The August issue of Technometrics includes 10 articles that cover a broad range of topics, including forecasting, reliability, design of experiments, computer experiments, automatic control, regression, and measurement.

The 2008 “Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences, Second Report” is now available. The report presents information about departments, faculties, and students in the mathematical sciences at four-year colleges and universities in the United States.

Nominations and applications are being sought for several ASA journals. The deadline for nominations is December 1, 2009.

One of the final tasks of the JSM program chair is to provide a summary of what happened during the meetings. This year’s chair, Wendy Martinez, takes a moment to reflect on the wonderful times she had with colleagues and friends in Washington, DC.

One of the highlights of any JSM are the introductory overview lectures (IOLs). We had five great lectures this year on many timely topics: high-dimensional data, spatial statistics, designing longitudinal studies, causal inference in statistics, and data mining. I was able to attend two, which were very informative, and I heard through the grapevine that the other IOLs were equally as good and well-attended.

The ASA Board of Directors voted to endorse a proposal to create a National Institute of Finance (NIF). The proposal calls for the establishment of the NIF as an independent federal agency with the responsibility and authority to provide the data and analytic tools needed to safeguard the U.S. financial system.