High praise for RSS Executive Editor

Long-serving RSS staff member, Martin Owen, was praised for his dedication as Executive Editor by Sir David Cox in his talk in the opening plenary session. Those who've worked with Martin both as volunteers and as members of staff will know that this high praise is well-deserved.

Tuesday round-up

Each day we will set out a list of all the sessions taking place.

We hope that some of the delegates attending the sessions will be able to comment on them through this blog.

NB Details are taken from the Conference Directory and may subsequently have been changed.

Session 1A International Societies 1 (invited)

Bernhard Huitfeldt (President, Swedish Statistical Association)
Swedish Statistical Society - the meeting place for Swedish
statisticians (and friends of statistics)

Avner Bar-Hen (President, French Statistical Society)
Presentation on the French Statistical Society

Maurizio Vichi (President, Italian Statistical Society)

Session 1B Some methodological issues in longitudinal studies (invited)

John Bynner (Longview)
Longitudinal and life course studies – a new interdisciplinary
international journal

Harvey Goldstein (University of Bristol)
Handling attrition and nonresponse in longitudinal data

Bianca de Stavola (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,
Stockholm University and Karolina Institute)

Familial and socio-economic influences on foetal growth across
three generations: the Uppsala Birth Cohort Multigenerational
study, Sweden, 1915-2002

Session 1C General (contributed)

David Boniface (University College London)
Components of adjustment to regression sums of squares and their representation on a new generalisation of the Venn diagram

Charles Jones (University of Toronto)
Bootstrap estimation in practice: correcting for sample attrition in Canada’s National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth

Giancarlo Manzi (University of Milan, Italy)
Nonlinear principal component analysis with missing data: a forward imputation approach

Karl Schlag (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
A new method for constructing exact tests without making any assumptions

Session 1D History of statistics (contributed)

Sheila Bird (Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit)
Learning from a random sample of the history of RSS external relations

Martin Forster (University of York)
Surviving slavery: mortality at Mesopotamia, a Jamaican sugar estate, 1762–1832

Christian Lewin
An early statistical framework

Peter Sprent
Statistics in Australia – the adolescent era

Session 1E Health related 1 (contributed)

Geoff Jones (Massey University)
Identifiability of models for multiple diagnostic testing in the absence of a gold standard

George Kafatos (Open University and Health Protection Agency)
Estimating seroprevalence: the impact of assay standardisation

Jaya Satagopan (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center)
An efficient sampling scheme for identifying an informative subcohort to measure new risk factors for a continuous outcome

Session 1F Census (invited)

Kevin Schurer (University of Essex)
The integrated census microdata project

Paul Boyle (St Andrews)
Linking the Scottish Longitudinal Study back through time

Peter Scrimgeour (General Register Office Scotland)
The 2011 Scottish Census: drawing on the lessons of the past

Session 2C Market research (invited)

David Walter (dunnhumby)
Market research in practice

Anatoly Zhiglivasky (Cardiff University)
Mixed Poisson models for modelling consumer purchase behaviour

Heiko Grossman (Queen Mary University of London)
Experimental designs for conjoint analysis studies

Martina Vandebroek (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium)
Sequential construction of choice sets for estimating the panel mixed
logit model

Session 2D Statistics & public accountability (invited)

Alysson Pollock
Statistics & public accountability: monitoring and evaluating new services delivery policies in the NHS

Alison MacFarlane (City University London)
How did we get here and where are we going: routine health service and public health data

Session 2E Health-related 2 (contributed)

Jane Warwick (Queen Mary University of London)
Mammographic breast density: why the most precise measure may not be
the most clinically useful

William D Grant (SUNY Upstate Medical University)
The statistician and small clinical trials: tales from the front lines

Nick Steen (University of Newcastle upon Tyne)
The role of the patient preference arms in the analysis of a comprehensive cohort study

Chris Roberts (University of Manchester)
The design implications of care provider variation for nonpharmacological
treatment trials

Session 2F Statistical challenges in brain imaging (contributed)
Thomas Nichols (GlaxoSmithKline)
Statistical opportunities in brain imaging: a case study with neuroimaging meta analysis

John Aston (University of Warwick)
Twice the fun-ctional: using functional principal component analysis in functional neuroimaging

Giovanni Montana (Imperial College London)
Genomewide multivariate association discovery in imaging genetics studies

Plenary 2
Sir Iain Chalmers (James Lind Library)
Controlled trials and the RSS at 175

Conference under way

Conference is now well under way, with a formal opening by RSS President, Professor David Hand, followed immediately by the first plenary session with Professor Sir David Cox as speaker.

