The Annual General Meeting of the British Region of the International Biometric Society was held at 12.15 pm on Wednesday 15th November at the Rothamsted Conference Centre, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts., AL5 2JQ. The President, Professor Joe Perry, took the chair. About 25 members were present.
This has been another active year for the committee of the British and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society, with a number of meetings being organised, the development of the Channel Network, and plans being put in place for two major conferences, in 2007 and 2008.
At the last AGM in November 2005, the motion to change the name of the region was proposed and carried, and our metamorphosis into the British and Irish Region was approved by Council in early 2006. The Republic of Ireland has always been considered a part of the British Region, but the British Region officers and committee felt that this change of name to fully reflect the inclusion of the Republic of Ireland was appropriate given that the next IBC will be held in Dublin in 2008 (of which more later). It is also hoped that the change of name may encourage more biometricians in Ireland to consider becoming members of the British and Irish Region prior to the IBC in Dublin.
Also approved by Council since the last AGM is the establishment of the Channel Network, a proposal developed at the last Regional Conference in Leicester in 2005, and bringing together the Belgian, British and Irish, French and Netherlands Regions of the IBS. Andrew Mead was nominated and elected as the first Co-ordinator of the Channel Network, and a Channel Network Steering Group formed, comprising two representatives from each of the four constituent regions, to organise the activities of the network. In addition to organising a Channel Network Conference every other year (the first to be held in May 2007 in Rolduc, near Maastricht, hosted by the Netherlands Region) the other activities of the Channel Network will predominantly be to share information about Regional meetings, and to promote more cross-regional activities.
Five regional meetings have been held during the last 12 months, starting with a full-day meeting in November 2005 on “Proteomics and Metabolomics” held at the Wellcome Trust Conference Centre, Hinxton, Cambridge. Six papers were presented during the meeting, covering both methodology and applications. Ross King (University of Wales, Aberystwyth) started the meeting with a presentation on “The Robot Scientist Project”, followed by Maria De Iorio (Imperial College, London), who discussed “Statistical Methods in Metabonomics”. A more mathematical approach was presented by Nick Monk (University of Sheffield) in “Mathematical models as tools to probe interaction networks”, and Elaine Holmes (Imperial College, London) talked about “Metabonomics: the challenge of modelling metabolic interactions, processes and diseases in complex organisms”. The final two presentations were by Kevin Brindle (University of Cambridge) on “Detecting genotype changes in yeast, tumours and mice using NMR-based metabolomics” and David Westhead (University of Leeds) on “Systems biology for parasites: metabolic networks and pathway expression”. The meeting provided an opportunity for biometricians to become more acquainted with this fast-evolving area, and to identify opportunities for more statistical inputs to be made. The meeting was well-attended with around 65 participants. Many thanks to Steve Brooks for his contribution to the local organisation of this meeting.
The first meeting of 2006 was a half-day meeting in January, organised jointly with Rothamsted Research on “Applied Statistics in Animal and Plant Sciences”, and marking the retirement of Robin Thompson from official duties at Rothamsted. The meeting included five presentations covering the range of research areas addressed by Robin during his career, as well as the range of organisations for whom he worked and interacted. Roger Payne (VSN International) opened the meeting with “REML, Rothamsted and Robin: a Review”, followed by the reflections of Bill Hill (University of Edinburgh) on “Statistical interactions between Robin Thompson and quantitative genetics”. Chris Haley (Roslin Institute) continued the quantitative genetics theme with “Future possibilities in the dissection of quantitative genetic variation”. Brian Cullis (NSW-DPI) represented Robin’s Australian collaborators, talking about “Colonial Collaborations – applications of REML for plant improvement” before Chris Glasbey finished the meeting with a presentation on “The challenge of bioinformatics”. The meeting was well attended with over 100 participants, and thanks are due to Sue Welham and Frank van den Bosch of Rothamsted Research for the local organisation of this meeting.
