International Federation ofClassification Societies
Newsletter

President: Iven Van Mechelen

Number 44

November, 2012
Editor:

The
International
Federation
ofClassification Societies, founded in 1985, iscomposed of:
Associação Portuguesa de Classificação e
Análise de Dados, British Classification
Society, Central American and Carribean
Society of Classification and Data Analysis,
The Classification Society, Gesellschaft fürKlassifikation, Greek Society of Data
Analysis, Irish Pattern Recognition andClassification
Society,
JapaneseClassification Society, Korean Classification
Society,
SociétéFrancophonedeClassification, Società Italiana di Statistica,
Statistical Society of Slovenia, Vereniging
voor Ordinatie en Classificatie and Sectionof Classification and Data Analysis of thePolish Statistical Society.
The IFCS is a non-profit, non-politicalscientific organization, the aims of which
are to further classification research.
Among other activities, the IFCS organises abiennial conference, and supports the“Journal of Classification” and the journal“Advancesin
Data
Analysis
andClassification (ADAC)”.

IFCS Homepage:
http://www.ifcs.info
The website contains, among other things:
the IFCS Constitution and By-Laws, IFCS
newsletters, and links to the websites ofmember societies.

Paul McNicholas

Contents
Words from the IFCS President
News from the IFCS Scientific Secretary
News from the IFCS Publication Officer
Second Call for Papers, IFCS-2013, Tilburg
Chikio Hayashi Awards Program
News from the Japanese Classification SocietyNews from CLAD
News from ClaDAG
News from the VOC
News from the Classification SocietyNews from SFC
News from SKAD
News from KCS

Words from the IFCS President
During the past few months, the local organizersof the forthcoming IFCS-2013 meeting in Tilburg(The Netherlands) have been working diligently
on the preparation of the conference, in
consultation with the IFCS-2013 Scientific
Program Committee and the IFCS Executive
Committee. These efforts have been very
successful, leading to the foundations of a mostimpressive conference program, with sevendistinguished invited speakers, eleven thematic
invited sessions (that cover a broad range of
IFCS-related topics), and four interesting preconference tutorials. More information on all of
this, as well as many practical details, can be
found
on
the
conference
website:www.ifcs2013.org. In this Newsletter you willfind a second call for papers, with an invitation tosubmit both individual papers and proposals forthematic sessions. Let me warmly encourage allof you to respond to this call at your earliest
convenience!
As mentioned in the previous Newsletter, at theoccasion of IFCS-2013, the Federation will again

award a small number of Chikio Hayashi prizes
to (relatively) young, promising researchers on
the basis of a solid scientific track record andimpact on classification research. For researchersin earlier stages of their scientific career, it istypically quite a challenge to fill out the honors
and awards section of their CV. I trust that a
Chikio Hayashi Award will imply a significant
support at this point, especially so if one takes
into account that the 2013 Chikio Hayashi
Awards committee comprises once again a groupof very distinguished scholars. Elsewhere in thisNewsletter you will find more information on theapplication procedure, and the application form
can be downloaded from the IFCS2013 website.
Let me strongly encourage once again all
promising, young researchers in the areas ofclassification and data analysis to submit anapplication!
As also mentioned in the previous Newsletter, theIFCS has launched a benchmarking task force.
This will help to address the problem that,nowadays, new methods, algorithms, and dataanalytic devices are very often proposed within
the classification domain without adequate
comparison with current best practices or gold
standards, and without sufficient evidence ofperformance on benchmark data sets. Since theappearance of the previous Newsletter, this task
force has had an intensive two-day meeting,during which significant progress has been madeon several initiatives to support and promotebenchmarking within the classification domain.
More details on this will be communicated within
the next few months. Moreover, in addition to an
IFCS invited session on benchmarking(scientifically sponsored by both IFCS and IASC)
at the World Statistics Conference (ISI) in Hong
Kong (August 2013), several members of the task
force will also contribute to a plenary Presidential
invited session on benchmarking at theforthcoming IFCS-2013 conference in Tilburg.
One of the other challenges IFCS wants toaddress in the coming year is establishing more
effective communication with the IFCS member
societies and their individual members. Keyelements at this point include an upgrade of the
IFCS website (which will have a new URL,
owned by the federation, www.ifcs.info). This
upgrade will imply a more flexible and regular
updating of information, and the addition of acalendar with up-to-date information on

