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The Executive Committee of the BS met in Frankfurt, March 15
th 2006. The meeting was attended by all members of the committee (Peter Jagers, Jean Jacod, Don Dawson (over the phone with the help of Skype), Arnoldo Frigessi, Volker Mammitzsch, Ursula Gather, Daniel Berze) and by Tom Kurtz, president of the IMS. Also Anton Wakolbinger joined this meeting, which was organised along the Frankfurter Stochastik-Tage 2006. To meet in person is indeed very useful; in fact we were able to discuss in detail many important issues. Here I summarise the most important ones, in order to give to you BS members some information on the activities (and the problems) of our society.The 7th Bernoulli Society World Congress will be in 2008 in Singapore, jointly with the 71st IMS Annual Meeting. We are very happy to have a chairperson for the programme committee. This is Professor Ruth Williams ( http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~williams/ ), from the Department of Mathematics at UCSD. She is now forming the Programme Committee. The programme of the BS world congress includes traditionally four BS named lectures (Bernoulli, Levy, Kolmogorov, Laplace) and we have suggested a fifth named lecture after Tukey, to indicate more clearly that statistics is central to BS.
In 2007, we have the 56th Session of the ISI (International Statistical Institute), 22 - 29 August in Lisboa. See http://www.isi2007.com.pt/isi2007/index.php for already now very complete information. The BS is supporting (spiritually, not financially!) two satellite meetings: in Lisbon on non-parametrics and in Porto on Probability and Statistics in Science and Technology (scientific committee chaired by Holger Rootzén).
We remind our European friends that there will be the 26th European Meeting of Statisticians in 2006, http://www.ems2006.umk.pl/. The location of the 27th EMS in 2009 is Toulouse (France). Adelchi Azallini (Italy) has been elected to chair the ERC for the period 2006-2008.
The EMS is in principle organised every second year, on
even years, but no EMS will be organised on the even years when the BS IMS World
conference is in Europe (2008).
The following-up of our journals is one of the main activities of the executive
of BS. We are currently looking for a new editor for the Bernoulli Journal. Not
easy, also because there are at least six other main journals in our area which
need a new editor. But can report on a BIG success for Stochastic Processes and
their Applications. Maria Eulalia Vares has accepted to be the new editor ( http://www.cbpf.br/~eulalia/ )!!
The list of associated editors of SPA is very strong and presents a good balance
between genders. The production of our Bernoulli Journal is changing. We are now
looking for a publisher (private or academic) and are in detailed discussion
with several actors. The principles are to maintain full ownership and control
of the journal, to be in full command in terms of editorial decisions and the
science it publishes. We want to increase its distribution (which is
dropping!!!! Help -- please encourage your library to subscribe to the Bernoulli
Journal !!!), but also we see it as necessary to assure some profit from sales
of the journal in order to fund the activity of BS. This is an important point:
BS currently has an economy that does not allow any sponsored activity. BS needs
to do more, in particular to support statistics and probability in the poorer
parts of the world. For this we need funds! Currently member fees cover the cost
of the society (as member of the ISI family), while the economy of Bernoulli
Journal goes to zero, thanks to significant support from ISI.
BS has decided to support a new initiative, proposed by IMS. The creation of the Statistics Surveys Journal. Statistics Surveys will be a peer-reviewed electronic journal which publishes survey articles in theoretical and applied statistics. The style of articles may range from reviews of recent research to graduate textbook exposition. Articles may be broad or narrow in scope. The essential requirements are a well specified topic and target audience, together with clear exposition. This journal will provide open access to all of its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Such access is associated with increased readership and increased citation of an author's work.
BS needs new members! Can you help? Can you invite your students and colleagues to join the BS? We have many reduced fees, including student fees, for example! BS wishes to organise a standing committee of young statisticians, so if you are young, and feel this is for you, please let us know!
Best wishes to all,
Arnoldo Frigessi
BS Scientific Secretary