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TRANSCRIPT
1 In the spotlight
2 Editorial
3 2011 SASA Conference Announcement and final call for submissions
4 President’s column
5 Article: SASA 2010
6 Report from 2010 SASA visitor: Winfred Stute
6 Article: When Statisticians retire they do not just become statistics...
7 Herbert Sichel Medal
7 Call for SASA Nominations
8 News from the Education Committee
9 News from the Careers Committee
10 Article: The Development of Bayesian Statistics in SA through the Years
11 SASA EC and other committee members
ISSN 1011-‐8039 Maart/March 2011
SASA NEWS/SASV NUUS
Pravesh Debba
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I was born in Clare Estate, Durban, but after my dad passed away when I was eight months old, my family relocated to Isipingo Rail were I spent
my childhood and schooling years. I am most grateful to my mum for having raised four children as a single parent. I am the youngest and was definitely the naughtiest and most spoilt child as compared to my siblings. With education up to high school level, my mum chose to work from home by sewing and knitting to be financially sustainable. I recall sometimes getting up in the early parts of the morning only to hear the sound of the machines busy at work. For these reasons, my brother and I felt it necessary to work part time (after school and school holidays) to help financially. I was 10 years old when I started my first paying job in a clothing store. Looking back, I know that this has definitely been my biggest source of strength since it taught me to be responsible, hard working and determined to succeed in anything I do. Nothing is more appropriate to me than the words of Thomas Carlyle: “Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak”.
My primary and secondary education was obtained at three schools in Isipingo, via Isipingo State Aided, Strelizia Secondary School and Reunion Secondary
School. I was in grade one when I first realised my aptitude for mathematics as I was continuously complimented by my teacher for correctly responding to her questions. By the time I reached grade six I knew that my career would be in the Mathematical Sciences. After my matriculation, I enrolled for a BSc degree at the University of Durban-‐Westville (currently known as University of KwaZulu-‐Natal) with majors in Mathematics and Statistics. I must admit that I enrolled for Statistics because I heard that it was very mathematical but I was clueless as to what it entailed. I was very fortunate to get a bursary from Old Mutual during my second and third year which covered all my university undergraduate costs. My appointment as a tutor from second year onwards also afforded me with a new source of income. Having completed my undergraduate studies with distinctions in Mathematics and Statistics I then studied BSc (Hons) in Statistics also at the University of Durban-‐Westville, but attended lectures and wrote the examinations at the University of Natal as a joint programme between the two universities. During this time I was funded by the DAAD scholarship and continued with my appointment as a tutor. I obtained a cum laude for my BSc (Hons) in Statistics.
After completing my honours degree, I was offered a contract position as a junior lecturer in the Statistics Department at the University of Durban-‐Westville. At the end of the one year contract, I was appointed in a permanent position as a lecturer at the University of South Africa (UNISA). In 1997 I was awarded a scholarship from the Flemish Ministry of Education in Belgium and completed my MSc in Biostatistics at Hasselt University (former Limburgs Universitaire Centrum). I am most grateful to Professors Noël Veraverbeke, John Fressen, Sarma Yadavalli, Francois Steffens and the staff at UNISA for this opportunity.
Upon my return, I married Nalinee and a year later my son Harshil was born. We also returned to Durban and I started lecturing at the University of Natal. During my first month at the University of Natal I was contacted by Professor Noël Veraverbeke about a PhD in the Netherlands. Over a year later the scholarship from the International Institute for GeoInformation Sciences and Earth Observation (ITC) was granted and for this I am most grateful to
In the spotlight
Pravesh Debba
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be”
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my wife Nalinee for supporting me when this opportunity arose, and to Professors Alfred Stein, Ahmed Bawa, Sunil Maharaj and the staff at the University of Natal (and during my PhD studies to Professors Andrew Dale and Delia North) for their support. In addition, I was also funded for six consecutive years through the NRF Thuthuka Programme which entailed spending eight months each year in the Netherlands and the remaining four months in South Africa lecturing at UKZN. For my PhD I designed optimal sampling schemes using remote sensing images. I vividly recall the conversation with my supervisor, Professor Alfred Stein, during our second meeting. He asked me to learn programming in JAVA and I explained to him that I could not do it and he responded “Pravesh, if I can do it, so can you” and he turned around and walked away. I realised at that stage that he would not accept any excuses. During my PhD studies, my wife and I were blessed in 2003 with our
second child Ayojana, and in 2005 I resumed my post full time at the University of KwaZulu-‐Natal.
In 2007 I returned to UNISA for one year and then accepted a position as a researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). This was my first job out of academia but I must admit that I truly enjoy the research at CSIR. It is both rewarding and simulating. There are nine statisticians in our research group. My research interests, mainly due to my PhD, are a mixture between spatial statistics, remote sensing and GIS. Some of the really large projects that I am currently involved in are in the energy field with Eskom, monitoring the indigenous Dukuduku forest in St Lucia with DST, the Wind Atlas of South Africa with RISØ (Denmark) and tree species
discrimination in the Kruger National Park with Carnegie Institute in USA. I still maintain ties with various universities as an external examiner for several postgraduate courses and theses, and in supervision of postgraduate students. The years of experience I gained at the various universities and my dedication to students has been recognised by the mentorship award I received last year at CSIR. I am proud of the accomplishments by my two protégés, Sibusisiwe Khuluse and Nontembeko Tlhone-‐Dudeni, who were instrumental in me achieving this award.