conferences and other scientific activities that
may be relevant for significant parts of the IFCS
community. Moreover, the IFCS website will also
be given a pivotal role in the distribution of
information resulting from the IFCS task force onbenchmarking, including a broad repository ofbenchmarking data sets. All these changes will gowith a migration of the IFCS website to the
University of Natural Resources and Life
Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria. This
migration implies the closing of a very lengthy
period in which David Dubin served as IFCS
webmaster. At this occasion, I would like to takethe opportunity to warmly thank Dave for theinvaluable efforts he has paid to the federation
during so many years. I would also like to thankFriedrich Leisch and his co-workers at BOKU for
their hospitality and their invaluable help in thesetting up of the new website. And of course,many thanks also go to IFCS Publications Officer
Paul McNicholas for all his efforts on thisproject.
A second element in the establishment of a more
effective communication will be the publicationof three (rather than two) issues per year of theNewsletter. We hope that this will allow us to beright on the ball for spreading more urgent
information (including various calls, andannouncementsofscientificmeetings).
Moreover, the publication of this additional issue
will also go with the introduction of a new bookreviews section. More information on this and on
the deadlines for submitting contributions for thedifferent issues of the Newsletter can be foundfurther on in the present issue. Enjoy the reading!
Iven Van Mechelen
IFCS President

News from the
IFCS Scientific Secretary
During the past year, several proposals were put
to an electronic Council vote. Below, you may
find information on these proposals and on thevoting results (items 1–4), together with thecomposition of the Chikio Hayashi Awards
Committee for the next IFCS conference, IFCS2013 (item 5).
1. Vote on a proposal of the IFCS Executive
Committee on the financial involvement of thefederation in IFCS conferences (December, 2011
– January, 2012)
During the Frankfurt meeting, several IFCS
Council members informally suggested revising
the rules for the financial involvement of thefederation in IFCS conferences. Thesesuggestions were motivated because of the risk
the organization of an IFCS conference implies
for the organizing IFCS member society,especially in view of the global financial crisis.
The IFCS Conference Guidelines had been basedon the principle of an equilibrium: On the one
hand, the federation did not bear any conference
risks, but on the other hand, the federation did not
claim any share in a possible conference profit.
Up to now, the financial involvement of thefederation has further been limited to thepossibility of a loan (up to USD 10,000), to be
paid back within six months after the conference.
The IFCS Council approved a proposal of the
IFCS Executive Committee to modify thefinancial involvement of the federation in theorganization of IFCS conferences as follows: The
federation may share the financial risk of theconference organization with the conference
organizers, 50% for the federation and 50% for
the organizers, up to a maximum of USD 10,000
for the federation; the federation will then also
share the possible profit of the conference
organization with the conference organizers, withthe same distribution as for the risk, 50% forfederation and 50% for the organizers, and withthe same maximum amount of USD 10,000 for
the federation. The IFCS Council finallyapproved the greater financial involvement of thefederation be accompanied by a somewhat greater
involvement in the conference organization.
2. Vote on the bid from Tilburg/VOC to host theconference IFCS-2013 (March 2012)
The IFCS Council has approved the Tilburg/VOC
bid for the organization of IFCS-2013.
3. Election of a new member of the FinanceCommittee (August - September 2012)
As the term of Stanley L. Sclove (CS) on the
IFCS Finance Committee recently expired, one
position of member on this Committee had to be
filled. Daniel Baier (GfKl; Brandenburgische
Technische Universität, Cottbus, Germany) was
nominated for this position by the IFCS
Executive Committee, and he accepted thisnomination. This nomination was subsequently
approved by a formal Council vote.
The current composition of the FinanceCommittee is then as follows:
Helena Bacelar-Nicolau (CLAD), ‘til 31/12/2014
Vladimir Batagelj (SSS), until 31/12/2014
Krzysztof Jajuga (SKAD), until 01/01/2013
Daniel Baier (GfKl), until 31/12/2015
4. Approval of the Minutes of the Council meetingin Frankfurt (August - September 2012)
The IFCS Council has approved the text of the
Minutes of the Council meeting in Frankfurt.
5. Chikio Hayashi Awards Committee (IFCS2013 – Tilburg, The Netherlands)
The composition of the Chikio Hayashi Awards
Committee for the IFCS-2013 conference(Tilburg, The Netherlands) is as follows:
Edwin Diday (University of Paris-Dauphine)
Sylvia Frühwirth-Schnatter (Vienna University of
Economics and Business)
James Ramsay (McGill University)
Michel Wedel (University of Maryland), chair
Patrice Bertrand (University of Paris-Dauphine),
ex officio as IFCS Secretary
Patrice Bertrand
IFCS Scientific Secretary

