XL Files
Xiao-Li Meng writes: I always enjoy making new friends, but I didn’t know the acronym “BFF” until June 17, 2014, when I attended ICSA-KISS Applied Statistical Symposium (acronym wisely avoided) in Portland, OR. A group of us got together after presenting and attending talks on distributional inferences because of our…

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In last issue’s XL-Files, Xiao-Li Meng set a picture quiz. Nobody has yet correctly identified everyone in the pictures below. If you can, and you’re over 21, you’ll be invited to a “libation and inspiration” at JSM 2017 to celebrate the lives of the nine great statisticians who passed…

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Contributing Editor Xiao-Li Meng writes: “How could that happen?” was perhaps the question of the year for 2016. Other than a small percentage of perceptive minds, which I hope include disproportionately more of my fellow statisticians, the rest of the human population seems to still be coping with the aftermath…

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Contributing Editor Xiao-Li Meng writes: A Nobel Prize in Statistics? Well, almost. The launching of the International Prize for Statistics (IPS), with its explicit references to the Nobel Prize (NP) and other major awards [see this link], aims to establish IPS as “the highest honor in the field of Statistics.”…

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Xiao-Li Meng writes: Writing the last XL- Files on “Peter Hall of Fame” reminded me of a piece that I have wanted to write since attending Chin Long Chiang’s memorial workshop on November 15, 2014. Professor Chiang was a pioneer of biostatistics long before I survived a course on survival…

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