CURRENT TRENDS AND RECENT ADVANCES IN APPLIED BIOMETRY
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Nairobi
Kenya
August 30 – September 3, 2004
SPONSORED BY THE FLEMISH INTERUNIVERSITY COUNCIL (VLIR)
Brussels, Belgium
Contract number: NICP2004NA005
Since 1993 the Limburgs Universitair Centrum (LUC, Diepenbeek, Belgium) offers the International Course Programme ‘Master of Science in Biostatistics’. The programme is supported by the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR). Every year the VLIR-scholarship programme attaches 16 scholarships for students from the South to this master programme. To keep contact with former students the VLIR also supports, once every five years, a scientific follow-up activity.
Since we know that in East and southern Africa there is a keen interest in enhancing the capacity in biometry and biostatistics and since many of our former students come from this region, Nairobi (Kenya) was chosen as the appropriate location for the follow-up workshop.
After a meeting with the staff from the Biometrics Unit at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) back in January 2003 and after contacting our colleagues in statistics at the University of Nairobi, we agreed that ILRI was the appropriate venue.
We succeeded in organizing short courses on ‘animal epidemiology and animal breeding’ (dr. Vincent Ducrocq) and on ‘modeling infectious diseases data’ (dr. Khangelani Zuma and dr. Ziv Shkedy). These short courses will provide up-to-date statistical methodology needed to analyze data obtained from ongoing agricultural and medical projects in the South. Related to the material offered by dr. Ducrocq we will have a short workshop on ‘fitting frailty models’ (dr. Luc Duchateau, dr. Rosemary Nguti and dr. Paul Janssen). We further will have a short workshop on ‘enhancement of biometric capacity’ (dr. John Owino and dr. John Rowlands).
Six invited speakers will contribute to the programme: dr. Luc Bijnens, dr. Krista Fischer and dr. R. Nguti are former students from our programme and are at the moment active as biostatisticians. Dr. Linda Haines is responsible for the biometrics programme at the University of KwaZulu Natal (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa) and dr. Margaret Nabasirye (Makarere University, Uganda) has been visiting professor at the Limburgs Universitair Centrum to teach ‘topics in biometry’. Finally dr. Noël Veraverbeke is one of the founders of the biostatistics programme at the LUC.
We are also happy that a group of former students and colleagues from research institutes and universities in East and southern Africa agreed to give contributed presentations.
Almost 45 participants enrolled for the workshop. We hope it will be a fruitful week and we expect that it will tighten further the already existing links between institutes in Africa and LUC.
We thank the local organizing committee at ILRI (chaired by dr. Rosemary Nguti) for the efforts they put in organizing this workshop. Also thanks to my colleagues dr. Luc Duchateau, dr. Noël Veraverbeke and Mrs. Martine Machiels for helping me, at the Belgian side, in the organization.
Looking forward to meeting our alumni and African colleagues for an interesting week on biostatistics.
Diepenbeek, August 23, 2004
Paul Janssen
Monday, August 30, 2004
09:00-09:10John McDermott (ILRI Deputy Director General – Programmes) Welcome
09:10-10:40 Vincent Ducrocq (Institut National de la Recherche
Agronomique (INRA), Station de Génétique
Quantitative et Appliquée, Jouy-en-Josas, France)
Some illustrations of the use of proportional hazard models in animal
epidemiology
10:40-11:00 Coffee
11:00-11:45Noel Veraverbeke (Limburgs Universitair Centrum, Belgium)
Estimating the survival function under dependent or partially informative
censoring
11:45-12:30 Rosemary Nguti (University of Nairobi, Kenya)
Title to be announced (frailty models)
12:30-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:30Workshop on frailty models (part 1)
Luc Duchateau (University of Gent, Belgium)
Paul Janssen (Limburgs Universitair Centurm, Diepenbeek, Belgium)
Rosemary Nguti (University of Nairobi, Kenya)
15:30-16:00 Coffee
16:00-17:20 Contributed papers (4 presentations of 20’)
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
09:00-10:30Vincent Ducrocq
The ‘Survival Kit’, software for analysing large data sets with proportional
hazards models
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
11:00-12:30Ziv Shkedy (Limburgs Universitair Centrum, Belgium) and
Khangelani Zuma (Human Sciences Research Council, Private Bag X 41,Pretoria, South Africa)
Introduction. Data structure, mathematical models for infectious disease
and the impact of mixing patterns on the spread of the disease
12:30-14:00Lunch
14:00-15:30Vincent Ducrocq
Some illustrations of the use of frailty models in animal breeding
15:30-16:00 Coffee
16:00-17:30 Workshop on frailty models (part 2)
Duchateau, Janssen and Nguti
Wednesday, September 1, 2004
09:00-10:30Ziv Shkedy and Khangelani Zuma
Estimating from current status data
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
11:00-11:45Linda Haines (University of Natal, South Africa)
Response surface methodology in agriculture
11:45-12:30Margaret Nabasirye (Makarere University, Uganda)
Suitability of standard experimental designs for on-farm trials
12:30-14:00Lunch
14:00-21:00Social activity and conference dinner
Thursday, September 2, 2004
09:00-10:30Luc Bijnens (Johnson&Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Beerse,
Belgium)
Statistics in research and development of medicines
10:30-11:00 Coffee
11:00-12:20 Contributed papers (4 presentations of 20’)
12:30-14:00Lunch
14:00-15:30Ziv Shkedy and Khangelani Zuma
Modelling interval censored data
15:30-16:00 Coffee
16:00-17:30Ziv Shkedy and Khangelani Zuma
Case studies (1): Modelling the outbreak of AIDS in US and the impact of
migration on the spread of HIV/STI
Friday, September 3, 2004
09:00-10:00Krista Fischer (University of Tartu, Estonia)
Causal graphs and structural modeling for estimating effects of
hormone therapy in a trial setting
10:00-11:00Ziv Shkedy and Khangelani Zuma
Case studies (2): Modelling the outbreak of AIDS in US and the impact of
migration on the spread of HIV/STI
11:00-11:30 Coffee
11:30-12:30 Contributed papers (3 presentations of 20’)
12:30-14:00Lunch
14:00-15:30 Workshop on enhancement of biometric capacity
John Rowlands, Mamadou Dhiedhiou (International
Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya)
John Owino, JohnOdhiamboUniversity of Nairobi, Kenya)
Rick Coe (World Agroforestry Centre, Nairobi, Kenya)
15:30-16:00 Coffee
16:00-17:30 Workshop on enhancement of biometric capacity
Rowlands, Dhiedhiou, Owino/Odhiambo, Coe
18:00-20:00Cocktail
Optional activity on Tuesday evening
John Rowlands
Demonstration of biometrics training resource that ILRI is working on