The second full-day meeting of the year was held at the DEFRA Central Science Laboratory, Sand Hutton, at the end of March. The topic of the meeting was “Chemometrics”, providing some links back to the previous full-day meeting on “Proteomics and Metabolomics”. We were fortunate to attract one of the world experts on chemometrics, Svante Wold (Umeå University, Sweden; Umetrics Inc, USA), to open the meeting with his reflections on “35 years of chemometrics, from a sidekick to an obsession, illustrated by some case stories”. This was followed by two talks from staff at CSL – Richard Fussell on “Data processing requirements for chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis” and Adrian Charlton on “Analysis of metabolomics data acquired by NMR spectrometry” – and a tour of some of the chemometrics facilities at CSL. Two further, contrasting, talks finished the meeting – firstly Tom Fearn (University College London) spoke about “NIR spectroscopy and chemometrics in food analysis”, and then Philip Jonathan (Shell Global Solutions, Chester) talked “On the statistical calibration of analytical fingerprints for rapid characterisation of complex hydrocarbon mixtures”. Around 40 delegates attended the meeting, and thanks are due to Alistair Murray and his colleagues at CSL for hosting the meeting.
May saw another joint meeting organised with the Royal Statistical Society – Environmental Statistics Section, this time also involving the French Statistical Society and IBS French Region (possibly to be considered a meeting of the Channel Network!). The full-day meeting on “Biodiversity” was held in Paris and included a number of presentations from both sides of the channel: Philippe Naveau (LSCE) – “State-space modelling of climate extremes”; Janine Illian (University of Aberdeen) – “Contribution of spatial point process modelling to biodiversity theory); Nicolas Bez (IFREMER) – “Spatial models for marine resource assessment and management”; Richard Gregory (RSPB) – “Measuring biodiversity: using birds as indicators of environmental change in Europe”; Catherine Laredo (INRA) – “Stochastic models and statistical inference for pollen dispersal in homogeneous and heterogeneous environments”; Olivier Francois (IMAG) – “Bayesian Clustering using Hidden Markov Random Fields in Spatial Population Genetics”; Fred Mortier (CIRAD) – “Hierarchical Bayesian models accounting for spatial dependence and zero-inflation in sapling pattern: examples from a French Guianan rainforest”; Steve Buckland (University of St. Andrews) – “Monitoring regional biodiversity: some statistical issues”. There was good attendance at the meeting from all participating groups, though possibly the early start needed to avoid the expense of an overnight stay put some people off. Many thanks to Ruth King for continuing to provide a link between the IBS-BIR and RSS-ESS committees, and to encourage our joint meetings – another is planned for autumn 2007.
The final meeting of the year was a full-day meeting on “Safety”, jointly organised with PSI. Papers presented during the meeting covered safety in both the pharmaceutical and food industries: Rashmi Shah (Independent Consultant) – “Mechanistic basis of adverse drug reactions: the perils of inappropriate dose schedules”; Andy Hart (CSL) – “Probabilistic exposure assessment in food safety”; Roy MacArthur – “Detecting the presence of contaminants and unauthorised ingredients in foods”; Rashmi Shah and Georg Ferber (Novartis) – “Drug-induced QT interval prolongation: its significance and limitations during drug development – a clinical and a statistical perspective”; Daniel Jonker (Grunenthal GmbH) – “Relating data from the in vitro hERG assay and from dog models to QT interval prolongation in humans”; Monica Antunes (Novartis) – “Optimising the design of thorough QT/QTc studies”; Stephen Evans (LSHTM) – “Are Bayesian methods the solution to safety signals in trials and pharmacovigilance?”; Deborah Ashby (Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine) – “Bayesian methods in safety assessment”. Although the meeting was reasonably well attended, there were relatively few participants who were only IBS members (i.e. not PSI members also). The committee would like to continue to organise joint meetings with PSI, and to encourage future interactions, but would welcome comments from members on the topics for such meetings that might result in a greater attendance from IBS members. Thanks are due to Peter Colman for providing the link between IBS-BIR and PSI, and contributing to the organisation of this meeting. The