News from the
IFCS Publication Officer
I would like to begin by thanking all of themember societies who have contributed to thisnewsletter. I mentioned in the last newsletter that
the IFCS website was undergoing somereneovation. The initial fruits of this work can beseen at www.ifcs.info. Echoing Iven’s comments,
I want to thank Dave Dubin for his service to the
IFCS over the past years. I also want to thankFritz Leisch and Robert Wiedermann, with whom
it has been a pleasure to work on the new website.
The content currently at www.ifcs.info is just the
beginning and we expect further updates,
including a page devoted to conferences
organized by member societies, shortly. As I alsomentioned last time, anybody interested incarrying out a book review is encouraged tocontact me.
Paul McNicholas
IFCS Publication Officer

Second Call for Papers
IFCS-2013
July 14-17, 2013
Tilburg, The Netherlands
The IFCS-2013 conference will be held in
Tilburg, The Netherlands, from July 14 to
July 17. We are working hard on the organizationof the conference, more and more details havebeen
handled,andthewebsite(www.ifcs2013.org) contains a tentative skeleton
program schedule, information on the invited
speakers, the preconference workshops, thecurrent invited thematic sessions, the social
events, lodging, important dates, Chikio Hayashi
awards, and fees. Information on the conference
dinner will be added soon. Within a few weeks,
abstracts can be uploaded via the website.
In this second call for papers, we would like you
to consider organizing a thematic symposium. A
symposium consists of four presentations bydifferent presenters on the same topic (or threepapers and a discussant). The advantage of a
symposium is a homogeneous session on acertain theme, which will put the topic in the
spotlights. There are no financial benefits for
symposiums. Proposals for symposiums can besend to info@ifcs2013.org (until December 31).
If you have any questions or comments, please,
do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward toseeing you in Tilburg in July 2013.
Jeroen Vermunt, Chair Scientific Program
Committee
Andries van der Ark, Chair Local organizing
Committee
Iven Van Mechelen, President IFCS

Chikio Hayashi Awards Program
Researchers who want to apply for a CHA award,
for the occasion of the IFCS’13 Conference (July
14th through July 17th 2013 in Tilburg, The
Netherlands), are invited to submit theirapplication to the Chair of the Awards Committee(Dr. Michel Wedel, attention of Carol Cron email address: ccron@rhsmith.umd.edu).
The award committee consists of Edwin Diday(UniversityofParis-Dauphine),
SylviaFrühwirth-Schnatter (Vienna University of

Economics and Business),(McGill University) and(University of Maryland).

James Ramsay
Michel Wedel

The Chikio Hayashi award is given to young,promising researchers on the basis of theirscientific track record and impact onClassification Research. Applicants are requested
to submit a one-page statement of expertise andimpact, a recent CV (pdf), and three selectedpublished papers (pdf). The statement of expertiseand impact needs to refer to these papers andinclude a recent dated Web-of-Science citation
count for each. The application form can be
downloaded from the conference website
www.ifcs2013.org.
All candidates must be under the age of 35 years
at the time of the conference and need to beauthors of a paper to be presented at the IFCS
Conference.
All candidates will be notified the evaluation
results no later than May 30th, 2013.
Michel Wedel

