Call for Proposals for Late-Breaking JSM Sessions

Steve MacEachern, JSM 2012 Program Chair

I would like to thank the many speakers and organizers for contributing to an interesting and stimulating program for JSM 2012. By the time you read this, we will have a wonderful program in place, and members of the JSM Program Committee will be working with the ASA Meetings Department staff to put the finishing touches on it. The late-breaking sessions are one such finishing touch.

Planning for the JSM program began in July 2011, so most technical sessions will be organized long before the meeting takes place. While the advance planning is needed to organize a large meeting such as JSM, it prevents us from scheduling sessions about recent developments of great interest and in which statistical issues are relevant. Thus, there are two special invited session slots reserved for late-breaking issues. Any member of the sponsoring organizations or partner societies (ASA, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Statistical Society of Canada, International Biometric Society [ENAR and WNAR], International Chinese Statistical Association, and International Indian Statistical Association) can propose such a session.

A late-breaking session must cover one or more technical, scientific, or policy-related topics that arose in the one-year period prior to JSM 2012. Proposals for late-breaking sessions must be emailed to me at snm@stat.osu.edu with a copy to the ASA Meetings Department at meetings@amstat.org by April 13. The proposal must include the following:

• Session description, including a title, summary of its statistical and scientific content, explanation of its timeliness, and comments about the target audiences
• Format of the session (e.g., a chair and four panelists; a chair, two or three speakers, and a discussant)
• Names, affiliations, and contact information for the session organizer, chair, and all participants (speakers, panelists, discussants)
• A title for each presentation
• Web links to relevant technical reports or news reports, if applicable

Organizers should make sure all the participants agree to participate before the proposal is submitted. The JSM participation guidelines state that a speaker can give a main presentation and participate in a late-breaking session at the same meeting.

Two late-breaking sessions will be selected from the proposals received by the deadline (subject to approval by the ASA Committee on Meetings). Proposals will be judged on statistical and scientific quality, novelty, and timeliness of the subject matter; potential audience appeal; and completeness. A description of the late-breaking sessions and other special sessions will appear in a future issue of Amstat News.