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The upcoming 6th World Congress of the Bernoulli Society, to be held jointly with the 67th meeting of the Institute of Mathematics Statistics, presents a wonderful opportunity to learn about some of the most exciting recent developments in probability and statistics. It is also a natural time to reflect on the role of the Society and in what ways it can evolve to best serve our community. The meeting will provide opportunities for informal discussions of possible new initiatives such as the newly-created Committee of Stochastic Sciences Institutes, described elsewhere in this issue.
The story of the creation of the Bernoulli Society in 1975, and the developments within the International Statistical Institute and elsewhere that led up to its creation, can be found in the wonderful articles of Jef Teugels that originally appeared in Bernoulli News and can also be found on our website, starting at
www.cbs.nl/isi/BS/history1.htm
. Since the history of the ISI itself goes back to 1853, the roots of the Society are both broad and deep. Among the many successes of the Society since 1975, a major event was the First World Congress that was held in Tashkent in 1986, and since then successive world congresses have highlighted the remarkable development of our discipline over the past twenty years. Beginning with the Second World Congress in Uppsala in 1990, these meetings have been organised jointly with the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. The success of these joint meetings, and the fact both societies have similar goals, make it natural to look for further areas such as publications where the Bernoulli Society and IMS can work together. In this spirit the executive committees of the two societies are currently exploring ways to achieve this.
In closing, I would like to invite members to attend the General Assembly of the Society to be held during the World Congress at 12:30 on 30 July 2004, as well as to provide their ideas on the future of the Society.
— Don Dawson
(Bernoulli Society President)
At the suggestion of the Bernoulli Society Council, a committee will be formed of directors of mathematical institutes organising, facilitating and developing programs in the stochastic sciences and related fields. The first meeting of the committee will take place at the 4th World Congress of the Bernoulli Society in Barcelona, on Tuesday, 27 July 2004, at 19:15-20:45. Frank den Hollander is the Chair (EURANDOM, The Netherlands,
denhollander@eurandom.tue.nl
).
The task the committee will set itself is to increase the co-operation of institutes that share the common goal of providing high-level research and training in the stochastic sciences with a national and international profile. The committee members will share experiences on past activities, inform each other about upcoming events, discuss fundraising both nationally and internationally, investigate possibilities for exchange of researchers and for tuning of future programs, and seek to assist colleagues who are actively working towards the creation of new institutes.
Through the committee the Bernoulli Society wishes to stimulate communication between institutes and to create a forum for international exchange. For more information, please contact the Chair.
— Frank den Hollander
(Chair, CSSI)
First and foremost, acknowledgment and thanks go to the outgoing CCSP Chair, Robert Adler, for both model service, as well as for providing background information that would afford a very smooth transition. This, and the forward momentum Robert and his committee furnished, has made it relatively easy to take over.
The 2004 meeting of Stochastic Processes and their Applications (SPA) is subsumed by the 6th Bernoulli World Congress in Barcelona.
The next (30th) SPA is being organised by Raya Feldman (Chair), Janos Englander and Guillaume Bonnet, and is to be held 26 June - 1 July 2005 on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara: see the website
www.pstat.ucsb.edu/projects/spa05/
for more information. Among possible new developments at SPA30 is the possible selection of this meeting to host an IMS Medallion lecture, or lectures, in cooperation with the Bernoulli Society and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
The arrangements for the 31st SPA are also underway for Paris during the third week of July, 2006, by Jean Bertoin (Chair), Sylvie Meleard, and Bernard Ycart. Excellent progress has already been made in what also promises to be an exciting SPA meeting.
CCSP continues to be engaged in the process of host selections for 2007 and beyond. Interested members of the Bernoulli Society may contact a member of CCSP to discuss potential organisers and sites for future conferences.
Current membership of CCSP is as follows: Robert Adler, Tim Brown, Erwin Bolthausen, Donald Dawson, Rick Durrett, Hans Foellmer, Tadahisa Funaki, Rudolph Gruebel, Claudio Landim, Zhi-Ming Ma, Servet Martinez, Sylvie Meleard, Claudia Neuhauser, James Norris, Victor Perez-Abreu, Ed Perkins, Ed Waymire (Chair) and Ruth Williams.
— Ed Waymire (Chair, CCSP)
The ERC is currently supporting the following activities.
25th European Meeting of Statisticians, 24-29 July 2004, Oslo, Norway. The meeting is organised jointly by the Norwegian Computing Centre and the University of Oslo. The Scientific Program Committee consists of Aad van der Vaart (Chair), Oernulf Borgan, Jeffrey Steif, Gareth Roberts, Sylvia Richardson, Ursula Gather and Tomasz Rolski. The Chairman of the Local Organising Committee is Arnoldo Frigessi, and the Deputy Chairman is Nils Lid Hjort. More details on the Special Lectures, Sessions and their organisers are elsewhere in this newsletter. The meeting’s website is at
www.ems2005.no/ .
5th Séminaire Européens de Statistique on Statistics of Spatio-temporal Systems, 12-19 December 2004, Höhenried, near Munich, Germany. Please see the separate announcement elsewhere in this newsletter and visit the website
www.stat.uni-muenchen.de/semstat2004
for further information.
14th European Young Statisticians Meeting, August 2005, Debrecen, Hungary. The Local Organiser is Katalin Varga
(varga@szit.bme.hu or vkati@hu.inter.net
).
26th European Meeting of Statisticians, 24-28 July 2006, Thorun, Poland. Herold Dehling is chairing the Scientific Program Committee. The Chairman of the Local Organising Committee is Adam Jakubowski.
Updated information on these activities can always be found via the ERC's website at
www-m4.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/m4/erc/
.
— Claudia Klüppelberg
(Chair, ERC)
The new committee of the Latin-American Regional Chapter comprises Maria Emilia Caballero, Pablo Ferrari (Chair), Ricardo Fraiman, Raul Gouet, Eduardo Gutierrez, Jose Rafael Leon, Ernesto Mordecki and Fernando Quintana. It is organising two events in the immediate future.
— Pablo Ferrari (Chair, LARC)
The reins of the Committee will be handed over to the Chair-Elect, Wojbor Woyczynski, at the 2004 Congress. The Chair is currently organising an election of the next Chair-Elect from the Members of the Committee. The Committee is currently sponsoring the following meetings.
The Committee has a web site at the URL www.stat.berkeley.edu/~brill/CPS2/ .
— David R Brillinger (Chair, C(PS)2)