News from JCS(I) The Japanese Classification Society
Symposium on Data Analysis andClassification: Its Theory and Applications
The symposium was held on September 8, 2012at Hokkaido University, Sapporo under the 2012
Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting. The organizer,
discussant, speakers, and the title of their papers
were as follows:• Organizer:	
   Koji	
   Kurihara	
   (Okayama	
  University)	
  • Discussant:	
   Yasumasa	
   Baba	   (The	
   Institute	
  of	
  Statistical	
  Mathematics)	
  • New	
  Turns	
  of	
  Constrained	
  Cluster	
  Analysis	
  Akinori	
  Okada	  (Tama	
  University)	
  • Applicability	
   of	
   Symbolic	
   MDS	   for	   large	
  dissimilarity	
  data	  Yoshikazu	   Terada	   (Osaka	
   University)	
   and	  Hiroshi	  Yadohisa	
  (Doshisha	
  University)	
  • Classification	
   and	   Application	
   for	   Spatial	
  data	
  using	
  Echelon	
  analysis	
  Fumio	  Ishioka	
  and	
  Koji	  Kurihara	
  (Okayama	
  University)	
  

•

On	
   how	
   to	
   use	   data	   analysis	
   to	
   accomplish	
  our	
  research	
  goals	
  Tadashi	  Imaizumi	  (Tama	
  University)	
  (II) Joint meeting of the Japanese and ItalianClassification Societies (JCS - CLADAG 2012)
The meeting was held on September 3 to 4, 2012
at Villa Orlandi in Anacapri (Capri Island, Italy).
The Classification and Data Analysis Group of
the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG) and theJapanese Classification (JCS) society jointly
organized the meeting. The 24 sections were
given on Analysis and Modeling of Complex
Data in Behavioural and Social Sciences.
Participants form Italy and other countries as well
as about 30 Japanese participants discussed,
shared, and enjoyed the new sight of data analysis
and good atmosphere of the meeting as well. We
would like to say thank the CLADAG who ran
the meeting at such a nice place.
(III) Notice of the 31st Annual Meeting of theJapanese Classification Society
The annual meeting will be held in March, 2012
at Chuo University, Tokyo. For additional
information, please visit our website at
http://www.bunrui.jp.
Atsuho Nakayama

News from CLAD
New elected CLAD Officers
The Executive Committee, General Assemblyand Fiscal Council of CLAD for the years 20122014 are the following:
Executive Committee
President: Fernanda Sousa (FEUP, Universidade
do Porto);
Vice-President: José Gonçalves Dias (ISCTE,
Instituto Universitário de Lisboa);
Secretary: Carlos Marcelo (INE, Instituto
Nacional de Estatística);
Secretary: Nuno Lavado (ISEC, Instituto
Politécnico de Coimbra);
Treasurer: Isabel Silva Magalhães (FEUP,
Universidade do Porto).
General Assembly
President: Helena Bacelar-Nicolau
Universidade de Lisboa);(FPUL,

Secretary: Ana Sousa Ferreira (FPUL,
Universidade de Lisboa);
Secretary: Margarida Cardoso (ISCTE, Instituto
Universitário de Lisboa).
Fiscal Council
President:
Adelaide
Figueiredo(FEUP,
Universidade do Porto);
Secretary: Fernando Costa Nicolau (FCT,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa);
Member:
Irene
Oliveira(DM.UTAD,
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro)
JOCLAD 2013 – Call for Participation
The XX Annual Meeting of the Associação
Portuguesa de CLassificação e Análise de Dados(CLAD), JOCLAD 2013, will be held on April
10-13 2013 at the Universidade do Minho Campus de Azurém. The JOCLAD 2013
scientific program includes four types ofpresentations: three key note speakers, thematic
sessions, contributed papers and posters.
Maurizio Vichi (Sapienza Università di Roma,
Italy),
María
José
Lombardía
Cortiña
(Universidade da Coruña, Spain) and Ana Maria
Pires (Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa,
Portugal) will be the JOCLAD 2013 key notespeakers. More information will be available soonat the web site of the CLAD.
One-Day Course
CLAD sponsors a one day course to be held on
November 24 at the Instituto Superior deEngenharia de Coimbra. The course, entitled"Introdução ao PLS Path Modeling", will bepresented by Catarina Marques.
Helena Bacelar-Nicolau

