American Statistical Association
Colorado-Wyoming Chapter
Volume 29, Number 2
Newsletter
November 1, 1997
Winter Meeting - January 14, 1998
University of Colorado at Denver 5:30 - 5:45 p.m. Social
time
1250 14th Street (1/2 block from Larimer Square) 5:45 -
6:30 p.m. Presentation
Denver, Colorado 6:30 - ?:?? p.m. Informal dinner
Room 470
Our guest speaker for this event will be Major Jim
Simpson, Ph.D. from the US Air Force. He will be discussing the use of design of
experiments (DOE) as applied to CV-22 Osprey flight testing. The Osprey is a tiltrotor
aircraft; it can take off and land like a helicopter. However, once airborne, its blades
can be rotated to convert the aircraft to a turboprop airplane capable of high-speed,
high-altitude flight. Testing of four new "production representative" V-22s is
under way. The Department of Defense has placed its initial order for 16 V-22s and plans
to purchase 523 (425 - Marine Corps; 50 - Air Force Special Operations Command; 48 -
Navy), with deliveries scheduled to begin in 1999 to the Marines (source: Bell/Boeing
tiltrotor newsletter). DOE techniques are being implemented to reduce the number of flight
tests necessary for verification of the aircraft's procurement requirements. Major Simpson
is recognized by the Air Force as an expert in the application of DOE. He will share with
us his experience and insights into this very "real world."
Chapter News
New ASA Fellow:
The local chapter extends its congratulations to Richard
Tweedie of Colorado State University who was named a Fellow of the American Statistical
Association.
Newsletter Editor
Both an old position and a newly created position have
been filled. The old position is that of newsletter editor and this is probably as good a
time as any to introduce myself to the membership. My name is Jack Powers and I am new to
both the region and the profession. I am employed by Ball Corporation in Westminster, CO
as the manager of the Chemistry Laboratory. As my title at Ball indicates, I started life
as a chemist, but over the years became increasingly interested in statistics. My wife
nudged me into action one day when she came home with a course schedule and bulletin from
Ball State University. Thus, my new career was launched.
Ball Corporation gave me a different type of nudge this
summer when it moved our laboratory (benches and all) from Muncie, Indiana to Westminster.
This move happened one month after completing the requirements for a masters in
statistics. My advisor's parting words were to get active in the local chapter, so I did.
Any newsletter editor needs your help if the letter is to
reach its full potential. This is especially true in this case, as your editor is so new
to the chapter. Please tell me what is going on with regard to meetings, publications,
moves, promotions and the like. My E-mail address is jpower@ball.com.
Webmaster
A new position of "Webmaster"; has been created
and our first Webmaster is Jim zumBrunnen of Colorado State University. It has been
proposed that this position be a chapter officer and votes will be taken on that in the
future.
In a recent ASA survey, about 30% of the members polled
did not know that the ASA has a web site. This web site is full of useful
information, such as membership listings, LaTeX Macros, upcoming conferences, and job
listings. You can visit the ASA homepage at http://www.amstat.org/.
In addition, thanks to Jim zumBrunnen, our chapter has its own homepage. You can stay
informed by turning your web browser to http://www.stat.colostate.edu/ASA/.
After receiving his masters in mathematics
and teaching high school for one year, Jim served two years as a mathematical specialist
in a computer division of the US Army at Fitzsimmons Hospital in Aurora. Following two
years as a statistical program consultant at North Dakota State University, he completed
his master's degree in statistics at Iowa State University. In 1974 he came to the
Statistics Department at Colorado State University. He is now the Associate Director of
the Statistical Laboratory and of the Center for Applied Statistical Analysis.
Jim says he enjoys the interaction with
researchers at CSU and with clients off campus. He has also served as an expert witness in
court cases on topics as varied as a land condemnation appraisal and a Title IX sex
discrimination suit.
As webmaster for the ASA Chapter homepage,
Jim is looking forward to using the advanced features of Frontpage 98 to maintain the
attractive pages. Please let him know if you have suggestions on improving the design or
adding features to our chapter page.Did You Get Our
Last E-mail?
Very recently we sent out an E-mail to all members for
whom we have an E-mail address. If you have not received an E-mail from us, we probably
don't have your E-mail address or we have your wrong E-mail address. If you didn't get our
last message and want to receive future messages, please send your E-mail address to Joan
Kopp (73144.3340@compuserve.com).
Nominations Wanted
Nominations are being taken for the 1998 officer
elections. If anybody is interested in serving as President-Elect or Secretary please
contact one of the current officers. The term of office for President-Elect is one year,
with the understanding that you will be the President the following year. The usual term
of office for the Secretary is two years. Being an officer in the chapter is a great way
to meet new people and promote the statistical profession.