IBC, in Montreal in July, was, as usual, well attended by members of the British and Irish Region, including a number of invited speakers. The inaugural IBC awards saw two British and Irish Region members honoured – Steve Buckland (University of St Andrews) received the “Award for the Best JABES Paper Published by an IBS Member for the paper by Hedley, S.L and Buckland, S.T. (2004) ‘Spatial models for line transect sampling’, JABES, 9, 181-199, and Andrew Mead was the first recipient of the “Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Development of the IBS” awarded “in honour of his contributions through various volunteer leadership positions, hosting of the IBC 2008 (in Dublin), development of the Channel Network, and support of the profession”. The conference also saw further planning for the next IBC to be held in July 2008 at University College Dublin. The Local Organising Committee, comprising representatives from the BIR committee (John Hinde (also National University of Ireland, Galway), Andrew Mead, Angela Wood, John Whittaker), from UCD (Gabrielle Kelly, Patrick Murphy) and from Queen’s University Belfast (Adele Marshall), has many plans already in place, but welcomes any ideas and support from members of the British and Irish Region. In particular, details of any contacts for potential sponsors should be sent to John Hinde or Andrew Mead as soon as possible. And please, put the date of the conference – July 13th to 18th – in your diaries and plan to be a part of the first IBC to be hosted in our region since 1963!
Plans for the coming year include a November meeting on “Statistical Ecology – Statistics and Animal Populations” with sessions on “avian flu” and “badgers and TB” alongside Joe Perry’s Presidential Address, and a joint meeting with the Royal Entomological Society in early February on “Analysing Arthropod Observations Data”, before the First Channel Network Conference in Rolduc, near Maastricht, from May 8th to 11th 2007. Invited sessions at this conference will be on “High dimensional data”, “Methods in epidemiology” and “Adaptive designs in clinical trials”, but we are also hoping for a large presence of members from all four constituent regions (as well as from other IBS regions) in the contributed programme – so please consider contributing a paper and attending the conference.
As always your committee welcomes your comments on our plans for future meetings, and certainly we welcome suggestions for suitable topics and venues for our own meetings, as well as suggestions for partner organisations for jointly organised meetings. As always I’ll finish by thanking my fellow officers and committee members for their support and enthusiasm over the past year. I must also thank Rosemary Bailey for her work over the last six years on developing and maintaining the regional web-site, a task now being passed on to Peter Colman – the committee have also decided to have the web-site manager as a co-opted member of the committee in future years.
Finally, as the IBC in Dublin gets closer and organisational efforts increase, I give notice of my intention to stand down as Regional Secretary at the AGM in November 2007. Anyone interested in taking on this important role for the Region at that time is invited to contact David Balding, our new Regional President, or me as soon as possible.
The Secretary was asked about the potential for sponsorship from Guinness for IBC 2008 – John Hinde (IBC 2008 – LOC Chair) replied that possibilities were being explored.
The President thanked the Secretary for all his hard work for the British and Irish Region over the past year.
The accounts show the regional fund decreasing by £2337.28 to £18272.78 during 2005/2006. However, a cheque for £1500 from the Fisher Memorial Trust had not been received before the end of this accounting period, so a decrease of £837.28 is the actual change during this financial year.
Once again we are very grateful to the Fisher Memorial Trust for their generous donation, used to assist young biometricians in attending IBC 2006. The donation of £1500 was used to award four bursaries of £500 (£450 was still available from 2004/2005). A donation of $1500 (US dollars) from the regional fund was also made to support members from developing nations in attending IBC 2006.
Meetings show a net loss of £1035.83 this year. Further details of the transactions associated with meetings are shown on the this page.
The Barclays ‘deposit’ account was now offering a poor rate of interest, so this was changed to a ‘Base Rate Tracker’ account during November 2005.
