Travel Support for the 11th ISBA World Meeting on Bayesian Statistics

在本申请中，PI请求支持将于2012年6月25日至29日在日本京都举行的国际贝叶斯分析学会(ISBA)世界会议。会议的中心主题将是贝叶斯建模、贝叶斯理论和应用。应用范围将从生物到金融再到技术，特别关注挑战大规模问题。所筹资金用于资助初级调查人员的旅费，即攻读统计学、生物统计学、应用数学或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。这类调查人员所做的研究往往是最新颖、最有趣、最重要的国际传播研究之一，但缺乏参加这样一个会议所需的旅行资金，因为他们还没有建立一个足以为他们的工作吸引外部旅行和其他资金的出版记录。会议最佳论文的推荐版(包括邀请的和投稿的)将发表在ISBA的官方期刊《贝叶斯分析》上(可在ba.stat.cmu.edu在线获得)。将通过在ISBA网站www.bayesian.org上张贴一些报告，尽可能广泛地传播与会议有关的材料。统计学家在生物医学、环境、金融和公共卫生数据的分析中发挥着不可或缺的作用，从研究设计阶段一直到最终分析和报告撰写。统计学家还在无数的科学审查和咨询小组中任职，并为实质性领域的研究人员提供统计培训和咨询。最后，开发新的统计学方法来解释来自临床、观察和实验室研究的数据是统计学努力的一个关键领域。因此，可以交流新思想的学术会议对统计科学的发展非常重要。国际会议--如国际贝叶斯分析学会(ISBA)的世界会议--由于规模和费用的原因当然比较少见，但特别有益，因为它们允许与会者接触思想和同事，与会者可能不会在自己国家的熟悉期刊上看到甚至读到。初级统计研究人员参加这种会议的好处和需要特别大，因为他们极大地促进了他们的专业发展，并有助于与更有地位的高级调查人员“公平竞争”。会议的预期好处包括促进统计理论和应用在工程、金融、技术、环境科学、生物医学和其他领域的持续发展，并探索经典统计方法和贝叶斯统计方法在特定研究领域的相互作用，特别强调大规模计算。将尽可能广泛地传播与会议有关的材料，方法是在ISBA的官方期刊《贝叶斯分析》上发表文章，并在ISBA的网站www.bayesian.org上张贴一些专题介绍。

In this application, the PI requests support for the World Meeting of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA), to be held in Kyoto, Japan, June 25-29, 2012. A central theme of the conference will be Bayesian modeling, Bayesian theory, and applications. The applications will range from biology to finance to technology, with specific focus on challenging large-scale problems. The funds sought are to support the travel expenses of junior investigators, i.e., persons pursuing a PhD or DrPH in statistics, biostatistics, applied mathematics, 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. Refereed versions of the conference's best papers (both invited and contributed) will be published in Bayesian Analysis, the official journal of ISBA (available online at ba.stat.cmu.edu). Further disseminatation of conference-related materials will be done as widely as possible, by posting some of the presentations on the ISBA web site at www.bayesian.org.Statisticians play an indispensable role in the analysis of biomedical, environmental, financial, and public health data, from the study design stage all the way through to final analysis and report-writing. Statisticians also serve on a myriad of scientific review and advisory panels, as well as provide statistical training and consulting to substantive area researchers. Finally, the development of new statistical methodology for interpretation of data from clinical, observational, and laboratory studies is a key area of statistical endeavor. As a result, scholarly conferences where new ideas can be exchanged are important for statistical science to move forward. International meetings -- like the World Meeting of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) -- while of course rarer due to their size and expense, are particularly beneficial since they permit exposure to ideas and colleagues the attendee might not ordinary see or even read about in the familiar journals of one's own country. The benefit of and need for attendance at such meetings by junior statistical researchers is particularly great, since they contribute greatly to their professional development and help ``level the playing field'' with more established senior investigators. The anticipated benefits from the conference include promoting the continued development of statistical theory and applications in engineering, finance, technology, environmental science, biomedicine and other areas, and exploring the interplay of classical and Bayesian statistical methods in the context of specific areas of research, with particular emphasis on large-scale computation. Disseminatation of conference-related materials will be done as widely as possible, by publishing in "Bayesian Analysis", the official journal of ISBA available online at ba.stat.cmu.edu, and posting some of the presentations on the ISBA web site at www.bayesian.org.