IMS Bulletin 33(5)
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John Ashworth Nelder: 8 October 1924 – 7 August 2010
John Ashworth Nelder: 8 October 1924 – 7 August 2010. John Nelder died on Saturday 7th August 2010 in Luton & Dunstable Hospital UK, where he was recovering from a fall. John was very active even at the age of 85, and retained the strong interest in our work – and statistics generally – that we will all remember with deep affection. However, he was becoming increasingly frail and it was a shock but perhaps, in retrospect, not a surprise to hear that he had died peacefully in his sleep. John was born on 8th October 1924 in Dulverton, Somerset, UK. He was educated at Blundell's School and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where he read Mathematics (interrupted by war service in the RAF) from 1942-8, and then took the Diploma in Mathematical Statistics. Most of John’s formal career was spent as a statistician in the UK Agricultural Research Service. His first job, from October 1949, was at the newly set-up Vegetable Research Station, Wellesbourne UK (NVRS). Then, in 1968, he became Head of the Statistics Department at Rothamsted, and continued there until his first retirement in 1984. The role of statistician there was very conducive for John, not only because of his strong interests in biology (and especially ornithology), but also because it allowed him to display his outstanding skill of developing new statistical theory to solve real biological problems. At NVRS, John developed the theory of general balance to provide a unifying framework for the wide range of designs that are needed in agricultural research (see Nelder, 1965, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A). -
Agenda and Minutes of the UK Statistics Authority Meeting on 6
UK STATISTICS AUTHORITY Minutes Thursday, 6 June 2013 Boardroom, Titchfield Present UK Statistics Authority Sir Andrew Dilnot (Chair) Professor David Rhind Professor Sir Adrian Smith Mr Richard Alldritt Mr Partha Dasgupta Ms Carolyn Fairbairn Dame Moira Gibb Professor David Hand Dr David Levy Ms Jil Matheson Mr Glen Watson Secretariat Mr Robert Bumpstead Mr Joe Cuddeford Apologies Dr Colette Bowe Other attendees Mr Peter Benton, Mr Alistair Calder and Mr Ian Cope (for item 7) Minutes 1. Apologies 1.1 Apologies were received from Dr Bowe. 2. Declarations of interest 2.1 There were no declarations of interest. 3. Minutes, matters arising from the previous meetings 3.1 The minutes of the previous meeting held on 9 May 2013 were agreed as a true and fair account. 3.2 It was confirmed that a paper from ONS about migration statistics would be considered at the July Authority Board meeting. 4. Authority Chair’s Report 4.1 The Chair had recently attended a meeting of the Cabinet’s Ministerial Committee on Home Affairs to discuss the future provision of population statistics for England and Wales. 4.2 The Chair would be meeting with the Work and Pensions Select Committee on 10 June to discuss official statistics in the Department for Work and Pensions. 4.3 The Chair had written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith MP, regarding statistics about the benefit cap, and the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Grant Shapps MP, regarding statistics about the Employment and Support Allowance. 5. Reports from Authority Committee Chairs Assessment Committee 5.1 Professor Rhind reported on the meeting of the Assessment Committee held on 16 May. -
Strength in Numbers: the Rising of Academic Statistics Departments In
Agresti · Meng Agresti Eds. Alan Agresti · Xiao-Li Meng Editors Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics DepartmentsStatistics in the U.S. Rising of Academic The in Numbers: Strength Statistics Departments in the U.S. Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U.S. Alan Agresti • Xiao-Li Meng Editors Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U.S. 123 Editors Alan Agresti Xiao-Li Meng Department of Statistics Department of Statistics University of Florida Harvard University Gainesville, FL Cambridge, MA USA USA ISBN 978-1-4614-3648-5 ISBN 978-1-4614-3649-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-3649-2 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2012942702 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. -
September 2010
