Four junior faculty members of the University of the Philippines School of Statistics would be presenting their research papers on international conferences in statistics and other fields of discipline.  Assistant Professor Peter Julian Cayton will present his research paper on financial econometrics title "Time Varying Methods in Value-at-Risk Estimation" at the Bachelier Finance Society 7th World Congress 2012.  The conference would be held at the Hilton Sydney Hotel in Sydney, Australia from June 19 to June 22, 2012.  At the 2nd Asian Population Association Conference in Bangkok, Thailand from August 26 to 29, 2012, Mr. Michael Daniel Lucagbo would be presenting his research paper in population econometrics titled "The Link Between Subsistence Poor and Young Dependents: Evidence from Household Surveys".  The research paper on computational statistics titled "Nonparametric Modeling of Clustered Survival Data" will be presented by Ms. Iris Ivy Gauran at the 20th International Conference on Computational Statistics at Amathus Beach Hotel in Limassol, Cyprus to be held from August 27 to 31, 2012.  Assistant Professor Kevin Carl Santos will present at the 2012 International Conference on Methods of Surveying and Enumerating Hard-to-Reach Populations his research paper in sampling designs titled "Predicted Accuracy of Fitted Logistic Regression Model Using Ranked Set Sampling".  The conference would be held at the New Orleans Marriot Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

UPSS Professor is Invited Speaker in Conference

The International Conference on Advances in Probability and Statistics -  Theory and Applications on December 28-31, 2011 will be hosted by The Chinese University of Hongkong in honor of Prof. N. Balakrishnan’s 30 years of contributions to statistics.  Prof. E. Barrios is an invited speaker in the session on Multivariate Statistical Analysis where he will present the paper “Semiparametric Principal Components Poisson Regression on Clustered Data” co-authored with K. Manalaysay.

Faculty Will Present Papers in International Conferences

Four faculty members of the School of Statistics will present papers in different international conferences.  Josefina V. Almeda will present the paper “Mathematics Anxiety Scale for Filipino Students: Reliability, Validity, and Bias Detection” in the 2011 International Meeting of the Psychometric Society in Hongkong on July 19-22, 2011.  Manuel Albis will present “Determinants of Poverty in Elderly-Headed Households in the Philippines” in the 2011 Singapore Economic Review Conference on August 4-6, 2011.  John Carlo Daquis will present “Nonparametric Transfer Function Models with Localized Temporal Effect” and Erniel Barrios will present “Nonparametric Principal Components Regression” during the 5^th World Statistics Congress of the International Statistical Institute on August 22-26, 2011 in Ireland.

UP School of Statistics Professor and MOS Graduate to receive Awards from the NAST

UP School of Statistics Associate Professor and Director for Research, Dr. Dennis S. Mapa, and Master of Statistics (MOS) Graduate, Mr. Jose Oliver Q. Suaiso, will receive the 2011 Outstanding Scientific Paper Awards from the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). Dr. Mapa and Mr. Suaiso will receive the honour for the research paper they co-authored entitled Measuring Market Risk using Extreme Value Theory (EVT). The paper was published in The Philippine Review of Economics (PRE) in December 2009.

This is the third time that Dr. Mapa will receive the Outstanding Scientific Paper Award, having won in the same category in 2007 and 2010.

UP School of Statistics Professors and Students won Awards from the NAST

U.P. School of Statistics Professors, Dr. Dennis S. Mapa and Dr. Lisa Grace S. Bersales, received the 2010 Outstanding Scientific Publication Award from the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST).  Drs. Mapa and Bersales received the honor for the research paper they co-authored entitled Population Dynamics and Household Savings: Evidence from the Philippines.  The paper was published in The Philippine Statistician.

In another category, the paper of Dr. Dennis S. Mapa and UP School  of Statistics Students, Michael Daniel C. Lucagbo and Czarina Lei S. Ignacio, won the 2010 Best Sciencitic Poster Award for the their paper Is Income Growth Enough to Reduce Fertility Rate?  Empirical Evidence from Regional Panel Data.