Maurice Davies Memorial Awards
Awards are available for outstanding statistics majors
from schools in the chapter area, in honor of Maurice Davies, a founder of the chapter.
One undergraduate or graduate student from a school may receive an award. The award
carries with it a one-year student membership in the American Statistical Association. If
a department desires to present such an award, please send the chapter president the name
of the student by March 15, 1998. It is the responsibility of the awarding department to
inform the student that they have been selected and invite them to be our guest at the
spring meeting in Colorado Springs. A member of the department should accompany the
student to the meeting and introduce them during the award presentation. It is not
necessary for a student to attend the meeting; the award can be mailed to them.
Not Receiving The Newsletter?
If a colleague should mention that he or she is not
receiving the chapter newsletter, it could be that dues are in arrears. The cost of
printing and mailing the newsletter is such that the chapter will only send it to those
whose dues are paid. In those cases where dues have been paid and the newsletter was still
not received, a chapter officer should be contacted.
Membership Expiration Dates
We hope that any lapses in membership are through
oversight rather than design. If all goes well, a reminder of when your membership expires
should be found on the newsletter mailing label.
Newsletter Sponsor
A special thanks to Air Academy Associates for sponsoring
this issue of the newsletter. This generous donation frees funds for other chapter
activities.
Winter Newsletter Deadline
Any information to be included in the next newsletter
should be submitted to Jack Powers by January 15, 1998. It should be noted that
information can be submitted any time before that.
Member Activities
Several members were kind enough to answer our call for
news of their activities. I am grateful to those who did and hope that in the process of
cutting and pasting this newsletter together, I did not butcher their dispatches too
badly. As a newcomer to the region, I find these updates quite interesting.
Rick Edgeman, Professor and
Co-Director of the Center for Quality & Productivity Improvement at Colorado State
University is in Denmark from July, 1997 to July 1998, where he is Visiting Professor of
Total Quality Management in the Quality & Innovation Research Group at the Aarhus
School of Business. He can be contacted by E-mail at RLE@HHA.DK
As part of his sabbatical activities, Rick
is teaching in the European Masters Program in Total Quality Management, a program which
involves ten universities from a similar number of Scandinavian and Western European
nations. It will soon include Colorado State University as the first U.S. university
participant. This activity will take Rick
to Sweden in the spring, where he will be teaching a course on response surface analysis
for product & process optimization. Rick will also be in Germany in April, presenting
a week of lectures at Kaiserslautern University.
Since July, Rick has been lecturing and
meeting with quality & reliability engineering professionals in England, Scotland,
Ireland and Denmark, and in the spring will be meeting with individuals in Sweden,
Germany, Switzerland, and France. This activity is part of an effort to assess Quality
Improvement
Practices and Trends in Europe.
Tom Boardman has participated in a
CASE Project (Center for Applied Statistical Expertise at CSU) involving electric
transmission operators (TOs) in California. Procedures are being sought to track how well
lines in various voltage classes perform under new operations. Engineering Data Management
received the contract and after several meetings with the TOs sought help from CASE.
Tom was awarded the Ellis Ott Award for
his work in applied statistics and management by the Ott Foundation and American Society
for Quality in the New York area. Ott was the chair of the Department of Statistics at
Rutgers University when Tom and Eileen were graduate students. The award was presented at
their ASQ 49th Annual Conference. Tom also gave a talk on "Ten Strategies for
Improving Products, Services, or Processes."
Tom was invited to give a keynote address
at Corning's Quality Network Forum, October 9 - 10, 1997 in Corning, NY. His topic was
"Tons of Data ... Little Information: Making Knowledge Based Decisions." Tom was
also persuaded to lead a workshop for 37 of Corning's statisticians on Oct. 8-9. Topics
will include "Statistical Thinking for Business Improvement," "Assessing
Measurement Processes," and "Are Statistical Thinking and Methods on the Decline
in Corporate America? And If So, What Can
Statisticians Do about It?"
Tom was recently elected 1998 Chair-Elect
of the ASA Q&P Section.Rick Engeman sent a report on the National Wildlife
Research Center. All Denver employees have now been transferred to Fort Collins. However
the "Center" is now distributed among 5 building locations throughout Fort
Collins. This inconvenient situation will change once a new office building is built
adjacent to the already completed animal research building on CSU's foothills campus.