THE ISBA BULLETIN Vol. 17 No. 3 September 2010 The official bulletin of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis AMESSAGE FROM THE membership renewal (there will be special provi- PRESIDENT sions for members who hold multi-year member- ships). Peter Muller¨ The Bayesian Nonparametrics Section (IS- ISBA President, 2010 BA/BNP) is already up and running, and plan- [email protected] ning the 2011 BNP workshop. Please see the News from the World section in this Bulletin First some sad news. In August we lost two and our homepage (select “business” and “mee- big Bayesians. Julian Besag passed away on Au- tings”). gust 6, and Arnold Zellner passed away on Au- gust 11. Arnold was one of the founding ISBA ISBA/SBSS Educational Initiative. Jointly presidents and was instrumental to get Bayesian with ASA/SBSS (American Statistical Associa- started. Obituaries on this issue of the Analysis tion, Section on Bayesian Statistical Science) we Bulletin and on our homepage acknowledge Juli- launched a new joint educational initiative. The an and Arnold’s pathbreaking contributions and initiative formalized a long standing history of their impact on the lives of many people in our collaboration of ISBA and ASA/SBSS in related research community. They will be missed dearly! matters. Continued on page 2. ISBA Elections 2010. Please check out the elec- tion statements of the candidates for the upco- In this issue ming ISBA elections. We have an amazing slate ‰ A MESSAGE FROM THE BA EDITOR of candidates. Thanks to the nominating commit- *Page 2 tee, Mike West (chair), Renato Martins Assuncao,˜ Jennifer Hill, Beatrix Jones, Jaeyong Lee, Yasuhi- ‰ 2010 ISBA ELECTION *Page 3 ro Omori and Gareth Robert! ‰ SAVAGE AWARD AND MITCHELL PRIZE 2010 *Page 8 Sections. -
Statistics Making an Impact
John Pullinger J. R. Statist. Soc. A (2013) 176, Part 4, pp. 819–839 Statistics making an impact John Pullinger House of Commons Library, London, UK [The address of the President, delivered to The Royal Statistical Society on Wednesday, June 26th, 2013] Summary. Statistics provides a special kind of understanding that enables well-informed deci- sions. As citizens and consumers we are faced with an array of choices. Statistics can help us to choose well. Our statistical brains need to be nurtured: we can all learn and practise some simple rules of statistical thinking. To understand how statistics can play a bigger part in our lives today we can draw inspiration from the founders of the Royal Statistical Society. Although in today’s world the information landscape is confused, there is an opportunity for statistics that is there to be seized.This calls for us to celebrate the discipline of statistics, to show confidence in our profession, to use statistics in the public interest and to champion statistical education. The Royal Statistical Society has a vital role to play. Keywords: Chartered Statistician; Citizenship; Economic growth; Evidence; ‘getstats’; Justice; Open data; Public good; The state; Wise choices 1. Introduction Dictionaries trace the source of the word statistics from the Latin ‘status’, the state, to the Italian ‘statista’, one skilled in statecraft, and on to the German ‘Statistik’, the science dealing with data about the condition of a state or community. The Oxford English Dictionary brings ‘statistics’ into English in 1787. Florence Nightingale held that ‘the thoughts and purpose of the Deity are only to be discovered by the statistical study of natural phenomena:::the application of the results of such study [is] the religious duty of man’ (Pearson, 1924). -
Random Permutations and Partition Models
i i “-Random_Permutations_and_Partition_Models”—//—:—page—# Metadata of the chapter that will be visualized online Book Title International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science Book CopyRight - Year Copyright Holder Springer-Verlag Title Random Permutations and Partition Models Author Degree Given Name Peter Particle Family Name McCullagh Suffix Phone Fax Email Affiliation Role John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor Division Organization University of Chicago Country USA UNCORRECTED PROOF i i i i “-Random_Permutations_and_Partition_Models”—//—:—page—# R − In matrix notation, Bσ = σBσ ,sotheactionbyconju- Random Permutations and gation permutes both the rows and columns of B in the Partition Models same way. The block sizes are preserved and are maximally Peter McCullagh invariant under conjugation. In this way, the partitions [ ] John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor of may be grouped into five orbits or equivalence University of Chicago, USA classes as follows: , ∣ [],∣ [],∣∣ [],∣∣∣. Set Partitions Thus, for example, ∣ is the representative element for ≥ [ ]={ } For n , a partition B of the finite set n ,...,n is one orbit, which also includes ∣ and ∣. ● A collection B ={b,...} of disjoint non-empty sub- The symbol #B applied to a set denotes the number of sets, called blocks, whose union is [n] elements, so #B is the number of blocks, and #b is the size ∈ E ● An equivalence relation or Boolean function B∶[n]× of block b B.If n is the set of equivalence relations on [ ] [ ] E [n]→{, } that -
