox (1995, Amsterdam: TT-Publikaties) is often recommended as an introductory text. It is now officially out of print, but the author has made a version available for download from his web site. The book is in .PDF format, for reading with Adobe Acrobat. Details are on his page.

Andrew Westlake, posted May 1999

CASS Question Bank web site redesigned

The Question Bank of the Centre for Applied Social Surveys has been redesigned and may now be visited. Previous or potential users are requested to visit the new site and to feed back any comments on the new design.

Andrew Westlake, posted April 1999

Latest issue of ONS Survey Methodology Bulletin

The January edition contains several papers of interest to ASC members: follow the links to read the papers.

• Handhelds in a laptop world by James Gray
  This is a revision of the presentation at the ASC Chilworth conference, which did not materialise on paper.

• A comparison of software for producing sampling errors on social surveys by Dave Elliot

• A New Social Classification for Government Statistics by Jean Martin

Andrew Westlake, posted March 1999

New proposals for Documentation and Meta-Data Standards

The Institute of Social Research at the University of Surrey held an invited two-day conference on Computerised Survey Documentation for the year 2000, as part of their ESRC project under the ALCD programme. Prof Mick Couper from the Survey Research Centre, University of Michigan, kicked off with a stimulating discussion of the breadth of issues which need to be covered by documentation.

Subsequent presentations addressed the practical problems of producing documentation from current systems, particularly Blaise. Finally, Oscar Struijve, from the Data Archive, discussed the role of markup languages, particularly XML, in documentation, and a new documentation standard called the Codebook Data Type Definition, which has been developed by the international Data Documentation Initiative group.

Mick Couper and several other of the speakers and participants will be presenting papers at the ASC conference in Edinburgh next September. Meta-data and CAI in general are important themes for that conference, and there are several papers explicitly about the use of XML.

Andrew Westlake, posted February 1999

Successful new format for International Conference

The conference on New Methods for Survey Research adopted a format not tried previously for ASC events. It was a two-day residential affair, held at a conference centre outside Southampton. Like the other international conferences, all the papers were prepared in advance and reviewed, but all were presented to all participants, without parallel sessions. You can read a summary of the event here, and the full program is also available, with many of the presentations available for downloading.

The conference was held in August 1998, as a satellite meeting for Compstat 98 (in Bristol the following week), and was initiated to enhance our relationship with the International Association for Statistical Computing.

Andrew Westlake, posted October 1998