The greatest achievement for a researcher is publication and I intend to continue with this. My experiences in life have been spurred on by the words of George Sheehan: “Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be”.
Pravesh Debba
Dr. Sonali DasPostal AddressLogistics and Quantitative Methods CSIR Built EnvironmentPO Box 395Pretoria 0001South AfricaContact detailsE-‐mail: [email protected]: +27 12 841-‐3713 (w) Fax:+27 12 841-‐3037 (w)
Please send all Newsletter matters to the Editor at the above address, and all other SASA matters to The Secretary,
P.O. Box 3341, Matieland, 7602, South Africa
The Newsletter is an informal collection of news items and short articles of interest.The Newsletter will appear in March, June, September and December. Submission deadlines: Issue Deadline DateMarch 1 February June 1 MaySeptember 1 AugustDecember 1 November
The views expressed in this Newsletter are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the SA Statistical Association or the editor of the Newsletter.
Printed by Spektrum on SAPPI TRIPLE GREEN -‐ an environmentally responsible choiceDesigned by Graphcom Design Studio cc
Editorial
New members of SASA -‐ welcome!Ms NM Mokaba, Technical Plan Coordinator:
ESKOM, [email protected]
Prof IN Litvine, Lecturer: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, [email protected]
Ms T Litvine, Lecturer: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, [email protected]
Ms L Laas (Affiliated member), Market Research Manager: BP Southern Africa, [email protected]
Mr BD April, Risk Manager: NEDBANK, [email protected]
Mr RH Welham, Actuary: Sellems Actuaries and Statisticians, [email protected]
Dr MMS Sithole, Statistician: HSRC, [email protected]
Dr JF Dean, Senior Specialist: ESKOM, [email protected]
Mr P Masuka, Statistician: ARCH, [email protected]
Dr N Makapela, Statistician: Western Cape Education Department, [email protected]
Dr GC Wright, Senior Research Fellow: University of Oxford, [email protected]
Prof MWJ Noble, Social Policy Researcher: University of Oxford, [email protected]
Ms MA Ramushu, Laboratory Analyst: CSIR, [email protected]
Mr CA Marais, Statistician: Health Econometrix & Outcomes Research Pty Ltd, [email protected]
2010 ended with the very successful conference at NWU. In this issue we are covering the conference, including a visitor’s report and photographs. We have a number of announcements as well. The spotlight article in this issue features the newly elected president Dr. Debba. We also introduce the 2011 EC members with their contact details. Two articles, one on the history of Bayesian statistics in the country by Professor De Waal and a short biography of Professor Schultz, are two very interesting reads.
I am happy to inform that young statisticians are contacting me to be featured in the newsletter. We continue to look forward to feature more young statistics professionals who are encouraged to contact me, or any of the EC members.
As a member of the SASA, if you have any articles or information that you would like to share with the SASA family, or would like to make a comment via a letter to the editor, please let me know.
Wishing all a very successful 2011.
Sonali
Sonali Das – Editor
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The SASA 2011 conference will be jointly hosted by CSIR and Statistics SA at CSIR in Pretoria.
Details can be found on the SASA website: http://www.sastat.org.za/
Announcement53rd
Dates: 31 Oct. – 4 Nov., 2011 Main conference: 3 full days from 1-‐3 Nov., 2011-‐02-‐02
Workshops: 31 Oct., 2011 & 4 Nov., 2011
Venue: CSIR International Convention Centre (http://www.csiricc.co.za/)
Additional information: To be available on the SASA website (http://www.sastat.org.za/)
The annual conference of the South African Statistical Association is a highlight for South African statisticians and the prominent international visitors who attend. This year the CSIR, in collaboration with Statistics South Africa, is pleased to host this event. Since 1945 CSIR has actively promoted and carried out scientific research, including research and applications in statistics.
The arrangements for the conference will be made by the Statistical Modelling and Analysis Research Group of the CSIR. The venue will be the CSIR International Convention Centre which is on the CSIR Campus in Pretoria. CSIR International Convention Centre
SUBMISSIONS
The non-‐peer reviewed stream of the conference will require submission of short abstracts for presentations only. These will be neither peer-‐reviewed nor included in the proceedings. Key date for such contributions is:
Deadline for submission of abstract for presentation at the conference
19 August 2011
Submission may cover all areas of theoretical and/or applied statistics.
Submissions for the non peer-‐reviewed stream should be submitted on the SASA website.
For queries related to the non peer-‐reviewed general stream, please contact:
Dr Sonali Das : [email protected]: +27 (0)12 841 3713
Final call for peer-‐reviewed papers
SASA will once again in 2011 be producing proceedings of peer-‐reviewed papers from its annual conference. Presenters who would like to submit contributions for review and inclusion in the proceedings are requested to take note of the following dates:
Call for short abstracts 1 March 2011Deadline for submission of short abstracts 2 May 2011Notification for acceptance of short abstracts to submit full paper for peer-‐review
16 May 2011
Deadline for submission of full paper/s 27 June 2011
Note 1: Late submissions will not be considered.Note 2: Submission details as well as templates for submission will be made available on the SASA website.