The awards were given during the closing ceremonies of the 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the NAST held at the Manila Hotel last July 15, 2010.

The Philippine Statistician

Call for Submission

The TPS is the official joint scientific journal of the Philippine Statistical Association. Inc. (PSA).  It considers papers resulting from original research in statistics and its applications.  Papers will be sent for review on the assumption that this has not been published elsewhere nor is submitted in another journal. 

Aims and Scope

The Journal aims to provide a media for the dissemination of research by statisticians and researchers using statistical method in resolving their research problems.  While a broad spectrum of topics will be entertained, those with original contribution to the statistical science or those that illustrates novel applications of statistics in solving real-life problems will be prioritized.  The scope includes, but is not limited to the following topics:

• Official Statistics

• Computational Statistics

• Simulation Studies

• Mathematical Statistics

• Survey Sampling

• Statistics Education

• Time Series Analysis

• Biostatistics

• Nonparametric Methods

• Experimental Designs and Analysis

• Econometric Theory and Applications

• Other Applications

In addition to research articles, the Journal will have the following sections that may appear in some of its issues (but not necessarily in all):

Letters to the Editor.  This section will  provide a forum for the airing of opinions on issues pertinent to the statistical community or offers commentaries on articles that have appeared in the journal.

Notes section will include notices and announcements of upcoming events, conferences, calls for papers.

Review section will present reviews on statistics books and software.

Articles submitted for the three special sections above will be reviewed only by the Editor and/or Associate Editors.

Submission of Manuscript

Only unpublished manuscripts will be considered. They will be refereed and evaluated on content, language and presentation. The article in MS word format, without author’s identification should be sent as email attachment to Erniel B. Barrios, Editor, The Philippine Statistician: ernielb@yahoo.com / barrios.erniel@gmail.com. Please follow the Guide for Authors to facilitate the review process.

This is one rare batch where the School of Statistics produced graduates in all programs.  A total of 94 graduated in the BS (Statistics) program, 3 from the MOS program, 11 from the MS(Statistics) program, and one from the PhD (Statistics) program.  Leading the BS graduates are two Summa Cum Laude, Mynard Bryan R. Mojica and Israel Jordan R. Samson.  The only PhD graduate is Dr. Jacqueline M. Guarte who worked on “Nonparametric Bootstrap Inference in a Spatial-Temporal Model”.

Congratulations Graduates of 2010!

Effective First Semester, AY 2010-2011, the School of Statistics will implement the new curriculum of the MOS and MS(Statistics) programs.  The aim of the MOS program is to produce practitioners who are knowledgeable with statistical methodologies and capable of the practice of general statistics and in some key areas.  On the other hand, the MS(Statistics) program aims to prepare students for advanced work in the profession as well as provide them with necessary foundation for high quality PhD for both theoretical and practical aspects.  For both programs, the students may opt to focus on areas below through elective courses:

• Computational Statistics –the emergence of computational statistics was stimulated by the availability of very large data sets.  These data are often generated by heterogeneous mechanisms, from unknown process, or from non-random mechanism.  The availability of powerful computing facilities and efficient algorithms simplified the analysis of these data.  Oftentimes, the methods used are iterative in nature, thus, exact sampling distributions are not mathematically tractable.  Computational statistics is a venue where statistical theory evolves from a dominantly nonparametric framework and uses computing technology. 

• Industrial Statistics – there is a wide range of applications of statistics in the industry.  Quality assurance, quality improvement, product development, etc. are some of the areas where statistics can be very useful. 

• Mathematical Statistics – many statistical theories were developed with the aid of mathematical tools.  Large sample properties, approximations, exact distributions, are some of the important results of mathematical statistics.  This area may help prepare the students for more advanced work in statistical theory. 

• Risk Assessment Methods – financial systems are vulnerable to random shocks that can easily topple old institutions.  Many statistical methods can be tailor-fitted to address the concern of the financial sector, specifically, for risk management.  The area of focus aims to produce students with quantitative skills they can use in effective risk management especially in the finance sector. 

