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by Jia-Yeong Tsay To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium in the new millennium, the Board of Directors appointed Jia-Yeong Tsay as the symposium chair for the ICSA 2000 Applied Statistics Symposium during the August 1998 Board Meeting. In late 1998, he invited a group of highly experienced and dedicated individuals to form the Symposium Program Committee. The committee members were Danny Chaing, Rongdean Chen , Irwin Ho, Irving Hwang, Frank Shen , Weichung Joe Shih, Kao-Tai Tsai, Zhiliang Ying (Co-Chair), Weiying Yuan, Jun Zhao, in addition to ,Jia-Yeong Tsay himself. A monthly Committee Meeting had been held since January 1999 until the time of the Symposium. The Symposium was held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Piscataway, New Jersey from June 1 to June 3, 2000. The first day was for the short courses, which included ICH E10 Guideline and Design Issues in Non-Inferiority/Equivalence Trials by Dr. Irving Hwang; Experiments: Planning, Analysis, and Parameter Design Optimization by Professor Jeff Wu; and Statistical Designs for Genetic Epidemiology by Professors Terri Beaty and Kung-Yee Liang. The second and third days were for the invited and contributed sessions with a total of 25 sessions presented. The topics ranged from various types of statistical issues at the FDA, statistical applications in finance, clinical trials, and information science, to SAS programming, career mentoring and development, etc. Speakers included experts of underlying areas from FDA, NIH, academia, and various industries. Professor Marvin Zelen of Harvard University delivered an interesting and inspirational keynote speech on the topic of Statisticians, Statistical Science, and the Future. The banquet on June 2 was highlighted with a special speech on Advances in Forensic Sciences, given by Dr. Henry Lee, Commissioner of Public Safety, State of Connecticut. The Symposium had a big turnout. A total of 221 professional colleagues attended the Symposium from many different countries. In addition to the majority of US attendees, foreign attendees included colleagues and friends from Canada, Australia, Jordan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and so on. Contributing factors for the success of the Symposium include having a cohesive Program Committee to develop an attractive program, outstanding speakers to make interesting presentations, numerous helpers to support local logistic, among other things. Special thanks go to those volunteers, particularly, (a) Volunteers at the banquet: Aiyang Tao, Yamei Wang, Li Li, Dixi Xue, Xujie Yu, Henry Wu, Ting-chuan Wang, Huei-chung Dang , Joe and Jeannie Shui; (b) Students from Rutgers University for meeting site services: Yaning Yang, Jianshan Zhang, Hong Yin, Jyhming Shoung, Xin Tian, Jun Liu, Hongwei Wang. In sum, the ICSA 2000 Applied Statistics Symposium was very successful. On behalf of the ICSA, I would like to thank all participants for their contribution to the success of the Symposium. |