Submission may cover all areas of theoretical and/or applied statistics.
Submissions for the peer-‐reviewed stream should be sent to: [email protected] include “SASA 2011 peer-‐reviewed paper” in the subject line.
For queries related to the peer-‐reviewed stream, please contact:
Dr Gary Sharp : [email protected]: +27 (0)41 504 2288
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Dear Readers
The annual SASA conference is the biggest event for many South African statisticians. The conference extends beyond South
Africa, to other African statistical associations. The 2010 conference that was held at North West University, Potchefstroom Campus will be remembered for a long time. We thank the organising committee for the excellent work done, especially James Allison for all his efforts. The 2010 conference had six invited international speakers and/or workshop presenters (Nobel Laureate Professor Robert Engle, Professor Winfried Stute, Professor Peter Hall, Professor David Mason, Professor Michael Greenacre and Professor Raul Primicerio): our special thanks go to them for their informative and thought-‐provoking plenary lectures and workshops.
SASA Executive Committee would like to welcome new or re-‐elected members to the EC, namely, Gary Sharp as Vice President, Sarah Radloff responsible for Chapters and SGB, Marie Smith as secretary and James Allison, Leonard Santana and Inger Fabris-‐Rotelli as additional members.
On behalf of SASA EC, I would like to thank Sarah Radloff, Tertius de Wet, Gina Joubert, Jacky Galpin and Tim Dunne for their efforts in re-‐writing the SASA constitution, inputs to the Institute for Chartered and Certificated Statisticians of South Africa (ICCSSA) bye-‐laws, the introduction of a disciplinary committee and the code of Ethics. I am pleased to announce that the SASA constitution has been accepted by the required majority vote. Special thanks go out to Paul Mostert and Tertius de Wet for collecting and counting the votes.
After many years as proof-‐reader of the South African Statistical Journal (SASJ), Corna Vorster has resigned from this position. Corna, we are most grateful for all the work you have done in terms of proof-‐reading the SASJ and your involvement with the Statistical Terminology Group.
The first SASA EC meeting took place on 28 January 2011 and a number of issues were discussed. This included the forthcoming SASA conference to be held at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), CSIR convention centre, Pretoria, from the 1st to the 3rd of November 2011 which promises to be an exciting event. CSIR is the host for the 2011 conference and Statistics South Africa will co-‐host. More details about invited guests and workshops will follow in subsequent newsletters. The submission of abstracts for the peer review of papers for the conference is now open and details can be found in the newsletter and on the SASA website. You are urged to take advantage of this opportunity.
With the SASA 2010 constitution being accepted, I would like to inform SASA members that the ICCSSA launch has been scheduled on 12 May 2011, from 15H00 at the Eskom Convention Centre in Midrand, Gauteng. For those interested, I do advise you to attend the opening ceremony.
In an attempt to create more visibility of the South African Statistical Journal and to possibly increase the impact factor of the journal through citations of the articles published in SASJ, all articles published in SASJ since 2006 are available electronically on Sabinet. SASA members can access these without any additional cost at http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_sasj.html. The latest
newsletters now appear on the SASA website: http://www.sastat.org.za/newsl.htm.
The Education Committee had their annual meeting on 27 January 2011 and has noted that very few universities enter their students for the various competitions, especially for the bursaries and scholarships that SASA awards to students who would study statistics at third year level, despite the efforts the education committee has made in sending the information to each university and advertising in the SASA newsletter. These are worthy prizes and there should be more participation from the universities.
Finally, I would like to inform SASA members of the initiatives by Stats SA on developing a postgraduate diploma in official statistics as part of the Isibalo programme. Stats SA conducted a workshop (20-‐22 January 2011) in Pretoria and invited people from various universities, government agencies, science councils and industry to participate in the development of the postgraduate diploma by identifying suitable courses and the general structure of the diploma. The workshop was well attended by SASA EC members.
Pravesh Debba
The president’s column
RESULTS OF THE SASA CONSTITUTIONAL BALLOT
The official count of the SASA Constitutional Ballot papers was completed on Friday 28 January 2011. Over two-‐thirds of the total number of ballot papers received was in favour of the proposed changes to the SASA 2005 Constitution in all four categories, namely the Disciplinary Committee, Handling of Ballot Papers, Associated Society of SASA and the EC of SASA editorial changes. The SASA 2010 Constitution is now adopted as a whole.
UITSLAG VAN DIE SASV GRONDWETLIKE STEMMING
Die amptelike telling van die SASV Grondwetlike stembriewe was afgehandel op Vrydag 28 Januarie 2011. Meer as twee-‐derdes van die totale aantal stembriewe wat ontvang is, was ten gunste van die voorgestelde wysiginge aan die SASV 2005 Grondwet met betrekking tot al vier kategorieë, naamlik die Dissiplinêre Komitee, Hantering van Stembriewe, Verwante Genootskap van die SASV en die UK van die SASV se redaksionele veranderinge. Die SASV 2010 Grondwet word gevolglik aanvaar in sy geheel.