• Social Statistics – the generation of official statistics by the government requires statistical methods that are commonly used in social and economic applications.  This area targets students working/intends to work for the government and those who eventually wish to pursue further studies in the social sciences or in economics.

UPSS Faculty and BS Statistics students to present papers at the Annual Scientific Conference of the Philippine Population Association (PPA)

UP School of Statistics (UPSS) faculty members Dr. Dennis S. Mapa and Mr. Manuel Leonard F. Albis and BS Statistics students Manilyn L. Davila, Michael Daniel C. Lucagbo and Czarina Lei S. Ignacio are scheduled to present their papers at the Annual Scientific Conference of the Philippine Population Association (PPA) at the Heritage Hotel in Pasay City on February 4 to 5, 2010.

Dr. Dennis S. Mapa, Manuel Leonard F. Albis and Manilyn L. Davila will present their paper entitled “Getting Old before Getting Rich: An Analysis of the Economic State of the Elderly in the Philippines.”    

Michael Daniel C. Lucagbo, Dr. Dennis S. Mapa and Czarina Lei S. Ignacio will present their paper entitled “Is Income Growth Enough to Reduce Fertility Rate in the Philippines? Empirical Evidence from Regional Panel Data” 

The Philippine Population Association is the association of Demographers and Population Scientists in the Philippines. The association is a dynamic, quality-driven organization of professionals who are engaged in population and population-related activities, which promotes a scientific base for addressing population and population-related issues through research and dissemination, training and extension, and keeps population issues at the forefront of public consciousness.

UPSS Faculty and BS Statistics students to present paper at the Roundtable Discussion on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)

UP School of Statistics (UPSS) Associate Professor and Director for Research Dr. Dennis S. Mapa and BS Statistics students Fatima C. Han and Kristine Claire O. Estrada are scheduled to present their paper at the Roundtable Discussion on the MDG #1 (Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger): Reviewing the Data, Identifying Gaps, and Assessing Performance on 2 February 2010 at Traders Hotel, Roxas Blvd.

Dr. Dennis S. Mapa, Fatima C. Han and Kristine Claire O. Estrada will present their paper entitled “Food Inflation, Underemployment and Hunger Incidence in the Philippines: A Vector AutoRegressive (VAR) Analysis.” 

The roundtable discussion is one of the activities of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) which aims to support the Philippine Commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs assessment project of NAST aims to monitor progress toward their achievement in partnership with concerned agencies.  The result of the project will be presented during the NAST Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) in July 2010 with the theme “The MDGs and the State of the Nation”.

Michael Van Supranes, a freshman BS Statistics student is the regional champion NCR) in the 18th Philippine Statistics Quiz.  He also won 5th place in the national finals last December 4, 2009.  His coach was Prof. Joseph Ryan Lansangan.  Congratulations!

Prof. Lansangan Presents in ICCFE

Prof. Joseph Ryan G. Lansangan will present a paper co-authored with E. Barrios entitled “Sparse Principal Component Regression” at the 3^rd International Conference of Computational and Financial Econometrics on October 29-31 in Limassol, Cyprus.  This conference is co-sponsored by the International Association of Statistical Computing (IASC), the largest international organization of computational statisticians and a section under the International Statistical Institute (ISI).  The conference follows a workshop format, where participants present a working paper.  Later on, a revised paper will be submitted and sent for review to be possibly included in the Special Issue of Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, one of the leading journals in this area.  The paper is part of Prof. Lansangan’s PhD Dissertation (on high dimensional data visualization and analysis).

Dr. Jeffry J. Tejada Will Present in the 57^th Session of ISI

I hadn’t even started my Stat 114 finals yet when my teacher put me aside and asked me to come to her office after the exam. The possibility that it had something to do with low grades (Heaven forbid!) frightened me, and it occupied half my mind during the finals. It turned out, I learned after I passed my paper, that I was the one she chose for the PSQ competition. I was clueless back then; I didn’t know what PSQ was or what kind of competition she was talking about. She told me that someone would contact me during the break to arrange training sessions. . . . more on this article