News from ClaDAG
IX Scientific Meeting of the ClaDAG
The IX Scientific Meeting of the Classification
and Data Analysis Group (CLADAG) of the
Italian Statistical Society will be held in Modena,a nice city in Northern Italy, from September 18th
to September 20th. Modena is an ancient town, itis the seat of an archbishop, but is now best
known as “the capital of engines”, because thefactories of the famous Italian sports car makers
Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati are locatedhere. The University of Modena, founded in1175, is the second oldest athenaeum in Italy,
sixth in the whole world. Modena is also wellknown in culinary circles for its production of
balsamic vinegar.
Professor Tommaso Minerva chairs the Local
Organizing Committee. The LOC and Prof.
Minerva will be glad to welcome you in Modena.
The symposium will focus on multidisciplinary
approach to data analysis, with special interest onclassification, computer science, data mining.
Information about the program and on thedeadlines for the submission of the papers areavailable on the conference web pages at thefollowing URL: www.cladag2013.it. Selforganized contributed paper sessions can also be
proposed on specific themes that are selectedfrom the list of the conference topics. Interested
contributors can send a tentative title and a list of
3/4 potential speakers to the conference email
address, or to the Scientific Programme chairprofessor Palumbo, whose email address is
fpalumbo@unina.it. The deadline for contributed
session submission is the end of February,
however proposals will be considered according
to submission time.
Francesco Palumbo

News from the VOC
After a tradition of biannual thematic meetings,
the board decided to open up the meetings moreto the members and to young professionals. This
resulted in the organization of the first VOC
conference on May 25th, 2012 in Tilburg with afull day program including 15 contributions by
VOC members and a keynote speech from
Emmanuel Lesaffre (Erasmus MC Rotterdam andKU Leuven) on ‘Measures of predictive ability
for clustered data’. The conference was
successful with approximately 50 participants,
mainly from Belgium and the Netherlands but
also from abroad (including Peru!) and attracted
several new members. This motivated the board
to organize the second VOC conference, which
will take place at the end of May 2013 in
Belgium. Please consult the VOC website(www.voc.ac) for more information. The VOC isalso planning its 25th anniversary jubileum
meeting which will take place in the fall of 2014.
Katrijn Van DeunNews from the Classification Society
Classification Society Meeting 2013
The Classification Society conference will beheld in Milwaukee in June, 2013. The conference
allows you to learn about cutting edge research,meet with researchers from your both from own
discipline and from other disciplines, and most of
all to have fun! Milwaukee is the quintessential
Midwestern city. It is the ancestral home of theAmerican brewing industry. The Pabst and Miller
breweries still produce beer and have been joinedby several boutique brewing companies. The
Milwaukee area has a vibrant business scene andis home to major corporations such as HarleyDavidson, Rockwell Automation, and Kohl’s.
After the long hard winter, Milwaukee comes
alive in the summer. Milwaukee is famous for its
two week long Summerfest music festival, as
well as numerous ethnic and Lakefront festivals.
The academic program will run for three days
(June 13, 14, and 15) and will consist ofcontributed talks, keynote talks, tutorials, data
analysis forums and cross-disciplinary discussion
sessions. We would like to invite you to submit
contributed talks or sessions. Please email
abstracts to Stephen France at france@uwm.edu.
Abstracts can be submitted individually or
together as part of a session. Submission andacceptance will be rolling until the final deadlineof April 15, 2013. Abstracts should be submitted
either in Microsoft Word or in ASCII text format.
Abstracts should be no longer than 400 words
long.
Stephen France

News from SFC
Elections
Part of the SFC board renewed this year with thedeparture of André Hardy (secretary of the SFC
since 1993!):• Pascale KUNTZ (Ecole Polytechnique del'Université de Nantes, France) has been
elected as Vice-President of the SFC.
• Mustapha LEBBAH (Université Paris 13,
France) has been elected as Secretary of the
SFC.
• Guillaume CLEUZIOU (Université d'Orléans,France) has been elected as editor of the SFC
NewsLetter.