In the Abstracts Book, Sir David's reads: "A broad view will be given of some of the strands of activity of the RSS. A few possible implications for
the future will be outlined." Delegates were rewarded with a talk that spanned the Society's history, and that of the development of the statistical discipline.

He noted along the way that till the 1920s UK Prime Ministers had shown a real interest in statistics by being fellows of the Society. Although Prime Ministers being fellows has subsequently been the exception, Sir David did note that Society fellow and senior politician, Jack Straw MP, had secured a commitment to reform of the government statistical system in the Labour Party manifesto for the 1997 General Election.

Sir David also commented on the "sociology" of past Society meetings. In the days before email and the internet, he observed that the meetings had been as much community occasions as discussive ones.

He outlined the intellectual challenges for the Society. The RSS, he said, must strive to keep in touch with all major new developments, and work to avoid the fragmentation of the statistical community into non-communicating sections.

Finally, for conference goers he provided some advice. Given a choice of parallel sessions, go to the one about which you know the least. This way, he suggested, provided a means of really finding out something new. He did wryly observe that this was advice that he was still working to put into practice.

A view from the Castle

The ascent to Edinburgh Castle may be strenuous but delegates making their up the Royal Mile were rewarded with stunning views over the city and the opportunity to dip into a wealth of Scottish history.

In a speech in the magnificent Great Hall, Society President David Hand welcomed delegates. He made some observations on the longevity of both the Castle and of the Society - but noted that unlike the former the Society had never come under artillery fire!

The President then introduced Jim Mather MSP, Scottish minister with responsibility for statistics, who extended a welcome both from Edinburgh and Scotland. Mr Mather spoke of his interest in using processes of quality control in delivering public services.

Finally, a doyen of the Society, David Finney spoke. He noted humorously that if anyone had complaints about conference they might, in some part, lay the blame at him... havnig been jointly responsible in 1948 for convincing the Society to hold an annual conference.

Programme update: new speaker for Wednesday's session, "Surveillance Society"

We have just heard that Hugh O'Donnell MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) will be speaking in place of Ivor Goddard in Wednesday's session, "Surveillance Society".

Edinburgh rocks!

Darius Blaszczak, a local volunteer on the conference team, reports 14kg of Edinburgh rock has weighed down conference delegates' bags. But there is still plenty of rock underneath the Castle supporting it for tonight's reception hosted by Jim Mather MSP!

And, a weather update - sunny with occasional light showers.

Joining instructions etc now available for attendees

If you're coming to conference then some important information is now available on the RSS web site:

• Joining instructions (reproduced below)
• Abstracts Book
• Conference Directory

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Registration for the Pre-Conference Short Courses:

All pre-conference courses and workshops are taking place in buildings on the Pollock Halls site participants will be advised separately which building their activity is taking place in and where they should register. 

Registration for Courses A and B plus the Young Statisticians' Training Day will open at 9am and registration for Course C will be from 12.30pm.

Registration for the Main Conference:

The registration desk will be open at the following times:

Monday 7^th:            3.00pm to 6.30pm

Tuesday 8^th:           8.30am to 6.00pm

Wednesday 9^th:      8.30am to 6.00pm

Thursday 10^th:        8.30am to 6.00pm

Friday 11^th:             9.00am to 12 noon

On Monday registration will take place in Chancellors Court on the Pollock Halls site; for the rest of the week it will be in the foyer of Appleton Tower on Crichton Street.

University accommodation

For those pre-booked into University accommodation these are the arrangements for collection of keys:

Keys should be collected from the main reception at Pollock halls from 2pm on the day of arrival. Luggage can be stored in the Reception centre if required until rooms are available.

The Reception centre will be open until 11pm daily and keys can be collected from security after this time.

Please note you must be checked out from your room on the day of departure by 10am at the latest.

Getting to/from Appleton Tower from Pollock Halls:

The No 2 bus runs from opposite the Commonwealth Pool to Bristo Place running every 12-15 minutes.

Monday evening reception

For those attending the evening reception at Edinburgh Castle this will begin at 7pm.

Tickets will be issued at registration, however do not worry if you cannot make it to registration first you will still be able to gain admission to the castle.

Please make your way to the main gate of the Castle at the top of the Royal Mile. Please ensure you wear sensible shoes.