SASA EC: First row (from left to right): Sonali Das, Marie Smith, Sarah Radloff, Yoko Chhana, Inger Fabris-‐Rotelli, Delia North. Second row (from left to right): James Allison, Leonard Santana, Paul Mostert, Pravesh Debba, Gary Sharp. Missing: Howard Gabriels, Yandiswa Mpetsheni and Nelis Potgieter.
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The SASA 2010 conference was held by the Potchefstroom campus of the North-‐West University in November 2010 for the
first time in over 30 years. In fact, the previous occasion that the Potchefstroom campus had hosted the SASA conference almost half of all the members of the organizing committee had not been born yet. It was high time that the conference returned to Potchefstroom.
During the week of the conference nearly 320 delegates were treated to the extremes of Potchefstroom weather which included an impressive cloud burst during the workshop sessions of the first few days, and the refreshing spring sunshine later in the week. Of course, the delegates did not come to “Potch” to experience the weather, but rather to gather for a conference of peers in the Statistical community; they were not disappointed. The impressive list of invited speakers and workshop presenters included Nobel Laureate Robert Engle from the Stern School of Business in New York, USA, Winfried Stute from the University of Giessen, Germany, David Mason from the University of Delaware, USA, Michael Greenacre from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain, and Peter Hall from the University of Melbourne, Australia. The early workshops presented by Michael Greenacre, Raul Primicerio, Winfried Stute and SAS were all well attended and were hailed as being informative and interesting by those in attendance. These sessions were followed by the opening ceremony, three days of parallel sessions (up to six parallel sessions on
any given day) which covered no less than ten unique Statistical fields and plenary addresses by Winfried Stute, Michael Greenacre Peter Hall and David Mason. The conference ended on the Friday afternoon with a workshop session presented by Robert Engle on “Global Financial Stability and Long Term Risks”.
On the social side of things, the delegates enjoyed evening functions and a gala dinner on the eve of the final day of the conference. The highlight of the gala dinner was a performance by Laurika Rauch as well as a surprise guest performance of “Summertime – Statistics is easy” by Michael Greenacre.
SASA conference 2010 Potchefstroom
Dawie Roodt, the MC for the gala dinner congratulating Prof. Engle on his birthday
Raul PrimicerioMichael Greenacre
James Allison and Peter Hall Delegates at the conference
Gala dinner
Delegates having lunch David Mason Time to share thoughts and ask the ‘masters’
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During a visit to Prof. Danie and Edna Schultz I found out that, though Danie has been retired for many years, they
are both still very active in their community. They both belong to the Northern Transvaal chapter of the SA Genealogical Society and have recently published their research on their family trees in Familia, the quarterly journal of the GGSA. He married Edna Cilliers in 1958 and they have three sons. Danie’s hobby is wood work and in their house (and those of their sons) they have several nice pieces of furniture that he made.
Prof. Schultz is a Fellow of SASA and was Managing Editor of the SA Statistical Journal (SASJ) from 1972-‐1983. He also belongs to The Gideons International in SA and was a national President and International Trustee. Furthermore, Edna Schultz has been the typesetter for the SASJ since 1977.
Danie was born on 18 February 1932 in Boegoeberg, in the district of Prieska, where his father was a labourer at the construction of the Boegoeberg dam and irrigation scheme. Labourers were given preference to buy an irrigation plot and a small house, so the family settled there. Danie matriculated at the Groblershoop Hoërskool in 1949, and started working as a personnel clerk for the SA Railways in Windhoek, South West Africa (Namibia) in 1950. In 1953 he was transferred to Pretoria, where he started studying part-‐time at the University of Pretoria and completed a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics in 1957. In 1958 he was transferred to Johannesburg, first as an assistant research officer in the Department of Civil Engineering and later as Statistician in the office of the
General Manager of the SA Railways. In 1963 he completed an Honours degree in Mathematical Statistics at UNISA and was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Statistics at UNISA, where Prof. HS Steyn then had been the Head of the Department. Danie completed an M.Sc. and then a Ph.D. degree with a theses entitled ‘n Wiskundige-‐statistiese model vir ‘n brekingsproses (Statistics of mass size distributions) in 1972. Prof. Cas Crouse was the study leader. He retired from UNISA in 1992 as Emeritus Professor.
Colleagues during his time at the Department of Statistics at UNISA included Fanie Steyn, Henry Gonin, Cas Crouse, Niek Maritz, Nico Crowther, Francois Steffens, Michael Browne, Jos Grobbelaar, Dan Bradu, Kotie Roux, Michael Greenacre, Lizelle Fletcher, Reina Nieuwoudt, Magda Botha, Paul Mostert, Kobus Wolvaardt, Karel van der Merwe, Hester Labuschagne, Liefde Raath, Vladimir Katkovnic and Andriëtte Bekker.
Interviewed by Marie Smith
When Statisticians retire they do not just become statistics ....