Nineteenth SFC meeting (2012)
The 19th meeting of the SFC held in Marseille(France)on
29-31
October,2012:
http://sfc12.centrale-marseille.fr/. It was coorganized by “Ecole Centrale de Marseille” and“Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale deMarseille” and located at “Ecole Centrale deMarseille”. About 50 researchers participated tothe meeting and 35 papers were presented in 4
plenary and 31 contributed sessions.
One of the plenary session was devoted to the“Simon Régnier Prize” awarded to Charles
Bouveyron (Université Paris 1 PanthéonSorbonne) for his research about “Highdimensional data classification”.
Twentieth SFC meeting (2013)
The 20th meeting of the French speaking
Classification Society will coincide with the 37th
annual meeting of the German Classification
Society (GfKl) on 10–12 July, 2013 inLuxembourg(www.sfc2013.lu).
Abstract
submissions are expected until February, 28.
Guillaume Cleuziou

News from SKAD
In September 2012, the new Council of theSection of Classification and Data Analysis(SKAD) for term 2013-2014 was elected:• Józef	
   Pociecha	   (Cracow	
   University	
   of	
  Economics),	  chairman,	  jozef.pociecha@uek.krakow.pl	
  	
  • Marek	
   Walesiak	
   (Wroclaw	
   University	
   of	
  Economics),	
  vice-­‐chairman,	  marek.walesiak@ue.wroc.pl	
  • Barbara	
   Pawełek	   (Cracow	
   University	
   of	
  Economics),	
  secretary,	
  barbara.pawelek@uek.krakow.pl	
  • Krzysztof	
   Jajuga	
   (Wroclaw	
   University	
   of	
  Economics),	
  member,	  krzysztof.jajuga@ue.wroc.pl	  • Andrzej	
   Sokołowski	
   (Cracow	
   University	
   of	
  Economics),	
  member,	  andrzej.sokolowski@uek.krakow.pl	
  • Eugeniusz	
   Gatnar	
   (Katowice	
   University	
   of	
  Economics),	
  member,	  egatnar@ue.katowice.pl	  • Krzysztof	
   Najman	
   (University	
   of	
   Gdańsk),	
  member,	
  knajman@wzr.ug.edu.pl	  	
  The 27-th Annual Conference of Section on
Classification and Data Analysis of Polish
Statistical Society “Classification and Data
Analysis: Theory and Applications” (localorganiser: Wroclaw University of Economics)
will be held in Szklarska Poreba or Karpacz(September, 2013).
Krzysztof Jajuga and Marek Walesiak

News From KCS
The 20th Anniversary KNOU Departmentof Statistics, KCS annual Meeting
How to prepare the Big Data era?
New Trend of advanced Analytics
This conference will take place on Wednesday,
November 21, 2012 from 10:00 to 17:00. The
location is Korea National Open University,
History Museum, 2nd Floor Seminar Room.
• Part	   1:	   R	   Program	   Tutorial	
   (10.00-­‐12.00).	
  Moderator:	
  Professor	
  Gi-­‐Jae	
  Lee	
  (KNOU)	
  • Part	   2:	
   Big	
   Data	
   Analysis	
   of	
   Tred	
   (13.30-­‐
16.00).	
   Moderator:	
   Professor	
   Geung-­‐Hui	  Lee	  (KNOU)	
  • Part	   3:	
   Big	
   Data	
   Analysis	
   Utilized	
   (16.00-­‐
17.30).	
   Moderator:	
   Professor	
   Tae-­‐rim	
   Lee	  (Department	
  of	
  Information	  and	  	
  Statistics,	
  Korea	  National	  Open	
  University).	
  
Tae Rim Lee

Looking Ahead to IFCS Newsletter
Number 45
Contributions for the forthcoming issue of the
IFCS newsletter should be sent topaul.mcnicholas@uoguelph.ca
before March 22, 2013.
Plain text or Word files are preferred.
Thanks!
Paul McNicholas
IFCS Publication Officer