============================================== STATFAX (Fall Issue, Volume 11, Number 3) ============================================== ADVERSE EVENTS & SPORTS The Fall meeting showcases an exciting duo of talks on Thursday, November 7, at the Sheraton North Shore Inn, Northbrook (directions given above). Dr. Bala Hosmane, Associate Professor of Statistics, Northern Illinois University, will present a talk entitled Analysis of Adverse Events. The primary objective of his presentation is to provide a general dose-response model for dependent binary data that has many applications in clinical trials with longitudinal data, including the analysis of adverse events. The quasi likelihood, conditional likelihood and Bayesian methods will be discussed. Dr. Hosmane received his doctoral degree in Statistics from the University of Kentucky at Lexington in 1983 and joined the department of statistics at Northern Illinois University the same year. He has published several papers in a variety of statistical journals and has been a consultant for Abbott Laboratories since 1989. Mr. Don Zminda, Director of Publications, STATS, Inc., will be our other featured speaker. His talk, entitled Sports Statistics in the Computer Age, will focus on how baseball, basketball and football statistics were kept in the years before computerization, in contrast to how they are kept today, with particular emphasis on what they do at STATS, Inc. He will also elaborate on what kinds of statistics they currently compile, and how these numbers are used by various clients such as television, the print media, sports teams and fans. STATS, Inc. is a sports statistics company located in Skokie, IL. Mr. Zminda is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He edits and supervises the production of 11 annual sports books, including the STATS Major League Handbook, The Scouting Notebook, and Pro Football Revealed. He is also responsible for the editorial content that STATS, Inc. provides to America On-Line, and works as a statistical analyst for clients such as NBC, ESPN, Pinnacle Sportscards and the Chicago White Sox. Don't miss this exciting meeting! Please register by Friday, November 1. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT'S FOR LUNCH? In this issue and in future issues of Statfax, the luncheon entree will be indicated. If you have any special dietary needs or prefer an alternative meal, please specify on registration form or contact Art Roth via phone or email. ENTREE: Boneless breast of chicken marsala BEVERAGES: Regular/Decaf Coffee Hot/Iced Tea At the luncheon, if an attendee orders an entree or drink which has not been prearranged through Art Roth, then NIC/ASA will bill the attendee appropriately. ~ Audrey Hutchcraft ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- President's Report REFLECTIONS 96 Another successful year draws to a close for the NIC/ASA chapter. Let us take a few moments to reflect on this year's accomplishments, and see how our chapter compares to others. At the national meetings, the Council of Chapters sponsored a short workshop. Included in the discussions was a review of results pertaining to a nationwide questionnaire distributed to all chapters. I am proud to report that the NIC compared well to our peers. We have over 150 members, which puts us in the top 30% of all chapters (the Washington Statistical Society tops the list with 1200 members - our tax dollars at work!). We have three meetings each year; the national median was 4, and the mean was 5.9 (Washington has 100 meetings each year!). However, attendance at our meetings continues to set record levels (for us, anyway!). Our spring meeting highlighted three speakers: Josee Dupuis (Northwestern), Ed Lakatos (Searle) and James Pellissier (Loyola). Our summer workshop was also a success, featuring Dr. Robert Hogg of the University of Iowa. And, of course, we have high hopes for the fall meeting, described fully elsewhere in this newsletter. At the national ASA meetings, our own Carole Bernett put together the local assistance desk with the help of local graduate students. Special thanks go to Molly Walsh for putting together a great program this year, to Audrey Hutchcraft for excellent arrangements, and to Donna Kowalski and Devan Mehrotra for these newsletters (electronic and paper copy). We have ourselves a great chapter; our meetings feature interesting speakers and provide plenty of time to mingle and network. We learn something, we eat a good lunch, we touch base with friends, old and new. Let's hope there's more of the same in 1997! ~ Mike Carniello ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADOPT-A SCHOOL UPDATE Our Adopt-A-School Program for the 1995-96 school year ended with a poster competition involving around twenty entrants from three participating schools - Old Orchard Junior High in Skokie, Lincoln Hall Middle School in Lincolnwood, and Our Lady of Ransom in Niles. Certificates of participation were given to all entrants and each school received a first place award. This fall we are planning to continue our commitment to Old Orchard and have taken on two new high schools - Niles North and Niles West. We are extremely excited about these two new schools because they appear to want more participation from members of our chapter and it will give some other members a chance to visit classrooms and talk about their careers in statistics. Jim Mellon and I met with the Math and Science Department chairmen and teachers at these schools, and we both felt that the schools were genuinely trying to promote awareness of the usage of statistics in their programs. We were very impressed with the fact that Niles North this year is offering advanced placement (AP) statistics to over 160 students. This is almost four times the number enrolled in last year's AP classes. They are looking for suggestions from our members on how to better prepare the students for the AP exam, so if anyone has any suggestions, please let Jim or myself know. Also, if you have any topics you'd like to present to these classes, the Niles High Schools are waiting. Let's not disappoint them. It's time to get new faces from our chapter involved with this endeavor. ~ Carole Bernett & Jim Mellon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Awards & Recognition RECOGNIZING MENTORS I will annually acknowledge and recognize student mentoring by Chicago area statisticians and scientists. This year, these mentors have contributed in shaping and strengthening many statistics students' academic programs and future careers. Students have benefited by seeing the applications of various statistical theories in