Prof. Danie Schultz
Winfried StuteUniversity of Giessen, Germany
This was my first visit to South Africa. When the invitation came almost one year ago, I was asked to give not only a plenary talk at
the SASA 2010 conference in Potchefstroom, but also to visit other statistical institutes in the country and to offer a workshop ahead of the conference. So, when I left Frankfurt airport on October 29, my USB stick was packed with ten talks to be given to an audience which was more or less unknown to me. Though I knew Jan Swanepoel, my host in Potchefstroom, for many years, I was wondering about the new impressions, conversations and discussions awaiting me. Maybe you know that Prussians have been famous for their organizational skills and their punctuality. As it should turn out, my visit to your country demonstrated that your hospitality and talent in planning events clearly outperform ours. On my arrival to Cape Town airport, Tertius de Wet was there to pick me up. On the first weekend he and his wife Lynette showed me the beautiful and charming neighborhoods of Cape Town and Stellenbosch. My talk at the
institute in Stellenbosch was on “Truncated Data”, a topic taken from Survival Analysis.
In the same week I also visited the Statistics Institutes at the University of Pretoria and the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Jacky Galpin was in charge of driving me from here to there and back. She did this with extreme patience, in particular since the roads were partly closed for construction. At the end I got a good feeling for “distances” in the P-‐J area. The talks at WITS and in Pretoria were on “Linear Mixed Models” and “Principal Components of Poisson Processes”.
After the talks there were lively discussions so that I got the impression that people had enjoyed the talks. The second week I spent in Potchefstroom, where I was hosted by Cornelia and Jan Swanepoel. As in Stellenbosch and Pretoria I was living in a private guesthouse. In each facility I enjoyed the excellent service and friendly atmosphere. As to my workshop, there were more than sixty participants. The audience was very heterogeneous. Since I expected this before the morning session concentrated on various basic possibilities to use empirical distributions for goodness-‐of-‐fit.
The afternoon sessions were more technical, but I hope that the basic ideas became clear. My
plenary talk on November 11 dealt with “Self-‐exciting phenomena”. I put it in a framework so that it was (hopefully) quite understandable. There are many more things I could add. Some of you may remember the wonderful performance of Laurika at the conference dinner. I also enjoyed the trips to the game reserves, in particular to the National Park in Pilanesberg. At the end I had to confess that these locations offer a lot more than a German zoo.
So, now I am back home. Is there anything I am missing? Many things. What in particular? Rugby on TVMany thanks for inviting me and your great hospitality.
Winfried Stute
REPORT FROM SASA 2010 VISITOR
Winfried Stute
This year six papers were submitted for the award, which is more than we have had in recent years, and it is encouraging that
several of them were by young members of SASA. The panel of judges, comprising Doug Hawkins (University of Minnesota), Sarah Radloff (Rhodes University), Maxim Finkelstein (University of the Free State) and Paul Fatti (Wits University) used the four criteria of Impact, Innovation, Relevance and Quality of Writing to rank the papers, and while they differed in their rankings, there was very close agreement about the winning paper. We would like to congratulate Melvin Varughese of the University of Cape Town for his most interesting paper entitled: “On the accuracy of a diffusion approximation to a discrete state-‐space Markovian model of a population” which appeared in Theoretical Population Biology 76 (2009). While Melvin was recently awarded his PhD at the University of Cape Town, the paper was actually an extension of the work done for his MSc dissertation at Wits University.
BackgroundThe Herbert Sichel Medal was instituted by the Association in 1997 in memory of Professor Herbert Sichel, one of South Africa’s statistical pioneers and a founder member of SASA, who had passed away two years previously, at the age of 79. A good review of his life and work appears in the Special Edition of the South African Statistical Journal dedicated to his memory (Vol. 37 No. 1,
1997). Except for one year, the medal has been awarded annually to a member (or members) of the Association whose paper appeared in print during the previous calendar year and was judged best by a panel of judges appointed by the Association.
Call for Nominations and Submissions for
The Herbert Sichel Medal is awarded annually to the member (or members) of the Association who has (have) published the best statistical paper during the previous year. Accordingly, members are invited to nominate or submit papers for consideration for the 2011 Herbert Sichel Medal. The following rules will govern the award:
1. Papers on theoretical or applied statistics are eligible.
2. Single-‐ and co-‐authored papers in which the principal author is a member of SASA will be considered.
3. The papers must have been published in 2010.
4. Papers appearing in refereed journals, in fully refereed conference proceedings or as refereed chapters in books are eligible (books, theses or dissertations are not).
5. Nominations for the award may be made by a member of SASA (who is not an author) or submissions may be made by the author(s). An individual may only submit one paper for the award.
6. Nominations and submissions must (preferably) be e-‐mailed, in PDF format, to:
Paul Fatti (Chairman of the Judges Panel) at [email protected]
Otherwise they can be sent by post to him at:
The School of Statistics & Actuarial Science University of the Witwatersrand P.O. WITS 2050
to reach him by 31 August, 2011.
