Travel support for the IMS-ISBA international conference

首席研究员要求支持将于2005年1月12日（星期三）至1月14日（星期五）在意大利博尔米奥举行的IMS（数理统计研究所）和ISBA（国际贝叶斯分析学会）第二次国际联合会议。会议的一个中心主题将是马尔科夫链蒙特卡罗（MCMC）以及自Gelfand and Smith （1990， JASA）发表以来15年来的相关方法和应用，该论文向主流统计学家介绍了这些方法。申请的资金用于支持来自美国机构的初级统计调查人员的旅费，即攻读统计学或密切相关领域的博士或博士学位的人员，或在会议前五年内获得此类学位的人员。这些研究人员所做的研究往往是最新颖、最有趣、对国际传播最重要的研究，但他们缺乏参加此类会议所需的旅费，因为他们还没有建立足以吸引外部旅行和其他工作经费的出版记录。初级统计研究人员参加这些会议的好处和必要性特别大，因为它们对他们的专业发展做出了巨大贡献，并有助于与更成熟的高级研究人员“公平竞争”。会议的具体预期好处是：为研究人员提供一个深入讨论某一领域的机会，允许有充足的时间就某一特定主题进行演讲；鼓励青年研究人员在会议的重点领域开展研究，为跨学科合作提供充足的机会；鼓励年轻的研究人员和学生在一个友好的小型会议环境中展示他们的工作，与资深同事互动，并与他们的同龄人联系；在参与者中包括大部分来自代表性不足群体的研究人员和学生，并提供与其他机构的同事进行一对一讨论的机会；尽可能广泛地传播会议的资料，并在ISBA的网站（www.bayesian.org）上发布演讲。

The principal investigator requested support for the Second international Joint Meeting of the IMS (Institute of Mathematical Statistics) and ISBA (the International Society for Bayesian Analysis), to be held in Bormio, Italy on Wednesday, January 12 to Friday, January 14, 2005. A central theme of the conference will be Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and related methods and applications in the 15 years since the publication of Gelfand and Smith (1990, JASA), the paper that introduced these methods to mainstream statisticians. The requested funding is to support the travel expenses of junior statistical investigators from US institutions, i.e., persons pursuing a PhD or DrPH in statistics or a closely related field, or who have received such a degree within the five years preceding the conference. Such investigators are often doing research that is among the most novel, interesting, and important for international dissemination, yet lack the travel funds necessary to attend such a conference, since they have not yet established a publication track record sufficient to attract external travel and other funding for their work.The benefit of and need for attendance at such meetings by junior statistical researchers is particularly great, since they contribute mightily to their professional development and help ``level the playing field'' with more established senior investigators. The specific anticipated benefits from the conference are: to provide an opportunity for researchers to discuss an area in some depth, by allowing ample time for presentations on a specific subject; to motivate young researchers to conduct research in the conference's focus areas that provide ample opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration; to encourage young researchers and students to present their work, interact with senior colleagues, and make contact with their peers in a friendly, small meeting environment; to include a large portion of researchers and students from underrepresented groups among participants, and provide the opportunity for one-on-one discussions with colleagues from other institutions; to disseminate materials from the meeting as widely as possible, by posting the presentations on the ISBA web site at www.bayesian.org.