Preface
International Association for Statistical Computing
The International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC) is a Section
of the International Statistical Institute. The objectives of the Association
are to foster world-wide interest in effective statistical computing and to exchange technical knowledge through international contacts and meetings between statisticians, computing professionals, organizations, institutions, governments and the general public. The IASC organises its own Conferences,
IASC World Conferences, and COMPSTAT in Europe.
The 17th Conference of ERS-IASC, the biennial meeting of European Regional Section of the IASC was held in Rome August 28 - September 1, 2006.
This conference took place in Rome exactly 20 years after the 7th COMPSTAT symposium which was held in Rome, in 1986.
Previous COMPSTAT conferences were held in: Vienna (Austria, 1974);
West-Berlin (Germany, 1976); Leiden (The Netherlands, 1978); Edimbourgh
(UK, 1980); Toulouse (France, 1982); Prague (Czechoslovakia, 1984); Rome
(Italy, 1986); Copenhagen (Denmark, 1988); Dubrovnik (Yugoslavia, 1990);
Neuchâtel (Switzerland, 1992); Vienna (Austria,1994); Barcelona (Spain,
1996); Bristol (UK, 1998); Utrecht (The Netherlands, 2000); Berlin (Germany,
2002); Prague (Czech Republic, 2004).
Conference organization
This volume contains revised versions of selected papers presented at COMPSTAT 2006. The scientific programme of the conference included 327 papers,
4 in Keynote Sessions, 34 in Invited Sessions, 15 in Solicited Sessions, 242 in
Contributed Paper Sessions and 32 in Poster Sessions. A peer-review refereeing process led to the selection of 182 papers focusing on a wide range of
different topics which have been organized in the following chapters:
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Preface
Classification and Clustering,
Image Analysis and Signal Processing,
Data Visualization,
Multivariate Analysis,
Web-Based Teaching,
Algorithms,
Categorical Data Analysis,
Robustness,
Data Mining,
Biostatistics,
Resampling Methods,
Functional Data Analysis,
Time Series Analysis and Spatial Statistics,
Nonparametric Statistics and Smoothing,
Statistical Software and Optimization Algorithms,
Computational Bayesian Methods,
Computational Methods in Official Statistics,
Computational Methods in Finance, Industry and Economics,
Microarray Data,
Statistical Education
Many papers also offer relevant contributions in a wide range of application
fields. The book provides new advances in computational statistics, statistical
software, exploratory data analysis, data mining, pattern recognition, statistical graphics and data visualisation, statistical databases, and related fields,
in order to further the mission of IASC to link traditional statistical methodology, modern computer technology, and the knowledge of domain experts for
the convertion of data into information and knowledge.
Acknowledgments
The organizers of the Conference and the Editors of this volume wish first
to express their sincere gratitude to the authors of the papers in the present
volume, for their valuable contribution and for their enthusiastic participation
which made this Conference a successful forum for exchange of ideas and information concerning developments in computational statistics, data analysis
and in a wide range of applications.
We are grateful for the cooperation of the colleagues who reviewed papers for this volume and thank them for their time spent in this professional
capacity.
We wish to express our gratitude to the other members of the Scientific
Programme Committee and Consultative members: Tomăs Aluja, Jaromir Antoch, Hans-Hermann Bock, Adrian Bowman, Paula Brito, Atsuhiro Hayashi,
Erricos Kontoghiorghes, Carlo Lauro, Ludovic Lebart, Edward Wegman.
Preface
VII
We gratefully acknowledge the University of Roma ”La Sapienza” and its
Department of Statistics for financial support and hospitality. We are also
indebted to Banca D’Italia, Istat - Istituto Nazionale di Statistica, Pragma
and SAS for their support.
We thank all the other members of the Local Organizing Committee:
Marco Alfó, Francesco De Antoni, Fulvio De Santis, Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi, Tommaso Gastaldi, Paolo Giordani, Domenica Fioredistella Iezzi,
Giuseppe Manfredi, Luciano Nieddu, Marco Perone Pacifico, Luigi Pieri,
Roberto Rocci, Luca Tardella, Donatella Vicari, for the excellent work done
in managing the organization of COMPSTAT 2006 conference. Special thanks
go to Marco Alfó and Luciano Nieddu, who prepared the latex version of this
volume of proceedings and Laura Bocci, Alessio Farcomeni, Paolo Giordani
and Donatella Vicari who prepared the latex version of the book of Abstracts.
Future COMPSTAT Conference
The 18th COMPSTAT Conference is scheduled for August 2008 in Porto
(Portugal). Paula Brito, IASC Scientific Secretary, will be the Chair of the
Conference.
Rome,
August, 2006
Alfredo Rizzi
Maurizio Vichi