"John Fox" <jfox@mcmaster.ca>,
 Erich Neuwirth <erich.neuwirth@univie.ac.at>,
 Thomas Baier <baier@ci.tuwien.ac.at>,
 Balasubramanian Narasimhan <naras@stanford.edu> 


John, Erich, Thomas, Naras,

I would like to invite you to present a paper at the Interface 2007
conference in Philadelphia May 23-26, 2007.  I am putting together a
session on the computational statistics tools needed by biological
scientists.  I hope you will be able to attend and speak.

I have listed an abstract of the session and three proposed speakers
and approximate titles below.  Please feel free to adapt the titles as
appropriate; putting the word "biology" in the title is one such
adaptation.  My goal for this set of talks is to illustrate for
potential users that this is the right software interface.  I am
looking for emphasis on design features for ease of use by
biologically sophisticated users.  I am not interested, in this forum,
on the computational details of how those features are built.

Please let me know if you are able to prepare a paper along these lines
for the Interface.

Rich




Statistics Menu Systems for Biologists

Sophisticated programs for statistical analysis can be very complex.
Good collaboration with scientists requires a software interface
between the working styles of the data collector and interpretor and
the analysis software.  In this session we describe and illustrate a
menu system integrated into the Excel menu bar that gives complete
access to the full power of R.  Excel is an ubiquitous spreadsheet
often used for data collection, manipulation, and storage.  References
to arbitrarily large and complex items can be stored in the
spreadsheet cells.  R is an integrated suite of software facilities
for data manipulation, calculation, statistical analysis, and
graphical display.  The R command language can be daunting for an
occasional user who needs access to the computational power of the
language.  This session includes discussions of a newly created system
that allows substantial access to R via a clickable menu residing on
the spreadsheet bar of Microsoft Excel.  Results from the analyses can
be returned to the spreadsheet.  The presentations discuss the
development, implementation and applications of this new technology.

1. Design of the Rcmdr Menu System
John Fox

2. Integration of the Rcmdr Menu System into Excel
Erich Neuwirth and Thomas Baier

3. Applications of R to Biological Sciences controlled through the
Excel interface.
Narasimhan Balasubramanian




The 39th Conference on Interface of Statistics and Computing Science
will take place
	May 23-26, Philadelphia, Doubletree Hotel
The general theme is "Systems Biology".

For more information, see the conference website
	http://sbm.temple.edu/interface07/
or contact Alan J. Izenman, Department of Statistics, Speakman
Hall, 1810 North 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122-6083, 
(215) 204-8166, alan@temple.edu.