7. In evaluating the papers for the medal, the panel will use the following set of criteria:
i The impact of the paper in its specific field
ii How innovative are the ideas or techniques used in the paper
iii The relevance of the problem being addressed
iv How well-‐written is the paper
8. The decision by SASA on the award of the medal will be final. The membership of the panel is still to be finalised. Any member of the panel who is himself a nominee will be replaced by someone not nominated for the medal.
The winner(s) of the Herbert Sichel Medal will be announced at the 2011 Annual Conference of the Association, which will take place at the CSIR in Pretoria from 1 to 3 November.
THE HERBERT SICHEL MEDAL
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Melvin Varughese winner of the 2010 Herbert Sichel Medal being congratulated by Sarah Radloff at the 2010 SASA Conference
According to the 2010 constitution of the South African Statistical Association, individuals can be elected to the status of Honorary Member or Fellow of the association. The criteria for these honorary appointments are described as follows:
Honorary MemberA member of the Association who has made an extraordinary contribution to the knowledge of
statistics or to the advancement of the Association as such and who has retired from his/her ordinary position.
Fellow:A member of the Association who has made outstanding contributions to the advancement of statistical science. In the selection of Fellows, the nature and quality of the candidate’s contribution
to the advancement of statistical sciences shall be taken into consideration.
Nominations for Honorary members and Fellows should be appropriately motivated, signed by at least two enfranchised members of the association and submitted confidentially, beforeto the Chair of the SASA Fellowship Committee, Yoko Chhana ([email protected]).
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR HONORARY MEMBERS AND FELLOWS OF THE ASSOCIATION
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It is with great excitement that the SASA Education Committee hereby announces the 2011 SASA Post Graduate Paper Competition!
This competition is open to all students enrolled for Masters or PhD’s in Statistics at South African tertiary institutions. Both full and part-‐time students are eligible.
Stats SA will be funding the competition as part of their drive to provide financial assistance to deserving students who show promise and diligence in their statistical work.
Three prizes will be awarded, subject to the adjudicators’ discretion. Two of the prizes may be from any statistical sub-‐discipline and one prize will be reserved for Official Statistics, on special request from the sponsors. The first author of the best three papers, as decided by the judges, will be sponsored to present his/her paper at the 2011 SASA conference at the International Conference Centre, CSIR, Pretoria. Sponsorship will include travel (within SA), accommodation and conference fees. In addition, the overall winner will receive R12 000, the runner-‐up will receive R8 000 and the third prize will be R6 000.
The SASA Education Committee will handle the adjudication process. The judges’ decision will be final and there will be no correspondence regarding the decision.
A maximum of five papers may be submitted by a tertiary institution (merged institutions may only submit five papers in total). A title and 1 page abstract along with the entry form should
th by the HOD (or HOD nominated representative) of the university, with the th . The full paper should be submitted electronically using PDF format. Please submit two PDF format copies of the full paper, one copy should NOT show the student’s name and affiliation. If you are interested, please contact Verena Nolan ([email protected]) or refer to the SASA website (http://www.sastat.org.za/) for the guidelines on the preparation of your paper.
Note: The submissions are not restricted to the thesis work of the candidates and should show an application of material presented.
SASA Education Committee Scholarship and Bursary winnersThe Scholarship winner for 2011 was Mr JM Williams-‐Wynn of the University of KwaZulu Natal. Justin performed extremely well academically in both his first and second year of study. The Education Committee would like to congratulate Justin on his achievements and success and wish him everything of the best for the future
There were two bursary awards made to financially needy, yet academically deserving students. The awards were given to Ms T Pather of the University of KwaZulu Natal and Mr S Madikane of Rhodes University. Both candidates performed well academically and received excellent reviews from their respective departments. We of the Education Committee are happy to be in the position to provide much needed financial support.
Congratulations to all the recipients, we look forward to your active participation in SASA activities in the future.
News from the Education Committee2011 SASA
Post Graduate Paper Competition
sponsored by StatsSA
Committee MeetingThe committee, chaired by Prof. Delia North (UKZN), convened for their annual meeting on Thursday 27th January. The 2011/2012 education committee and their respective portfolios are shown in the table below.
Delia North Chairperson; Education workshops; Outreach to schools; AMESA Correspondence
Hannah Gerber Student projects; Marketing; WEB and Raphael Kasonga StatBank; PALAMA; Committee for Professional StatisticiansVerena Nolan Secretary & Student Membership & Post Graduate Paper CompetitionWarren Brettenny Bursaries & SASA Newsletter
SASA Student Project
Sponsored by SAS
The closing date for entries for the SASA student project competition (honours) sponsored by SAS, was the 8th of March 2011. Thank you to all the Universities that submitted projects. We hope to have results by the end of June.
2010 winner. from left to right: Hannah Gerber (competition coordinator), Murray de Villiers (from SAS), Dorette Pienaar (the first prize winner), Delia North (SASA education committee chair) and Yoko Chhana (the 2010 SASA president).
The contact person is Verena Nolan ([email protected]).
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Mark Lourens is responsible for Managing the Demand Planning function for the out-‐sourced Inventory
Management service, IBD (Inventory by Design –
a specialized service offering of UTi), and assisting in generating monthly forecasts & researching further forecasting techniques/methods and potential models.
