Royal Statistical Society Highland Local Group
Meeting announcements (2002)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: January 10th
time: 6pm
Place: Meston Building 302 University of Aberdeen
Speaker: Peter Jupp (University of St Andrews)
Title and synopsis:
Some applications of Directional Statistics in Astronomy
In many areas of astronomy, information about distance is not available or
is unreliable, so that observations reduce to directions (unit vectors) on
the celestial sphere. Thus the tools of directional statistics are required.
This talk aims to illustrate the special flavour of directional statistics
by considering three problems in astronomy, concerning (i) asteroids, (ii)
binary stars, (iii) cometary orbits. A complicating factor in all three
problems is the presence of selection effects. Two of the problems involve
the further difficulty of the 'mirror-image ambiguity'.
tea:5.45
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
date: 21st February 2002
time: 6pm
venue: Meston Building University of Aberdeen Rm 302
speaker: John Crawford (SIMBIOS University of Abertay Dundee)
Title and synopsis:
Why it takes all kinds - linking diversity to function in complex
biological communities.
The talk will address the issue of complexity in diverse communities, and
in particular how we might define complexity in a way that tells us
something about the dynamics and functioning of the system. Any way forward
must embrace the full extent of diversity between and within species groups
(where these can be usefully defined), and resulting theory must
incorporate measurable variables. A theoretical framework that aims to
tackle some of these challenges will be presented and illustrated through
application to a species rich grassland and the soil-microbial community.
tea: 5.45
_______________________________________________________
Dr Andrew B. Lawson
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen
AB24 3UE
UK
phone: 44-1224-272615 (voice mail)
fax: 44-1224-272607
email: [log in to unmask]
web page:
www.maths.abdn.ac.uk/maths/department/staff/pages/lawson_a.html
________________________________________________________
|