San Antonio ASA
Chapter Newsletter
March 2009
Volume 22, No. 4
American Statistical Association
www.amstat.org/chapters/sanantonio/
Joel Michalek to Speak at April Chapter Meeting
You are invited to attend the April meeting of the San Antonio Chapter of the American Statistical
Association. Please distribute the attached flyer to coworkers and others who might be interested.
San Antonio ASA Chapter functions are always open to nonmembers and guests. Please consider
bringing a colleague or friend!
Title:
Misclassification and Confounding in the Air Force Health Study
Speaker:
Joel Michalek, PhD
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, UTHSCSA
Location:
UT Health Science Center, 7703 Floyd Curl Dr
Medical School Bldg, Room 309L
http://utmaps.uthscsa.edu/?urlname=3&urlid=15
Date:
Tuesday, April 7th
Time:
7 pm (6:30 pm refreshments)
Abstract: The Air Force Health Study was a 20-year epidemiological study of members of Operation
Ranch Hand, the Air Force unit that sprayed Agent Orange and other dioxin-contaminated herbicides in
Vietnam from 1962 to 1971. This talk summarizes decisions made during the study pertaining to
exposure metrics and adjustment. In retrospect, the most recent Air Force Health Study journal
publications suggest that confounders were missed and subjects were misclassified on exposure. This
talk details the path from protocol development to the final journal article in 2008, summarizing changes in
findings in cancer and diabetes to illustrate the time course of statistical adjustment during the 30 year
period from 1978 to 2008.
Parking: Visitor parking can be found in Lots 6 and 8.
Conference of Texas Statisticians 2009
The Conference of Texas Statisticians (COTS) will be hosted by Sam Houston State University,
Huntsville, Texas, on March 27-28, 2009. The conference chair is Dr. Melinda Miller Holt,
mxm014@shsu.edu.
Visit the conference website for campus maps, registration, hotel, and program schedule information:
http://www.shsu.edu/~mth_fbb/2009cots/2009cots.html.
Alamo Regional Science Fair Winners
The San Antonio Chapter sent volunteer judges to the 2009 Alamo Regional Science and Engineering
Fair at St. Mary’s University on March 10th to help select those senior high division projects that showed
excellence in the use of statistical methods. Volunteer judges this year were Howard Monroe, Ken
Williams, Carolyn Oakley, Keying Ye, Yi Cao, Mike Lecocke and Norma Ketchum.
The San Antonio Chapter awarded First place and $250 in savings bonds to the team of Ernest Thomas
and Huzeifa Badshah from Health Careers High School for their project titled "Minimizing Lawn Mower
Emissions.” Second place and a $150 savings bond was awarded to Eric VanDyk from Churchill High
School whose project was titled "Multitasking: Does Cell Phone Usage Affect Performance?” Third place
and a $100 savings bond was awarded to Wolf Honore from Keystone High School whose project was
titled "Effects of CO2 on the Nutritional Content of Brassica juncea.”
Congratulations to all of the winners!
The SA ASA Chapter would like to thank all who volunteered to judge. A special thanks goes to Howard
Monroe for his work as Chapter science fair judging coordinator.
2010 Conference on Frontier of Statistical Decision Making and Bayesian
Analysis
In honor of James O. Berger and his contributions to the statistics community, this conference will be held
at the downtown campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio on March 17-20, 2010. Also, on March
17, short courses on various statistical topics will be offered. The conference consists of plenary, invited,
and poster sessions. Plenary speakers include Donald Berry, Lawrence Brown, Persi Diaconis, Stephen
Fienberg, and Alan Gelfand. The conference will provide an overview of the past, present, and future
developments of statistical decisionmaking and Bayesian analysis. For more information, contact Keying
Ye.
Upcoming Conferences in the Area
(COTS) Conference of Texas Statisticians, Huntsville, Texas, March 27-28, 2009.
Sam Houston State University, Chairman, Melinda Miller Holt
http://www.shsu.edu/~mth_fbb/2009cots/2009cots.html
__________________________________________
San Antonio ASA Chapter Officers 2008-2009
President:
Jerry Keating, University of Texas at San Antonio
(210) 458-5370
jerome.keating@utsa.edu
Vice-President: Ram Tripathi, University of Texas at San Antonio
(210) 458-5549
ram.tripathi@utsa.edu
Secretary:
Treasurer:
Norma Ketchum, Brooks City-Base
(210) 536-1962
norma.ketchum@brooks.af.mil
Carolyn Oakley
(210) 481-3473
cjo@texas.net
COC Rep
(2008-2010):
COTS Rep
(2008-2010):
Bob Mason, Southwest Research Institute
(210) 522-2671
RMason@swri.edu
Peter Olofsson, Trinity University
(210) 999-8244
polofsso@trinity.edu
Webmaster:
Ginny de Wolf, dewolf@ktc.com