As we all know, statistics can be applied to pretty much any field in existence. As an analytical person, who really enjoys the mathematical sciences and finds a wide range of topics interesting, I was naturally drawn to the field of statistics. My choice of university, the University of Port Elizabeth, currently NMMU (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University), equipped me well for work-‐life after studies. The range of topics covered in the course material as well as the quality of education, not only prepared me for my future as a statistician, but also taught me problem solving skills which I use on a daily basis. I found the lecturers friendly and approachable and always eager to share their knowledge.
I definitely use the experience I gained during the research-‐based part of my post-‐graduate studies,
as each new day brings one or more new projects. In addition, having gained statistical knowledge from a wide variety of topics in my undergraduate years, I have learnt that there is always a way to solve, or get around the problems we encounter.
I strongly encourage doing post-‐graduate studies, especially a degree with a research project as one of the selected subjects. The research helps to prepare one for work-‐life after your studies. Understanding and applying research methodologies whilst gaining experience working on a project should make you more attractive to a potential future employer. In my experience I have found that the areas of time-‐series and operations management/mathematical programming to be a good combination, especially for certain fields within Supply Chain Management (more specifically, Demand/Supply Planning).
Mark Lourens
Demand Planning Manager
News from the Careers CommitteeYoung Statisticians starting their careers…
Mark Lourens
Graduate Paper Competition
Congratulations to the winners of last year’s competition. The prizes were awarded to the winners at the SASA conference in Potchefstroom (hosted by NWU).
2011 winners, from left to right: Howard Gabriels (Stats SA), Wickes Robbertse (2nd prize winner from UJ), Yoko Chana (SASA President 2010), Lise Werner (1st prize from UKZN), Prof D North (HOD: UKZN)
HARVARD UNIVERSITYSouth Africa Fellowship Program Application
APPLICATIONS DEADLINE FOR THE
The ICCSSA Task Team met on 26 January 2011. The following were the main decisions taken at the meeting and is based on the assumption that the amendments to the SASA constitution are accepted:
Convention Center, Midrand.
start-‐up funding and also to encourage statisticians in industry to join the organisation.
established.
Contact person: Mr Howard Gabriels at [email protected]
Update on the Institute of Certificated and Chartered
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The development of Bayesian Statistics in South Africa through the years till now has followed the trend in the rest of the world.
My personal interest in the Bayesian paradigm started with the appearance of the Morris DeGroot’s book in 1970 on Optimal Statistical Decisions and via offering a course on that. We arranged a Bayesian symposium in 1985 with Jim Berger as the key speaker. The ISBA conference was hosted at UCT in 1996 when Arnold Zellner was president of ISBA, and thereafter, we started a chapter of ISBA in SA with regular sessions during the SASA conferences since 1998. During the recent conference held in Potchefstroom there were at least two sessions with mainly Bayesian flavours, and it was good to see especially young people presenting Bayesian papers.
Great Bayesians such as Seymour Geisser, Dennis Lindley, Jim Zidek, Jim Press, Jim Berger, Nozer Singpurwella, George Box, José Bernardo, Arnold Zellner, Tom Mazzuchi, Julian Besag, Sanjib Basu, Peter Mueller, Jan van Noortwijk,
Ed George contributed to the development of Bayesian Statistics in SA by visiting the country as invited speakers to SA Statistical conferences, or by special invitation. The one thing that grabs me about the Bayesian philosophy is the idea from Harold Jeffreys to express prior information on a parameter through the use of a subjective degree of reasonable belief of probability. Updating this belief through the data via Bayes theorem to a posterior distribution was fairly easy on many of the well known statistical models, but especially in the multivariate models, this becomes analytical very difficult.
This hurdle was pretty soon overcome through Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques. Julian Besag with Adrian Smith and Alan Gelfand were the leaders in this area. Algorithms like Gibbs, Metropolis and Metropolis-‐Hastings came to the fore and with high speed computers, it became the in thing to simulate the posterior distributions. A big advantage of these simulated posteriors is that most statistical inferences on the parameters can be done. Confidence intervals (also known as credible sets) for instance which can be very difficult to specify in classical analyses, could be obtained fairly easily. We followed the track and with packages such as MATLAB, SAS, WinBUGS and R it becomes the common practice here as well. Another advantage of MCMC is that it solves the inference problems in hierarchical models. Nozer Singpurwella as a disciple of Dennis Lindley likes the phrase of continuing with the conversation by repeatedly applying Bayes theorem. You can just go on by modelling the parameters with another layer of parameters.
An interesting area of research became the choice of the prior belief and investigations on different priors follow. The elicitation of priors through expert opinions was an area to take note of and we learned from people like to Tom Mazzuchi and Jan van Noortwijk how well that can be done especially on models with many parameters. Objective non informative priors are still very popular and conjugate priors in some of the simpler models are still good options. Arnold Zellner visited our department a couple of times and he promoted his idea of maximal data information prior. Personal I like these priors because they are model related, not too hard to derive and are obtained through maximizing the entropy of the model which you are supposed to know under given constraints.
