The IASC-ARS 25th Anniversary Conference & CASC 2nd Annual Conference
With the rapid development of modern computing technology and the rise of the big data,
opportunities and challenges in statistical computing have been witnessed in all dimensions of
data science. Confronted with such condition, the Asian Regional Section of the International
Association for Statistical Computing (IASC-ARS) and Chinese Association for Statistical
Computing (CASC) jointly hold the IASC-ARS 25th Anniversary Conference & CASC 2nd
Annual Conference to be held at Beijing Conference Center, Beijing, China, on 9-11 November
2018. The theme of the conference is “Statistical Computing: Challenges and Opportunities in
Data Science”.
The conference is dedicated to promoting further development of statistical computing in
modern data science, and to providing a platform for international academic exchanges and
cooperation among Statistical Computing and data science professionals.
The program is available at the conference website.
The conference has 4 keynote speakers and 19 invited and contributed sessions. There are
approximately 150 participants.
Keynote speakers: Donald B. Rubin, Jun Liu, Wing Kam Fung and Fang Yao
Local organizer: Center for Statistical Science, Tsinghua University
We look forward to seeing you in Beijing!
IASC-ARS: Distinguished Service Awards
To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of IASC-ARS, it was agreed to establish the Distinguished
Service Award in recognition and with sincere appreciation for the dedicated effort and
outstanding service to the IASC-ARS. IASC-ARS is pleased to announce that the recipients
of the first Distinguished Service Award are Professor Jae Chang Lee and Professor Yutaka
Tanaka.
Jae Chang Lee Yutaka Tanaka
The Distinguished Service Award Presentation Ceremony will take place during the conference
dinner of the joint meeting of the IASC-ARS 25th Anniversary Conference & CASC 2nd Annual
Conference on 10 November 2018.
Warmest congratulations to Professor Jae Chang Lee and Professor Yutaka Tanaka.
LARS-IASC School on Computational Statistics and Data Science Statistics of extremes: Modeling, inferences, and applications
The Latin American Regional Section (LARS) of the International Association for Statistical
Computing (IASC) will organize its first “LARS-IASC School on Computational Statistics and
Data Science” in Salvador, Brazil, from 15-17 November 2018, under the topic “Statistics of
extremes: Modeling, inferences, and applications”. The main purpose of the LARS-IASC
School is to spread the knowledge base and advances in Statistical Computing in Latin
American countries and to increase the quality and quantity of researchers in the field. The
“LARS-IASC School on Computational Statistics and Data Science” will be a satellite event of
the 1st Conference on Statistics and Data Science, that will also be held in Salvador, Brazil,
from 12-14 November 2018.
The LARS-IASC School on Extreme Value Theory will feature the lecturers Miguel de Carvalho
(University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK), Manuele Leonelli (University of Glasgow, Scotland,
UK) and Dani Gamerman (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
More information about the program and registration for the LARS-IASC School on
Computational Statistics and Data Science can be found here.
Final CRoNoS Spring Course
The final CRoNoS Spring Course will take place at the Poseidonia
Beach Hotel, Limassol, Cyprus, 14-16 April 2019. The aim of this
training course is to put together several tutorials on topics related
to robust statistics, computational statistics and the treatment of non-
standard data. The course is sponsored by COST and IASC-
ERS. Eligible PhD students and Early Career Investigators can
apply for grants. More details can
be found at http://cmstatistics.org/CRONOSMDA2019/cronosmdacourse.php.
Fourth Latin American Conference on Statistical Computing
Guayaquil, Ecuador, 28-31 May 2019
The Fourth Latin American Conference on Statistical Computing (LACSC 2019) will be held in
Guayaquil, Ecuador, from 28-31 May 2019. This international conference, will be held together
with the International Conference on Robust Statistics (ICORS 2019), which is the most
important event in Robust Statistics. Its aim is to gather researchers interested in statistical
computing in Latin America and from other parts of the world, and is the official conference of
the Latin American Regional Section of the International Association for Statistical Computing
(LARS-IASC). More details about the LACSC 2019 will be available soon.
The IASC-ARS 2019 Conference
We have set up a website for the IASC-ARS 2019 to be held at the University of Hong
Kong on 2-5 December 2019 and a poster for the conference. We look forward to seeing
you in Hong Kong to attend the IASC-ARS 2019 conference and to experience the fusion
of Chinese and Western cultures and beauty of Hong Kong!
Cluster Benchmarking Challenge Call Neutral Benchmarking Studies of Clustering
The Cluster Benchmarking Task Force of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS) is calling for neutral
benchmarking studies in cluster analysis. This call is part of a challenge connected with the 2019 IFCS conference in
Thessaloniki, Greece, on 26-29 August.
To achieve a cumulative building of knowledge on clustering and classification, careful
attention to benchmarking (performance comparison of methods) is very important. New
methods of data pre-processing, new data-analytic techniques, and new methods of output
post-processing, should be extensively and carefully compared with existing alternatives, and
existing methods should be part of neutral comparison studies. Benchmarking studies can
frequently been found in supervised learning, but are less common in unsupervised learning.
The Task Force has written a white paper (for a preprint, see: arxiv.org) that addresses the
theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of benchmarking in cluster analysis, and some
practicalities for performing sound benchmarking studies. The Task Force is now calling for
individuals to contribute neutral benchmarking studies on cluster analysis as part of a
challenge.
Rules for submission:
• Contributions for the challenge must be e-mailed to Iven.VanMechelen@kuleuven.be.
• A contribution should comprise a report on a benchmarking study in the context of
cluster analysis. This report should have a length of between 5 and 15 pages, including
text, tables, figures and references; other materials can be submitted as separate files.
• The benchmarking study may compare methods of data pre-processing, clustering
(potentially but not necessarily including the estimation of cluster parameters such as
the number of clusters), and/or output post-processing, and may use empirical or
simulated data.
• Contributors should have a neutral point of view with respect to the methods studied in
the contribution. This means that they should not be an author or co-author of one or
more of the studied method(s). It is also expected that the contributors do not have a
personal interest to promote any of the involved methods in particular.
• The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2019, 12:00 pm CET.
Competition guidelines:
• Contributions to the challenge will be evaluated by the IFCS Task Force on
Benchmarking.
• Major evaluation criteria will be:
• the technical correctness and clarity of the report,
• that the study shows a critical reflection on principles on which a sound
benchmarking study should be based (which may be either in line or at odds
with the principles outlined in the white paper contributed by the Task Force),
• a detailed specification of the choices made in the benchmarking study at issue
along with a justification of these based on the principles referred to above.
• Up to 8 contributions will be selected for a short presentation during one or two invited
sessions at the 2019 IFCS conference in Thessaloniki, Greece (such a presentation
will not conflict with giving another presentation at that conference). The authors of the
selected contributions will be notified no later than April 25, 2019. Authors of selected
contributions who cannot attend the conference will be invited to prepare a few slides
on their contribution.
• During the closing session of the IFCS conference one or two of the selected
contributions will be proclaimed winners of the challenge. The winners will receive a
CRC/Chapman and Hall book voucher.
• Contact for questions: Iven.VanMechelen@kuleuven.be.
All researchers interested in clustering and classification are most welcome to
participate in this challenge!
Task force members: Anne-Laure Boulesteix, Rainer Dangl, Nema Dean, Isabelle Guyon,
Christian Hennig, Friedrich Leisch, Douglas Steinley, Iven Van Mechelen, and Matthijs
Warrens.
download: 2018-11_IASC