2010 TASTA Annual Meeting and Dinner Gathering

Date and Time: September 25, 2010 (Saturday) , 6:00PM to 9:00PM

Location: Hunan Palace Restaurant

Address: 9011 Gaither Road, Gaithersburg , MD

Program Agenda:

6:00-6:05pm   Opening Remark (Dr. Bi-Dar Wang, President of TASTA)

                        Reviewing TASTA events in 2009-2010 (TASTA BOD)

6:10-7:40pm   Dinner (& Slide Show)

7:35-8:15pm   Presentation I. (Moderator: Dr. Chia-Chien Chiang)

Title: Statistical Practice in Medical Research

Speaker: Dr. Chiung-Yu Huang, Mathematical Statistician, NIAID, NIH

(30-min presentation, 5-min Q & A)

8:15-8:55pm            Presentation II. (Moderator: Dr. Minze Chien)

Title: HOMES: Highway Operation Monitoring and Evaluation System

Speaker: Dr. Chang-Tien Lu, Associate Professor in Dept. Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

(30-min presentation, 5-min Q & A)

8:55-9:00pm   Closing Remark (Dr. Jerry Chuang, Vice President, TASTA)

Registration: Dr. Bi-Dar Wang ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) , Dr. Jerry Chuang ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Dr. Arthur Wu ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Dinner fee: $25 per person

Speaker: Chiung-Yu Huang, Ph.D.

Title: Statistical Practice in Medical Research
Abstract: In this talk, I will introduce some basic concepts of statistical inference, including hypothesis testing, p-values, and confidence intervals. Real examples will be presented to demonstrate these statistical tools. I will also discuss examples of the misuse of statistics and inappropriate conclusions in the medical literature.

Bio: Dr. Huang is Mathematical Statistician at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. She received her PhD in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins   Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2002, and was an assistant professor in the Division of Biostatistics, University of Minnesota School of Public Health from 2002 to 2004. Her research focuses on developing new statistical methods for survival data, recurrent event data, and longitudinal data. Dr. Huang's work has been published in prestigious journals, including the Journal of the American Statistical Association and Biometrika. Since joining NIH, she has been envolved in various medical research such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, avian flu and pandemic flu.

Speaker: Chang-Tien Lu, Ph.D.

Title: HOMES: Highway Operation Monitoring and Evaluation System

Abstract: Increasing population, high fuel costs, and stricter environmental policies have all contributed to the greater demand for improved roadway safety and efficiency. In the Washington Metropolitan region, congestion has cost an estimated 90.8 million gallons in wasted fuel and $2.3 billion in productive loss. Congestion also puts the public safety at risk as it debilitates the region's ability to quickly transport people and resources. Virginia Tech's Spatial Data Management group has developed HOMES, an advanced traffic information system that helps improve the efficiency and safety of the roadway network. HOMES mitigates the shortcomings of existing systems by provides a rich set of multidimensional visual components for real-time and historical traffic data analyses. HOMES also enables the detection, monitoring, and analysis of trends, patterns, and abnormalities in traffic flow to provide decision support to the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) .

Bio: Dr. Chang-Tien Lu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University . He served as Program Co-Chair of the 18th IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence in 2006 and IEEE International Workshop on Spatial and Spatial-temporal Data Mining in 2007, and as General Co-Chair of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence in 2008 and 17th ACM International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems in 2009. He is also serving as Secretary of the newly formed ACM Special Interest Group on Spatial Information (ACM SIGSPATIAL) . Dr. Lu's research work focuses on emerging requirements for storing, analyzing, exchanging, visualizing, and disseminating spatial (and spatio-temporal) data in geospatial applications. His spatial data management lab has developed several web-based spatial analysis and visualization systems for managing and mining various kinds of spatial information. Specific projects include discovering spatial anomalies, identifying recurrent or unexpected events, and predicting future trends. He has been invited to present talks at numerous organizations and agencies, including U.S. Geological Survey, Virginia Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, and Transportation Research Board. His research projects have been sponsored by the DoD, VDOT, and Virginia Transportation Research Council. He received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota .