Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Annual meeting held July 26-27, 2007 at Utah State University Joint meeting with SCC-13 Official Members Present: R. Alldredge (WA), T. Bailey (IA), B. Bishop (OH), J. Boyer (KS, Admin), D. Bullock (IL), M. Christman (FL), B. Craig (IN), S. Duke (USDA-ARS), S. Durham (UT), G. Fernandez (NV), E. Gbur (AR), M. Hinds (Pioneer), K. McCarter (LA), M. Nemeth (Monsanto), D. Schmoldt (USDA-CSREES, Admin.), B. Shafii (ID), W. Stroup (NE), R. Tempelman (MI), M. West (USDA-ARS), K. Yeater (USDA-ARS), L. Young (FL), J. Zhu (WI) Official Members Absent: G. Bollero (IL), P. Cornelius (KY), K. Koehler (IA), L. Madden (OH), D. Meek (USDA-ARS), G. Milliken (KS), B. Momen (MD), C. Ren (SD), H. Zhang (WA) SCC-13 members/Guests/Participants: J. Aleong, A. Bakian, J. Davis, J. Geaghan, C. Goad, H. Hill, D. Johnson, A. Mauromoustakos, J. Osborne, A. Saxton, J. Stevens, E. Van Santen, B. Vinyard 2006 Officers: E. Gbur, Chair; M. Hinds, Program Chair; S. Durham, Local Arrangements Chair; S. Durham, Secretary NCCC-170 web site: www.uark.edu/misc/ncr170 Minutes: Technical program: The meeting began at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, July 26 with opening remarks by Paul Rasmussen, Director of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station. Walt Stroup gave a three part presentation on generalized linear mixed models in agriculture and their analysis using SAS. The morning session presentations were entitled "GLMM's in agriculture and an introduction to PROC GLIMMIX" and "GLIMMIX: Applications, examples and experiences." The third part of his presentation entitled "Unresolved GLIMMIX issues and new features in SAS Version 9.2" was presented as the first afternoon session. The final session of the afternoon featured a group discussion of generalized linear models in service courses. The session began with short presentations by Ted Bailey, Ed Gbur and Edzard Van Santen. On Friday morning Dan Schmoldt was introduced as the new CSREES representative replacing Larry Miller who retired. Prior to a slide presentation about the organizational structure of CREES within the USDA and its partnership with universities, he responded to the previous day's discussion about statistical involvement in science and education. He encouraged participants to serve on grant review committees for entities like NSF and AES. He noted budget issues and the potential impact of the in-progress farm bill on CREES organization and funding priorities. As he looks to the future, he sees several research areas that are ripe for increased statistical involvement including bioenergy, specialty crops, plant breeding/genetics, precision agriculture, invasive species, and establishment of log-term agro-ecological research sites. Dan's presentation was followed by a group discussion about the linear models and spatial workshops. Discussion centered on whether or not the linear models workshop needed to be updated in include more material on mixed models and generalized linear mixed models. Rob Tempelman said that the animal science societies might be interested again. Entomology would likely be receptive to GLIMMIX modifications dealing with count data. It was generally agreed that the workshop should be updated both in terms of using GLIMMIX and in including material on generalized linear models. Rob, Bruce Craig and Linda Young expressed an interest in working on the update, including modifications to include more material on non-normal responses. Business meeting: The business meeting was held Friday, July 27 immediately after the first session. Ed Gbur presided. Mark Hinds and Susan Durham were thanked for providing an enjoyable meeting. The following items were discussed. (1) Next year's meeting will be held the Ohio State OARDC in Wooster, Ohio on July 21-22. The local arrangements chair will be Bert Bishop and program chair will be Kevin McCarter. Discussion of the 2008 program centered on whether or not it should include sessions on varied topics related to all project objectives; i.e., (i) continuing research in mixed models, (ii) continuing work in spatial statistics, (iii) new technologies, e.g., PLS and remote sensing applications, and (iv) incorporating GLIMMIX into the MIXED workshop and revising the content. The 2009 meeting will be in College Station, Texas hosted by Sara Duke. (2) Project members were reminded to send their contributions for the accomplishment, output and impact sections of the annual report to Ed (egbur@uark.edu) as soon as possible. The reporting period for this years annual report is October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2007. The reporting period coincides with the Federal fiscal year. The target completion date for the report is the end of August. (3) People who volunteered to contact various societies about workshops reported on their success. Sara Duke approached the Society for Range Management. Although they expressed interest, nothing was finalized. She will try again. Walt Stroup was unsuccessful with the Horticulture Society. Initially there was strong interest but it waned in the face of details such as registration fees to cover presenters' expenses. In his opinion, they need something more basic than the mixed model or spatial workshops. Rob Tempelman will try Animal Science again. Larry Douglass had agreed to approach the Entomological Society, but he retired and was not at this meeting to report. Linda Young said she would contact the society to determine whether or not they are interested in mixed and/or spatial workshops. Mary Christman had expected to be in contact with the Wildlife Society but did not attend their annual meeting this year. She will approach them this year, although she anticipates their interest level may be low due to the predominance of non-experimental approaches in wildlife studies. Sara Duke raised the question of whether or not we can give CEU credit for our workshops. It is unlikely that we will be able to charge more than needed to recover workshop materials and presenters' travel costs. She will investigate what would be required and will report to the group at next years meeting. Ed asked whether the spatial workshop is not as popular as the mixed workshop or whether we need to push it harder. He noted that some scientists think spatial statistics is about making maps, not statistical analyses. Linda thought that interest in spatial modeling might be strongest in ANOVA-like contexts. Mary noted that we statisticians focus on incorporating spatial covariance in modeling with less emphasis on the statistical component in mapping. In response to a question about what had happened with the project's precision agriculture efforts, Mark Hinds commented that commercial solutions are now available and may be all that users feel is needed. (4) As the Technical Editor for Crop Science, Don Bullock is soliciting papers to address statistical problems faced by his readers. He envisions a paper, or possibly a series of papers, that outline the transitions from GLM to MIXED to GENMOD/GLIMMIX. He inquired whether or not project members would be interested in writing such papers as a coherent set. Ed noted that our production of these sorts of papers qualifies as continuing education activities under the project. It was agreed that this type of papers have a reach far beyond that of a workshop. Since the meeting, interested project members have begun to sort out responsibilities for preparing a series of manuscripts. The meeting adjourned at approximately 10:20 a.m.