real life problems. Some mentors have proposed ideas for research projects and dissertation topics. Others have introduced students to workshops and seminars. Through these mentoring activities, real and meaningful relationships have been shaped between the Chicago area academic and industrial statisticians. On behalf of our chapter I would like to recognize the contributions by the following: Abbott Labs: Dr. David Jordan. G.D. Searle : Dr. Richard Bittman, Mr. Robert F. Dillard, Dr. Sheela Talwalker, Dr. David Lansky, and Dr. Devan Mehrotra. Baxter: Dr. Lawrence Lin, Dr. Harold Sargent, Dr. Edward Vonesh, Dr. Kewei Pu, and Mr.James Mellon. Fujisawa: Dr. Ronald Kershner. Rush Institute of Aging: Dr. Laurel Beckett. Argonne National Laboratory: Ms. W. Elaine Streets. ~ Sam Hedayat ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JSM Acknowledgments Thanks to all who helped staff the Local Arrangements Booth during the JSM meetings this past August. Although the Chicago Chapter was the host, our Chapter did help with the staffing of the booth. Thanks to all the students from Northwestern, UIC, University of Chicago and other local colleges, as well as to our members, Imke Janssen and Mindy Drum for helping out. All the student volunteers also deserve a round of applause for their help in staffing. ~ Carole Bernett ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Treasurer's Report (9/12/96) Balance 1/1/96.............................................$3743.85 INCOME 1996 Spring Meeting/Memberships $2339.00 1996 Summer Workshop/Memberships 4161.00 Donation 5.00 Bank Interest 62.29 Total Income...............................................$6567.29 EXPENSES 1996 Spring Meeting $1438.29 1996 Summer Workshop 3343.01 Mailing (Spring Newsletter) 24.92 Mailing (Bulk Mailing Permit) 85.00 Mailings (Summer Newsletter and Workshop) 117.48 Science Fair Bonds 100.00 Manual for Database Software 27.11 Total Expenses.............................................$5135.81 Balance 9/12/96............................................$5175.33 Membership: 129 (119 regular, 10 student) ~ Art Roth ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NIC/ASA ELECTIONS FOR 1996-97 OFFICERS CANDIDATE PROFILES Only one candidate is listed for each position. Nominations from the floor will be accepted at the time of the election. For President-Elect ART ROTH Art Roth is a Monsanto Fellow in the Preclinical Statistics Department at G.D. Searle & Co., where he is responsible for support of safety (toxicology/pathology) studies. He is widely known in the industry for his expertise in this area and his contributions to it, including a paper at an ASA-sponsored national symposium on carcinogenicity studies and his selection to teach the tox/path section of a PMA course in non-clinical statistics given to a nationwide audience. Art received a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Minnesota in 1975 and spent 5 years in academia before joining the pharmaceutical industry, where he has continued his research activities for the past 16 years, first at CIBA-GEIGY and now at Searle. He has about a dozen diverse publications in widely read statistics journals and has given many technical presentations, including two to the NIC and one which tied for the Best Presentation Award given by the Biopharmaceutical Section at the 1991 national ASA meetings. He was Membership Chair of the Northern New Jersey Chapter for 2 years before moving to this area, and currently serves the NIC both as Treasurer and as a member of the Program Committee. For Secretary DOROTHY DUNLOP Dorothy Dunlop is a Research Assistant Professor with the Institute for Health Services Research and Policy Studies at Northwestern University. She also works in the Department of Preventive Medicine. She is the statistical member of a multi-disciplinary research group that focuses on health services and epidemiological research. Her publications are primarily in statistical and medical journals. Dorothy graduated with a B.S. degree in Mathematics from Wheaton College and has an M.H.S. degree in Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1990. Before coming to Northwestern, she was a statistical consultant in the pharmaceutical industry for 13 years. Dorothy is an active member of the ASA, currently serving as Secretary and Program Committee member for the NIC-ASA. For Treasurer IMKE JANSSEN Imke Janssen came to the United States from Germany in 1979 and obtained a Ph.D. in Statistics in 1984 at UC Berkeley. After teaching at the University of Maryland, she worked at Argonne National Laboratory in the Epidemiology group. She has worked in a variety of positions for several years at Northwestern University and will be teaching in the Statistics Department this Fall. Imke has published articles in the Journal of Mathematical Biology, Health Physics, and some medical journals. She has served on the program committee of the NIC/ASA for the last two years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OFFICERS & COMMITTEE CHAIRS PRESIDENT AND CHAPTER REPRESENTATIVE Mike Carniello (847) 982-8750 mlcarn@searle.monsanto.com PRESIDENT-ELECT AND PROGRAM CHAIR Molly Walsh (312) 908-5832 mkwalsh@nwu.edu SECRETARY Dorothy Dunlop (847) 467-1622 ddunlop@nwu.edu TREASURER Art Roth (847) 982-4775 ajroth@skcla.monsanto.com PAST-PRESIDENT Carole Bernett (847) 925-6232 bernett@ix.netcom.com ARRANGEMENTS Audrey Hutchcraft (847) 270-5393 hutchca@baxter.com AWARDS AND RECOGNITION Prof. A. S. Hedayat (312) 996-4831 hedayat@uic.edu COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES Paul Coe (847) 524-6640 coepaul@email.rosary.edu MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY Paul von Doehren (847) 982-8116 pjvond@searle.monsanto.com NEWSLETTER EDITORS Donna Kowalski (847) 982-8533 dlkowa@searle.monsanto.com Devan Mehrotra (847) 982-7498 dvmehr@searle.monsanto.com OUTREACH COMMITTEE Lawrence Lin (847) 270-5394 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Statfax is published three times a year, in Spring, Summer and Fall, by the Northeastern Illinois Chapter of the American Statistical Association. Statfax welcomes letters and material for articles from its readers. Address correspondence to: The Editors, Statfax, c/o Devan Mehrotra and Donna Kowalski, Statistics Department A-1E, 4901 Searle Parkway, Skokie, IL 60077. The Chapter's purpose, as stated in its Constitution, is "to foster statistics and its applications and promote the interests of the statistical profession...". Accordingly, diverse views are presented. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the officers or the policies of the chapter.