Invited Sessions

Keynote 

The Channel Network Conference Keynote presentation will be given by Per Kragh Andersen entitled Multi-State Models in Medical Research

 Abstract

In longitudinal studies of patients, a number of disease states can often be identified. Thus, patients who have undergone bone marrow transplantation may experience a relapse or die in remission; patients with affective disorders may be in psychiatric hospital, out of hospital, or have died, and patients with liver cirrhosis and esophageal varices may experience a variceal bleeding or they may die with or without a bleeding.  A suitable mathematical framework for modeling data from such longitudinal studies is that of multi-state models. In such models, the basic parameters are the intensities of transition between the states from which other ('marginal') parameters of interest – such as state occupation probabilities, average time spent in a given state, and expected number of recurrent events - may, in principle, be derived. We will briefly review classical methods for analyzing transition intensities, including the Cox regression model and other hazard models.  However, we will also discuss methods by which such marginal parameters may be directly targeted, i.e. without going via the intensities. In particular, we will discuss how marginal parameters may be analyzed using pseudo-observations.  The methods will be illustrated via examples from hematology, psychiatry, and other medical fields.

Fisher Memorial Lecture

The Fisher Memorial Trust was set up to promote interest in the life and work of the great statistician, evolutionary biologist and geneticist, Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890-1962) and to maintain his scientific legacy by encouraging discussion of the scientific fields in which he was active. As such, the Fisher Memorial Lecture is organised and sponsored by the trust, which in 2019 will take place at the Channel Network Conference.

The lecture will be given by Brian Cullis and Alison Smith on Design Tableau, an aid for specifying the linear mixed model. (click here for more information)

Invited Session: Post-selection inference in regression

In regression researchers often prefer simple models. They also want to do inference on the parameters of their model. If the same data are naively used for model selection and for inference, huge biases may occur. Post-selection inference addresses the question how to do proper inference in a selected model, taking into account the fact that the same data were used twice in the analysis.

The invited speakers will be

• Ruth Heller, Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
• Aldo Solari, Department of Economics, Management and Statistics, University of Milano-Bicocca
• Hannes Leeb, Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of Vienna

 Abstracts can be found here

Invited Session: Intensive Longitudinal Data

The future in many scientific domains lies in devices recording in real-time and at high temporal frequency environmental, biological, physical and behavioral information. Such intensive longitudinal data require the development of new statistical methods that can for instance handle their functional nature. They also offer the possibility of exploring the dynamic of temporal changes by investigating for instance the heterogeneity both at the mean and variability levels. The speakers will illustrate such issues and developments in environmental studies with climate change effects on forests and in biomedical studies with the study of heart rate variability.

The invited speakers will be

• Donald Hedeker, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, USA
• Nicole Augustin, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath, UK
• Paul Eilers, Department of Biostatistics, Erasmus University Medical Center, NL

 Abstracts can be found here

Invited Session: Complex Survival Data

To make the most of the wealth of data from recent longitudinal studies, new models for survival data analysis have been recently developped. They allow to model simultaneously several events and/or recurrent events and/or model jointly the evolution of longitudinal markers accounting for complex observation designs and correlation structures. This session will present some of these recent developments in the field of survival models, multi-state models and joint models.

The invited speakers will be

• Jan Beyersman, Institute of Statistics, Ulm University
• Virginie Rondeau, Biostatistics Team, Bordeaux Population Health Inserm Research Center
• Brian Tom, MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge

 Abstracts can be found here

Special Session: The past, present and future of agricultural statistics

To mark 100 years of applied statistics at Rothamsted Research, there will be a special session celebrating the past, present and future of statistics in agriculture.

The invited speakers will be

• Eileen Magnello, University College London
• John Fenlon, University of Warwick
• Fred van Eeuwijk, Wageningen University and Research