In honor of the establishment of IMS China

By HE XuMing, Guest Editor

  I am extremely pleased that Science in China Series A: Mathematics is publishing this special issue in honor of the establishment of IMS China. The Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) is the most influential society of mathematical statistics and probability with about 4500 members worldwide. Recognizing China as an important nation in mathematics, science and technology, the IMS Council approved the establishment of IMS China in 2008 to promote the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability in and between China and other nations. This special issue is a strong statement that we all share in the mission of IMS China.

Statistics is deeply integrated into numerous facets of contemporary life, with data originating in various forms from all fields. There is a widespread consensus that China lags behind more developed countries in terms of statistical research and in the application of statistics to the sciences (including social science), medicine, and engineering. We are pleased that China’s scientific community, backed by serious investments in science by the Chinese government, has committed itself to raising statistics to greater prominence.

This special issue is a confirmation of our commitment to that long overdue undertaking. This special issue consists of three discussion papers prepared by three leading international statisticians: Professors David Brillinger (University of California at Berkeley), Jianqing Fan (Princeton University), and Howell Tong (London School of Economics). They and their coauthors present work which stimulates interest in both theory and applications. The discussants from all over the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States, provide enthusiastic comments and critiques. The lively discussions between the authors and the discussants cover areas like the bootstrap, dependent data, and the analysis of the Chinese Super League. Several other distinguished researchers in statistics and related areas contributed their work in a wide range of areas in modern statistics, ranging from core theory to new frontiers. Samuel Kou (Harvard University) provides an excellent exposition about how statistics interacts with the emerging field of nanoscale biophysics. Xiaohong Chen and Demian Pouzo (Yale University) develop powerful statistical tools to address nonlinear ill-posed inverse problems,research that has direct applications in finance. Yijun Zuo (Michigan State University) and Shaoyong Lai (Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China) deepen the theory concerning the maximum depth estimator in multivariate data analysis. Wenbin Lu (North Carolina State University) investigates the issue of statistical efficiency concerning the mean and log-rank tests for recurrent event time data. Together, these articles represent a number of active areas of statistical research, and are sure to generate further research in the coming years both in China and abroad.

I am grateful to the authors, discussants, and anonymous reviewers who contributed their time, wisdom, and efforts to this special issue. I hope that this special issue will prove to be an especially strong beginning. Science in China Series A: Mathematics will indeed become an internationally leading journal in statistics and mathematics if the best minds, whether in China or abroad, regularly contribute to it either as authors or as referees. I’m confident that all readers will enjoy the seven high-quality articles contributed by outstanding statisticians in honor of the establishment of IMS China.

Guest Editor Biography

Xuming He is Professor of Statistics and Affiliated Professor of Computer Science at the University

of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He holds visiting or honorary positions at Northeast Normal University and Fudan University in China, serves on the editorial boards of the Annals of Statistics and the Journal of the American Statistical Association. For more information, please visit his website at www.stat.illinois.edu/x-he.

The full text is available at Sci China Ser-A Math|June.2009|volume 52|no.6