Seymour Geisser taught us about prediction and this is an area of great interest lately. Especially in Extreme Value analysis, prediction is very relevant. One needs to predict into the future and the predictive density of a future observation fits just fine. Seymour used to tell us that a parameter is a misty entity and can never be observed, but a future observation can be observed. So, rather asked for a predicted value instead of an estimate of a parameter.
Model validation through DIC (data information criterion) or some other measures is a must and forms a crucial part of the Bayesian analysis. This is an area where more research is needed, because existing criteria usually test only part of the model.
All this is part of the Bayes paradigm and have been taken further by many South African Bayesians and non Bayesians through the years. To my opinion the number of papers published and presentations at workshops and SASA conferences with applications in some of the above areas by South Africans has grown, and will continue to grow.
The Development of Bayesian Statistics in SA through the Years Daan de Waal
University of the Free State
Daan de Waal -‐ University of the Free State
News from ISIOn the ISI invoice you have received or will receive shortly for your membership fee for the year 2011, it is stated that the journal International Statistical Review (ISR) online version costs EUR 11. The Executive Committee (EC) had a meeting recently and decided to reduce the price to EUR 6 for the ISR online version for all developing country members.
If you have already paid EUR 11 for subscription to the online version of the ISR for the year 2011, the extra EUR 5 will be booked to the year 2012.
For further information:
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SASA Executive and other committee members for 2011Portfolio Name & Contact details Postal AddressPresident Dr Pravesh Debba
[email protected]: (012) 841 3421 (w)Fax: (012) 841 3037 (w)
Statistical Modelling & AnalysisLogistics & Quantitative MethodsCSIR, P O Box 395Pretoria 0001
Vice-‐President & Peer-‐reviewed conference proceedings & co-‐ordinate Careers portfolio
Dr Gary [email protected]: (041) 504 2288 (w)Fax: (041) 504 2659 (w)
Department of StatisticsP O Box 77000NMMUPort Elizabeth 6031
Past President & Sponsorship & Image building internationally
Ms Yoko [email protected] Tel: (011) 717 6280/6288 (w)Fax: (011) 717 6285 (w)
School of Statistics & Actuarial ScienceUniversity of the WitwatersrandPrivate Bag 3Wits 2050
Secretary and Archives Ms Marie [email protected]: (012) 997 0653 (w)Fax: (012) 997 0653 (h)
Stats4scienceP O Box 50505Moreleta VillagePretoria 0097
Treasurer & Webmaster Prof. Paul [email protected]: (021) 808 3536 (w)Fax: (021) 808 3830 (w)
Department of Statistics & Actuarial ScienceUniversity of StellenboschPrivate Bag X1Matieland 7602
Managing Editor of SASJ & Sabinet Dr Nelis [email protected] (till May 2011)[email protected] Tel: (011) 559 3275 (w)Fax: (011) 559 2499 (w)
Department of Mathematics & StatisticsUniversity of JohannesburgP O Box 524Auckland ParkJohannesburg 2006
Newsletter Editor Dr Sonali [email protected]: (012) 841 3713 (w)Fax: (012) 841 3037 (w)
Statistical Modelling & AnalysisLogistics & Quantitative MethodsCSIRP O Box 395Pretoria 0001
SGB, Chapters and Constitution revision Prof. Sarah [email protected]: (046) 603 8346 (w)Fax: (046) 622 2723 (w)
Department of StatisticsRhodes UniversityPO Box 94Grahamstown 6140
Assist with Careers portfolio, sponsorship & Journal until May 2011
Ms Inger Fabris-‐RotelliInger.Fabris-‐[email protected]: (012) 420 5420 (w)Fax: (012) 420 3440 (w)
Department of StatisticsUniversity of PretoriaLynnwood StreetHatfieldPretoria 0083
Education Committee Chairperson Prof. Delia [email protected]: (031) 260 3011 (w)Fax: 086 685 6452 (w)
School of Statistics & Actuarial ScienceUniversity of KwaZulu-‐NatalPrivate Bag X54001Durban 4000
ICCSSA & Official Statistics Committee Chairperson
Mr Howard [email protected](012) 333 3643 (w)(012) 333 0002 (f)
Stats SAPrivate Bag X44Pretoria 0001
Image Building and assist with Careers portfolio Dr Leonard [email protected] Tel: (018) 299 4045 (w)Fax: (018) 299 2557 (w)
School of Computer Science, Statistics & MathematicsNorth-‐West UniversityPrivate Bag X6001Potchefstroom 2520
Sponsorship Dr James [email protected]: (018) 299 2571 (w)Fax: (018) 299 2557 (w)
School of Computer Science, Statistics & MathematicsNorth-‐West UniversityPrivate Bag X6001Potchefstroom 2520
Stats SA representative Ms Yandiswa [email protected]: (012) 310 8608 (w)Fax: (012) 310 2115 (w)
Stats SAPrivate Bag X44Pretoria 0001
Editor of SASJ Prof. Max Finkelsteinfinkelm@u fs.ac.zaTel: (051) 401 2110Fax: (051) 444 2024
Department of Mathematical StatisticsUniversity of the Free StateP O Box 339Bloemfontein 9300
12SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. © 2010 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. 51467US.0110
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