Probability, Analysis and Number Theory
Probability, Analysis and Number Theory. Papers in Honour of N. H. Bingham (ed. C. M. Goldie and A. Mijatovi´c), Advances in Applied Probability Special Volume 48A (2016), 1-14. PROBABILITY UNFOLDING, 1965-2015 N. H. BINGHAM Abstract. We give a personal (and we hope, not too idiosyncratic) view of how our subject of Probability Theory has developed during the last half-century, and the author in tandem with it. 1. Introduction. One of the nice things about Probability Theory is that it is still a young subject. Of course it has ancient roots in the real world, as chance is all around us, and draws on the older fields of Analysis on the one hand and Statistics on the other. We take the conventional view that the modern era begins in 1933 with Kolmogorov's path-breaking Grundbegriffe, and agree with Williams' view of probability pre-Kolmogorov as `a shambles' (Williams (2001), 23)1. The first third of the last century was an interesting transitional period, as Measure Theory, the natural machinery with which to do Proba- bility, already existed. For my thoughts on this period, see [72]2, [104]; for the origins of the Grundbegriffe, see e.g. Shafer & Vovk (2006). Regarding the history of mathematics in general, we have among a wealth of sources the two collections edited by Pier (1994, 2000), covering 1900- 50 and 1950-2000. These contain, by Doob and Meyer respectively (Doob (1994), Meyer (2000)), fine accounts of the development of probability; Meyer (2000) ends with his 12-page selection of a chronological list of key publica- tions during the century. -
Spatial Interaction and the Statistical Analysis of Lattice Systems Julian Besag Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Serie
Spatial Interaction and the Statistical Analysis of Lattice Systems Julian Besag Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B (Methodological), Vol. 36, No. 2. (1974), pp. 192-236. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0035-9246%281974%2936%3A2%3C192%3ASIATSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B (Methodological) is currently published by Royal Statistical Society. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/rss.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. -
Trustees' Report and Financial Statements
Trustees’ Report and Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2010 02 Trustees’ Report and Financial Statements Trustees’ Report and Financial Statements 03 Trustees’ Report and Financial Statements Auditors Registered charity No 207043 Other members of the Council Contents PKF (UK) LLP Professor David Barford b Trustees Chartered Accountants and Registered Auditors Professor David Baulcombe a Trustees’ Report 03 The Trustees of the Society are the Members Farringdon Place Sir Michael Berry Independent Auditors’ Report of its Council duly elected by its Fellows. 20 Farringdon Road Professor Richard Catlow b to the Council of the Royal Society 12 London EC1M 3AP Ten of the 21 members of Council retire each Dame Kay Davies DBE a Audit Committee Report to the year in line with its Royal Charter. Dame Ann Dowling DBE Solicitors Council of the Royal Society on Professor Jeffery Errington a Needham & James LLP President the Financial Statements 13 Professor Alastair Fitter Needham & James House Lord Rees of Ludlow OM Kt Dr Matthew Freeman b Consolidated Statement of Bridgeway Treasurer and Vice-President Sir Richard Friend Financial Activities 14 Stratford upon Avon Warwickshire Sir Peter Williams CBE Professor Brian Greenwood CBE b CV37 6YY b Consolidated Balance Sheet 16 Physical Secretary and Vice-President Professor Andrew Hopper CBE Bankers Dame Louise Johnson DBE b Consolidated Cash Flow Statement 17 Sir Martin Taylor a Barclays Bank plc a Professor John Pethica b Sir John Kingman Accounting Policies 18 Level 28 Dr Tim Palmer a -
Julian Besag 1945-2010 Møller, Jesper