Rick continues to conduct statistical
research and consulting under the official title of biologist (which is mostly a quirk of
the federal job classification system). The past year was another hectic travel year for
him. As in the past 2 years, most travel was for a long-term project on Guam to provide a
scientific evaluation of the efficacy of control and containment methods for preventing
the spread of brown tree snakes from Guam.
Rick made another trip to Alaska in
September to consult on a project monitoring the movements of geese in the
Anchorage-Elmendorf Air Force Base area. These abundant birds pose a significant hazard to
the aircraft at the many airports in the area and, in fact, were responsible for the crash
of an AWACS plane a few years ago. While there, he also consulted on a project to protect
waterfowl from consuming the highly toxic white phosphorus present on an artillery range
at Fort Richardson.
Rick's most recent trip was to Snowmass to
meet representatives of the International Association of Game and Fish Agencies
responsible for upcoming multi-year tests (on the bases of efficiency, humaneness, etc.)
of traps for 22 species of furbearers. The testing methods and results potentially could
have an important impact on international commerce in furs between Europe and North
America.
Publications since the last report:
M.E. Tobin, A.E. Koehler, R.T.
Sugihara and R.M. Engeman. 1996. "Effects of stage of nut development and simulated
rat damage on macadamia yields."; Seventeenth Vertebrate Pest Conference.
17:119-122.
R.M. Engeman, R.M. Anthony,
Heather W. Krupa and J. Evans. 1996. "The effects of Vexar seedling protectors on the
growth and development of lodgepole pine roots." Crop Protection. 16:57-61.
R.M. Engeman and E.M. Engeman.
1996. "Longevity of Woodhouse's toad in Colorado." Northwestern Naturalist.
77:23.
R.M. Engeman, V. Barnes, R.M.
Anthony and H.W. Krupa. 1997. "Effect of vegetation management for reducing damage to
lodgepole pine seedlings from northern pocket gophers." Crop Protection.
16:407 410.
M.A. Linnell, D.V. Rodriguez,
R.E. Mauldin and R.M. Engeman. 1997. irregularis: Incubation and Diet. SSAR
Herpetological Review. 28:153.
Pot Pourri
Contest: Who's The Oldest?
Did you know that the American Statistical
Association (ASA) is the second oldest professional association in the country? It was
founded in 1839 in Boston. Which professional association is older than ASA? The first
correct answer wins a free lunch at the ASA spring meeting. The winner and answer will be
published in the next newsletter. Proof of your answer is required since none of the CO-WY
ASA officers know the correct answer.
Tour Guides Wanted
Eunmee Koh is looking for people who work
in companies where statistical techniques are applied to increase quality, productivity,
etc. She would like to set up some tours for her students who are taking an introductory
statistics course, the idea being that students will be able to see first hand that
statistics can help you do a better job. If you can help Ms. Koh, please contact her at
(303) 937-4286 or ekoh@tlhu.edu.
CO-WY ASA SPRING MEETING
When: March 27, 1998
What: Student Paper Competition (8:30 a.m.
- 12:00)
Awards Luncheon (12:00 - 1:00 p.m.)
Where: Antlers Doubletree Hotel
Four South Cascade
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
(719) 473-5600 or 1(800) 222-TREE
Cost: $15.00 (includes choice of lunch)
A registration form can be found on the back sheet of the
newsletter.
Call for Student Papers - Spring Meeting 98
This year, the chapter's spring meeting will be held at
the Antlers Doubletree in downtown Colorado Springs. The meeting will feature the annual
student presentation competition and an awards luncheon. Students wishing to partake in
the 15-minute presentation competition should submit an abstract of 200 words or less to:
William Navidi
The Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
Colorado School of Mines
Golden, CO 80401-1887
(303) 273-3489 FAX 273-3875
wnavidi@mines.edu
ABSTRACT DEADLINE: March 3, 1998.
There will be a $50 cash prize for winning the
competition. In addition, this year we will initiate the "CO-WY ASA Best Student
Presentation Award." This will be a traveling award with "bragging rights"
going to the school that produces the best presentation. The award will be engraved with
the winning student's name and also his/her advisor's name. The announcement of other
awards received by CO-WY ASA members will also be appropriate. Just let the program chair
know about any awards that you would like announced and we will be happy to do it.
Call for Support
Cash donations for student awards at the spring meeting
are being solicited from the membership. This is a worthy cause. If we think back to our
student days, we should remember how far a little encouragement would go. This year we
have the added incentive that our contributions will be matched (up to $250). Please send
any donations to:
Snehalata Huzurbazar
P.O. Box 3332 Dept. of Statistics
University of Wyoming
Laramie, WY 82071
Call for Presentations - Western Statistics Teacher's
Conference (WeSTCo)
The CO-WY ASA Chapter will be sponsoring a conference on
teaching statistics. The goals of the conference are to improve the art of teaching
statistics by the sharing of: 1) Creative and innovative methods for teaching statistics.