Several transactions were carried out on the Euro bank account this year. The account incurs a quarterly charge (currently £7.50), but reduces the cost to the society of making and receiving payments in Euros. With IBC 2008 being held in Dublin, I believe there will sufficient further activity for the account to be of benefit to the society in the next few years.
The current financial situation once again suggests no need to raise subscription rates for the coming year.
Full details of the accounts are available on the Regional web-site, including a breakdown of costs associated with each of the Regional meetings held during the past year.
David Cox commented that the Regional Committee should consider asking the Fisher Memorial Trust for more funds in future. The Secretary commented that the IBC 2008 LOC were considering asking the Fisher Memorial Trust for funds to support various IBC activities for young biometricians.
The President thanked the Treasurer for all his work for the British and Irish Region over the past year.
In terms of absolute numbers the steady downwards trend in membership reported previously has reversed slightly this year. We currently have a total of 314 registered members which represents an overall gain of 8 members (compared to 306 in 2005 which represented a loss of 9 members compared to 2004). Current membership can be broken down into the following categories (2005 figures in parentheses):
| Full members | 217 | (224) |
| Associate members | 47 | (34) |
| Student members | 14 | (7) |
| Life members | 4(3) | |
| Retired members + | 1 | (2) |
| Pending removal | 31* | (36) |
| Total | 314 | (306) |
| * subscriptions not received for 1(12) or 2(=19) years, not registered with US office but still receive local mailings; | ||
| + category no longer open. | ||
The specific changes from 1st November 2005 to date are:
| New members | +28 | (7 Full, 11 Assoc., 10 Student) |
| Transfers in | +1 | (1 Full) |
| Reinstatements | +1 | (1 Assoc.) |
| Resignations | -8 | (6 Full, 2 Assoc.) |
| Deaths | -1 | (1 Full) |
| Transfers out | 0 | |
| Removed (pending > 2yrs) | -13 | (had been 10 Full, 2 Assoc., 1 Student) |
| Onto pending list** | 12 | (9 Full, 3 Student) |
| **not paid but still considered as BIR members but not registered with the US | ||
Overall there were 30 new memberships (20 more than in 2005). However, it should be noted that, of these, 19 (7 Student, 12 Assoc.) arose from the November 2005 meeting where non-members paying the higher registration fee were invited to convert the extra amount to a year’s membership (2006). We await to see whether they rejoin for 2007. One Associate member increased to full membership; 3 Full members reduced to Associate membership. There were 9 formal losses (10 in 2005) and another 13 members were removed due to non payment of fees for over two years (9 in 2005). Four members rejoined (3 Full, 1 Assoc.) after not having paid for one year, but sadly the number of members on the pending (i.e. not paid up) list is still large at the end of this year (31). Note that the current quoted membership level of 314 is again an ‘optimistic’ figure - if these ‘pending’ members do not rejoin then our true membership (as is currently registered with the US) is actually still only 283.
The Membership Secretary was thanked for her work for the British and Irish Region over the past year.
| Secretary: | Mr. Andrew Mead(Warwick HRI, University of Warwick) |
| Treasurer: | Mr. Peter Rigsby (NIBSC) |
| Membership Secretary: | Miss Suzanne Clark (Rothamsted Research) |
| Committee Members (2006-2009): | Prof. Chris Glasbey (BioSS, Edinburgh) |
| Dr. Bianca de Stavola (LSHTM) |
The following officers and committee are continuing in office:
| President (2006-2008): | Prof. David Balding (Imperial College) |
| Vice-President (2006/7): | Prof. Joe Perry (Rothamsted Research) |
| Committee Members (2004-2007): | Dr. Ruth King (University of St. Andrews) |
| Mr. Peter Colman (Pfizer Global R & D,
Sandwich) Mr Colman co-opted to replace Prof. Sylvia Richardson who had resigned during the year | |
| Committee Members (2005-2008): | Dr. Angela Wood (MRC, Cambridge) |
| Prof. Steve Gilmour (Queen Mary, University of London) |