BIOMETRICS SECTION NEWS, June 2007

EXCITING PROGRAM AT THE 2007 JSM
The theme of this year's Joint Statistical Meetings, July 29- August 2 in Salt Lake City, Utah is "Statistics: Harnessing the power of information”. The Biometrics Section is proud to sponsor two continuing education courses:

“Statistical Genetics”, by Kenneth Lange, Janet Sinsheimer and Eric Sobel on 7/31 from 8:30AM to 5:00PM.
“Dropout in Longitudinal Studies ”, by Mike Daniels and Joe Hogan on 7/31 from 8:30AM to 5:00PM.

In addition, the Biometrics section is sponsoring an exciting program of invited sessions and talks spanning a broad range of topics in Biostatistics. The titles, organizers, dates, times, speakers and talks are given below. Be sure to verify dates and times at the JSM!

“Challenging Issues in Longitudinal Biomedical Data Analysis ”, organized by Annie Qu, Oregon State University on 7/29 from 4:00PM to 5:50PM.

“ Does Misspecification of the Random Effects Distribution Affect Predictions of Random Effects ”, by Charles McCulloch and John Neuhaus, University of California, San Francisco.
“Modeling of Mean-Covariance Structures in Generalized Estimating Equations for Longitudinal Data”, by Jianxin Pan, University of Manchester.
“Finite Sample Bias Corrections to Sandwich Covariance Estimators for Longitudinal and Clustered Data”, by John Preisser, UNC at Chapel Hill; Bing Lu, Brown University, and Bahjat Qaqish, UNC at Chapel Hill.
“Analysis of Clustered Longitudinal Data with Applications to Clinical Dental Research”, by Brian Leroux, University of Washington.

“ Statistical Methods for Gene Regulatory Networks ”, organized by Tian Zheng, Columbia University on 7/30 from 8:30AM to 10:20AM.

“ Bayesian Error Analysis Model for Reconstructing Transcriptional Regulatory Networks”, by Ning Sun, Yale University.
“Studying Co-regulation and Inter-regulation of Genes via eOTL Mapping”, by Tian Zheng, Columbia University.
“Self-Correcting Maps of Molecular Pathways”, by Andrey Rzhetsky, Tian Zheng and Chani Weinreb, Columbia University.
“Using Sequence Information to Predict Gene Regulation”, by Jun Liu, Harvard University and Qing Zhou, University of California, Los Angeles.

“Statistics in Genomics and Proteomics ”, organized by Huixia Wang, North Carolina State University on 7/30 from 10:30AM to 12:20PM.

“ A Method for the Detection of Alternative Splicing From Exon Array Data”, by Terrence Speed, University of California, Berkeley.
“Statistical Analysis of Histone Acetylation”, by Ping Ma, University of Illinois.
“Quantifying Protein: Reverse-Phase Protein Arrays”, by Keith Baggerly, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Center.
“Statistical Design of Microarrays and Multiple Testing of Gene Expression Data”, by Jason Hsu, Ohio State University.

“Design of Experiments for Categorical Data”, organized by Min Yang, University of Missouri – Columbia on 7/31 from 10:30AM to 12:20PM.

“ A Response-driven Design: The Randomized Reinforcement Urn”, by Nancy Flournoy, University of Missouri-Columbia.
“Optimal Designs for Dose Finding Studies”, by Holger Detter, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum.
“Multi-center Clinical Trials with Binary Outcomes and Random Effects for Centers: Sample Size Determination”, by Kathryn Chaloner, University of Iowa.
“Optimal Designs of Clinical Studies for Multivariate Probit Model”, by Valeri Fedorov, GlaxoSmithKline.

“Statistical Methodology for the Analysis of Sleep Studies”, organized by Brian Caffo, John Hopkins School of Public Health on 8/1 from 8:30AM to 10:20AM.

“ Generalized Linear Mixed Model Analysis of Multi-State Sleep Transition Data, the Sleep Heart Health Study”, by Brian Caffo, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health; Bruce Swihart, Johns Hopkins University, and Naresh Punjabi, Johns Hopkins Bayeview Medical Center.
“Methods for Signal Extraction from EEG Time Series with Application to Large Studies of Sleep”, by Chongzhi Di and Ciprian Crainiceanu, John Hopkins University.
“Semiparametric Event History Models for Analyzing Human Sleep Data”, by Thomas Kneib, Institut fur Statistik; Ludwig Fahrmeir, University of Munich, and Alexander Yassouridis, Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry.

“Frailty Models for Survival Analysis”, organized by Xuelin Huang, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center on 8/1 from 10:30AM to 12:20PM.

“ Semiparametric Approaches for the Analysis of Multi-Level Failure Time Data”, by Joanna Shih, National Cancer Institute and Shou-En Lu, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
“Frailty Models for Survival Data with Informative Censoring”, by Xuelin Huang, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Lei Liu, University of Virginia.
“Goodness of Fit for Frailty Models”, by John Klein, Medical College of Wisconsin.

“New Developments in the Analysis of Medical Data with Complex Structures”, organized by Jianguo Sun, University of Missouri on 8/2 from 10:30AM to 12:20PM.

“ Multivariate Interval-Censored Survival Data: Parametric, Semi-Parametric and Non-parametric Models”, by Philip Hougaard, Lundbeck.
“Robust Estimation of State Occupancy Probabilities with Interval Censored Multi-State Data”, by Richard Cook and David Tolusso, University of Waterloo.
“A Class of Linear Transformation Models Under Interval Censoring”, by Zhigang Zhang, Oklahoma State University.
“Inference after Model Selection Using Restricted Permutation Methods”, by Rui Wang and Stephen Lagakos, Harvard School of Public Health.

The Biometrics Section would like to thank Mahlet Tadesse, our JSM Continuing Education Chair, and Runze Li, our JSM Program Chair for their wonderful job in organizing these courses and sessions. Check the online program at the 2007 JSM web site (available through the ASA web site www.amstat.org) for updates on locations and times.

ENAR 2008
It is time to think about invited sessions for ENAR 2008, which will be held March 16-19 in Crystal City, Virginia. Anyone who is interested in organizing an invited session or who has ideas for one, please contact our 2008 Program Chair, Tim Johnson, at tdjtdj@umich.edu

A typical session consists of three 30-minute talks followed by a 30 minute
discussion or four 30-minute talks. June 11 is the deadline for proposals. It is best if you have a well-defined topic and have commitments from speakers/discussants by June 11. The more detailed the proposal, the better the changes that the proposal will be selected in this highly competitive process.

JSM 2008
It’s also time to start thinking about invited sessions for next year's Joint Statistical Meetings, which will be held August 3 - August 7 in Denver, Colorado. Anyone who is interested in organizing an invited session or who has ideas for one, please contact our 2008 Program Chair, Debashis Ghosh, at ghoshd@umich.edu.

A typical invited session consists of three 30-minute talks followed by a 10-minute invited discussion and 10 minutes of floor discussion. However, other formats are possible. The 2007 program is a good source for examples.

Remember, the most mature ideas will have an advantage in competing for the limited number of slots, so it's best to have your ideas in final form by the middle of June. The Biometrics Section will have at least four invited sessions, but if we generate enough good ideas we will be able to compete for additional slots as well.