2) Wisdom gained from past experiences of teaching statistics. 3) A good time that builds
camaraderie among colleagues. The conference will follow the spring meeting on 27 March at
1:30 PM. The conference will run through 28 March 1998 and cost $190 (includes 3 meals).
Abstracts for 15 minute presentations are being accepted by Jim Rutledge. For more
information and a list of invited speakers, please visit the conference homepage at
http://www.concentric.net/~Jimstat/. If you have any questions concerning the teachers'
conference, feel free to contact Brad Warner at (719) 333-2981
(WarnerBA.DFMS@USAFA.AF.MIL), or Jim Rutledge at (719) 333-4470
(RutledgeJH.DFMS@USAFA.AF.MIL).
Job Openings
It is recognized that these ads may be a
bit "stale" by the time they are published in the newsletter. We publish them
nonetheless so that the membership may get an idea of what opportunities are out there.
Those who are actively pursuing a career change should consult the chapter web page. All
notices received by the newsletter editor are forwarded to Jim zumBrunnen and posted on
the web page.
Research Triangle Institute
Survey Directors
The Research Triangle Institute, a leading
nonprofit survey research organization with offices in Research Triangle Park, NC, and the
Washington, DC area, currently has career opportunities for Survey Directors and Senior
Survey Directors.
Responsibilities include project
management, survey design, survey operations, proposal writing and costing, and marketing.
Advanced degree in a related field (e.g., Statistics, Sociology) preferred,
with at least three years of comparable
work experience.
RTI offers excellent opportunities for
career growth, competitive salary and excellent benefits. To apply, applicants should send
their resume to:
MR. KIRK PATE
SENIOR SURVEY DIRECTOR
RESEARCH TRIANGLE INSTITUTE
P.O. BOX 12194
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC
27709-2194
(E-MAIL: DKP@RTI.ORG; FAX:
919-541-1261)
To learn more about RTI, please visit our
web site at http://www.rti.org.
Eli Lilly And Company
Clinical Research Opportunities
**IMMEDIATE OPENINGS** Clinical Statisticians and
Scientific Systems Analysts
Eli Lilly and Company has immediate needs for
statisticians, systems analysts, and data analysts supporting global clinical trial
activities. Candidates will be given the opportunity to develop critical business
expertise within a therapeutic area, working closely with customers on one of several
co-located, cross-functional teams or in the central medical systems or statistics area.
Ideal systems and data analyst candidates will possess a
strong background in development of requirements and in data analysis, SAS and SAS Macros
in an IBM MVS/TSO mainframe environment. Experience in a clinical trial environment is
preferred. Testing, validation and documentation are also key skills.
Ideal statistician candidates will have experience in a
collaborative medical research environment, designing and conducting data analyses,
developing clinical trial protocols, and publishing study results.
Permanent and temporary positions are available.
Interested candidates should forward their resumes to:
ELI LILLY AND COMPANY
LILLY CORPORATE CENTER
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46285
ATTN. JEFF PREDAJNA, DC 2235 (SYSTEMS ANALYSTS)
OR ATTN. VIN RAMPEY, DC 0537 (STATISTICIANS)
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., a
leading employee-owned survey research organization, is seeking a manager to oversee and
direct its growing staff of systems analysts and programmers in its Princeton, NJ office.
The staff provide automated support to survey operations, data processing, and data base
management.
The manager supervises three systems
analysts and six programmers to meet the needs of clients and the company, leads the staff
in designing and implementing systems to support data collection operations, and
recommends hardware and software to meet the company's needs.
We are looking for a manager who is
experienced designing automated support of survey operations and managing systems
programmers and analysts.
This is an excellent opportunity for
someone who is interested in developing innovative and efficient computing solutions to
meet the needs of a growing survey research organization.
MPR offers a competitive salary and
benefits package. To apply, send a resume and salary requirements to:
MR. PATRICK MOONEY
MATHEMATICA POLICY RESEARCH, INC.
P.O. BOX 2393
PRINCETON, NJ 08543
(609) 799-3535
FAX: (609) 799-0005
E-MAIL:
PMOONEY@MATHEMATICA-MPR.COM
Visit our website at www.mathematica-mpr.com for further information
about our research and survey activities.
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CO-WY ASA SPRING MEETING REGISTRATION FORM
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LUNCH (circle one): CAJUN CHICKEN MAHI MAHI TORTELLINI