Aalborg Universitet Memorial: Julian Besag 1945-2010 Møller, Jesper Published in: Memorial: Julian Besag 1945-2010 Publication date: 2011 Document Version Early version, also known as pre-print Link to publication from Aalborg University Citation for published version (APA): Møller, J. (2011). Memorial: Julian Besag 1945-2010. In Memorial: Julian Besag 1945-2010 (pp. 31) General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. ? Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. ? You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain ? You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from vbn.aau.dk on: October 07, 2021 Julian Besag FRS, 1945–2010 Preface Julian Besag will long be remembered for his many original contributions to statistical science, spanning theory, methodology and substantive application. This booklet arose out of a two-day memorial meeting held at the University of Bristol in April 2011. The first day of the memorial meeting was devoted to personal reminiscences from some of Julians many colleagues and friends. -
A Short History of Markov Chain Monte Carlo: Subjective Recollections from Incomplete Data
STS stspdf v.2011/02/18 Prn:2011/02/22; 10:52 F:sts351.tex; (Svajune) p. 1 Statistical Science 2011, Vol. 0, No. 00, 1–14 DOI: 10.1214/10-STS351 © Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2011 1 52 2 A Short History of Markov Chain Monte 53 3 54 4 Carlo: Subjective Recollections from 55 5 1 56 6 Incomplete Data 57 7 58 8 Christian Robert and George Casella 59 9 60 10 61 11 62 This paper is dedicated to the memory of our friend Julian Besag, 12 63 a giant in the field of MCMC. 13 64 14 65 15 66 16 Abstract. We attempt to trace the history and development of Markov chain 67 17 Monte Carlo (MCMC) from its early inception in the late 1940s through its 68 18 use today. We see how the earlier stages of Monte Carlo (MC, not MCMC) 69 19 research have led to the algorithms currently in use. More importantly, we see 70 20 how the development of this methodology has not only changed our solutions 71 21 to problems, but has changed the way we think about problems. 72 22 73 Key words and phrases: Gibbs sampling, Metropolis–Hasting algorithm, 23 74 hierarchical models, Bayesian methods. 24 75 25 76 26 1. INTRODUCTION We will distinguish between the introduction of 77 27 Metropolis–Hastings based algorithms and those re- 78 28 Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods have lated to Gibbs sampling, since they each stem from 79 29 been around for almost as long as Monte Carlo tech- radically different origins, even though their mathe- 80 30 niques, even though their impact on Statistics has not matical justification via Markov chain theory is the 81 31 been truly felt until the very early 1990s, except in same. -
The Royal Statistical Society Getstats Campaign Ten Years to Statistical Literacy? Neville Davies Royal Statistical Society Cent
The Royal Statistical Society getstats Campaign Ten Years to Statistical Literacy? Neville Davies Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education University of Plymouth, UK www.rsscse.org.uk www.censusatschool.org.uk [email protected] twitter.com/CensusAtSchool RSS Centre for Statistical Education • What do we do? • Who are we? • How do we do it? • Where are we? What we do: promote improvement in statistical education For people of all ages – in primary and secondary schools, colleges, higher education and the workplace Cradle to grave statistical education! Dominic Mark John Neville Martignetti Treagust Marriott Paul Hewson Davies Kate Richards Lauren Adams Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education – who we are HowWhat do we we do: do it? Promote improvement in statistical education For people of all ages – in primary and secondary schools, colleges, higher education and theFunders workplace for the RSSCSE Cradle to grave statistical education! MTB support for RSSCSE How do we do it? Funders for the RSSCSE MTB support for RSSCSE How do we do it? Funders for the RSSCSE MTB support for RSSCSE How do we do it? Funders for the RSSCSE MTB support for RSSCSE How do we do it? Funders for the RSSCSE MTB support for RSSCSE How do we do it? Funders for the RSSCSE MTB support for RSSCSE Where are we? Plymouth Plymouth - on the border between Devon and Cornwall University of Plymouth University of Plymouth Local attractions for visitors to RSSCSE - Plymouth harbour area The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) 10-year