Introduction Welcome to the Statistics in a Changing Society - 175 Years of Progress, the RSS 2009 International Conference in Edinburgh. This book includes abstracts of over 260 presentations being made during the conference, in this order: • Plenary speakers in order of presentation • Invited, contributed and special sessions in the same order as they appear in the programme • Poster presentations in alphabetical order by author surname. All posters will be on display at the reception at The Hub on Tuesday evening and then those presented by ‘career-young’ statisticians will be displayed in the refreshments and exhibition areas of the conference venue for the remainder of the week. Finally, please note that the Conference Programme Committee allocates contributed papers to topics in an effort to ensure (as far as is possible) the coherence of sessions, and this may not accord with the topic requested by the presenter. I hope you enjoy the conference Paul Gentry RSS theme manager for conferences and meetings Plenary speakers 1 PLENARY 1 OPENING PLENARY Sir David Cox Nuffield College, Oxford [email protected] New Road, Oxford, OX1 1NF United Kingdom The Royal Statistical Society: past, present and future 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. David Cox read Mathematics at Cambridge and his first posts were in Dept of Mechanical and Structural Engineering, Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough and then at Wool Industries Research Association, Leeds. Subsequently he held positions at Cambridge, University of N Carolina, Birkbeck College and from 1966 to 1988 at Dept of Mathematics, Imperial College. From 1988 to 1994 he was Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford. In retirement he has been attached to Nuffield College and Dept of Statistics, University of Oxford. His research interests are in applied and theoretical statistics. 1 PLENARY 2 Sir Iain Chalmers James Lind Library Controlled trials and the RSS at 175 My talk will present a chronological selection of RSS Fellows who, since 1834, have encouraged recognition of the needs: • for medicine to exploit ‘the numerical method’ • to address allocation bias and to study adequate numbers of events • to increase statistical precision by synthesizing data from separate but similar studies • to explain the fundamentals of controlled trials for non-statisticians • to conceal allocation schedules • to exploit record linkage to investigate possible adverse effects of drugs • to study substantially larger numbers of events to detect plausible effects of treatments • to improve the quality of reports of research Most of the material on which I will draw can be found in the James Lind Library, www.jameslindlibrary.org, a website with material (in seven languages) explaining and illustrating the evolution of fair tests of medical treatments. Reference The James Lind Library Editorial Team: Chalmers I, Milne I, Tröhler U, Vandenbroucke J, Morabia A, Tait G, Dukan E. The James Lind Library: explaining and illustrating the evolution of fair tests of medical treatments. Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 2008;38:259-64. 2 PLENARY 3 John Beddington UK Government Chief Scientific Advisor Professor John Beddington was appointed as the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) on 1 January 2008. John's main research interests are the application of biological and economic analysis to problems of Natural Resource Management including inter alia: fisheries, pest control, wildlife management and the control of disease. He started his academic career at the University of York and spent three years on secondment from York as a Senior Fellow with the International Institute of Environment and Development. He has been at Imperial College since 1984, where he headed the main departments dealing with environmental science and technology. He was Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial until his appointment as GCSA. He has been adviser to a number of government departments, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (on Antarctic and South Atlantic matters), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (where he chaired the Science Advisory Council), the Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office. He was for six years a member of the Natural Environment Research Council He has acted as a senior adviser to several government and international bodies, including the Australian, New Zealand and US Governments, the European Commission, the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. In June 1997 he was awarded the Heidelberg Award for Environmental Excellence and in 2001 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2004 he was awarded the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George by the Queen for services to fisheries science and management. 3 PLENARY 4 SIGNIFICANCE Helen Joyce The Economist The use of charts, graphs and data in journalism Helen Joyce is a correspondent for The Economist and a former editor of Significance. She will be talking about the use of charts, graphs and data more generally in journalism, using examples from both publications. Of particular current interest to her are the new possibilities created by the web. Dr John Haigh University of Sussex The Kieran Fallon trial – before and after How a statistician became involved in this court case, the statistical issues that arose, and the aftermath. 4 PLENARY 5 CAMPION (PRESIDENT'S INVITED) LECTURE Stephen Stigler Statistics Department, University of Chicago [email protected] Statistics Department, 5734 University Avenue, Chicago IL 60637, USA Darwin, Galton, and the Statistical Enlightenment The half-century period that might justly be called the Statistical Enlightenment was inaugurated in Scotland on Thursday September 10, 1885. That event grew from a puzzle present in Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species, a puzzle that initially lay unnoticed (even by Darwin) until it was seized upon and finally solved by Darwin’s equally remarkable cousin, Francis Galton. These anniversaries will be saluted, and the circumstances will be related of how Darwin’s work provided both an impetus for and a barrier to Galton’s epochal advance. Stephen M. Stigler is the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor and Chairman of the Department of Statistics at the University of Chicago, where he has taught for 30 years. He has served as Editor of JASA: Theory and Methods, and as President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and of the International Statistical Institute, and is the author of The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900 (1986), and Statistics on the Table (1999), both published by Harvard University Press. 5 PLENARY 6 Dr David Wishart The flavour of whisky – an illustrated talk and tutored tasting Discover the flavours of Scotch malt whiskies at this talk and tasting by Dr. David Wishart, Fellow of Management at the University of St Andrews, and author of Whisky Classified: Choosing Single Malts by Flavour. Dubbed the "Carl Linnæus" of whisky by whisky writer Charles MacLean, David Wishart was the first to categorise single malts by flavour. His classification of single malt whiskies by their flavour is fully endorsed by the Scotch Whisky Industry, which honoured him by designating him a "Keeper of the Quaich" in 2006. David will guide you through the history and romance of Scotch whisky, from the aqua vitae of the early monasteries, the alchemist's art of turning barley into medicine, and the hedonistic uisge beatha of remote Scottish crofts, to the taverns of Edinburgh's Royal Mile and hot toddies in the New Town. The surgeon barbers' monopoly in licensing whisky in 16th century Edinburgh spawned illicit stills in Highland glens, battles with excisemen, and smuggling into the Royal Mile. The Royal romance with "Scotch" started with George IV in 1822, blossomed under Queen Victoria at Balmoral, and continues with the Prince of Wales today. Whisky is evoked in the poetry of Burns, in the travelogues of Stevenson, and in the art of Landseer and Wilkie. 6 PLENARY 7 FUTURE OF STATISTICS AND THE RSS Sara Hughes Director of Statistics, GSK and PSI Outgoing Chair [email protected] GSK R&D, Greenford Road, Greenford, Middlesex, UB6 0HE The future of statistics and of the Royal Statistical Society The pharmaceutical industry is currently facing several challenges. With the belief that many of the big ‘blockbuster’ medicines have been found already, with numerous companies facing patent expiry ‘cliffs’, all against a backdrop of increasing demands from regulatory bodies regarding the level of evidence required for approval and reimbursement of medicines, the industry is constantly striving to increase efficiency. Statisticians are being asked to play a key role in this and will need to adapt and develop both their technical and soft skills in order to survive. I will briefly discuss these challenges and the adaptations I believe are required both by individuals and by the professional societies. Sara Hughes is a Statistics Director sitting on the Leadership Team of the Infectious Diseases Medicines Development Centre at GlaxoSmithKline, and supporting regulatory and commercial work for existing and new HIV compounds. Sara is also the outgoing Chair of PSI (Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry), and has been a member of the PSI Board of Directors since 2001, coordinating