Statisticians who consult and do research in an Agricultural Experiment Station environment enable land grant institutions to perform their agricultural research missions more effectively and efficiently than would otherwise be possible. However, most stations have at most one or two professional statisticians who are not, and can not be expected to be, experts in every area of statistics. This multi-state committee brings together statisticians to work cooperatively to determine the best current approaches to common statistical problems and to help guide future directions of sound statistical practice. In addition to group outputs such as workshops, it serves as a resource for its members and a sounding board for new ideas in their applied statistical research. As a result, all members are able to provide more effective assistance to agricultural researchers addressing national research priorities than they would without NCCC-170. Outputs: Workshops: The spatial statistics workshop was presented to a group of 40 participants at the Joint Meeting of the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society and the Soil Science Society of America in Indianapolis in November 2006 by Ed Gbur and Mary Christman. Ed Gbur also presented the workshop to a group of approximately 45 faculty and graduate students at the University of Arkansas in January 2007. John Aleong organized, cohosted and team taught part of a four week National Summer Transportation Institute workshop sponsored by U.S. DOT held at the University of Vermont. Topics covered included GIS and GPS in June and July, 2007 Rob Tempelman presented a half-day workshop entitled "Design and analysis of gene expression studies using microarrays" at the Center for Statistical Consulting and Training, Michigan State University in May, 2007. Mary Christman presented a two-day workshop on incorporating random effects and dependencies into general linear models at The Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg, FL in May, 2007. Presentations: Selected presentations at the 2007 Kansas State Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture were made by: David Meek (with D., J. Prueger. M. Tomer, and R. Malone). Spectral procedures enhance the analysis of three agricultural time series. Bruce Craig (with S. M. Knapp). Adjusting for genotyping error in non-invasive DNA-based mark-recapture populations. Contributed presentations at the Joint Statistics Meetings in Salt Lake City in August, 2007 were made by: John Aleong. Climate change models and impacts. Mary Christman. Design-based, model-based, and model-assisted sampling and inference in natural resources. John Aleong presented a paper entitled "Predictions for large datasets" at a workshop on Global Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Curriculum in January, 2007 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Mary Christman presented an invited paper entitled "Model-based inference using data with many zeroes" at the annual Forest Inventory Analysis Symposium in Monterey, CA in October, 2006. She also served as a discussant for an invited session at the symposium. Mary Christman presented an invited paper entitled "Modelling non-linear mixture experiments in stream ecology" at the Spring ENAR Meeting in Atlanta in March, 2007. Mary Christman presented a paper entitled "Mathematical modeling and analysis of use of space" at the joint ADSA-PSA-AMPA-ASAS Meeting in San Antonio in July, 2007. R.P. Ewing and David Meek presented a paper entitled "One line or two? A framework for segmented regression" at the Tri-Society (ASA-CSSA-SSSA) Annual Meetings in November, 2006. Rob Tempelman presented an invited paper entitled "Inferential statistical analysis of microarray experiments" at the International Microarray Workshop at the University of Arizona in January, 2007. Rob Tempelman presented an invited paper entitled "Statistical issues pertaining to on-farm and experiment station research" at the Midwestern Section meetings of the American Society of Animal Science in March, 2007 in Des Moines, IA. Mark West made a presentation entitled "Fitting Models to Your Experimental Design with GLIMMIX" to researchers at the Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, NE and at the Northern Grain Insects Research Laboratory, Brookings, S.D. in October, 2006. Mark West made a presentation entitled "Introduction to mixed model analysis" to researchers at the Grain Marketing and Production Research Center, Manhattan, KS. in May, 2007. Hao Zhang presented an invited paper entitled "Spatial prediction with spatial count data" at annual meeting of the International Environmetrics Society in Mikulov, Czech Republic in August, 2007. Hao Zhang presented an invited paper entitled "Infill asymptotics in spatial statistics" at the 2007 Taipei International Statistical Symposium and ICSA International Conference in, Taipei in June, 2007. Hao Zhang presented an invited paper entitled "A public agricultural weather system at Washington State" as part of a workshop on agroclimate risk in Regina, Canada in June, 2007. Jun Zhu presented an invited paper entitled "Statistical modeling of multivariate spatial-temporal data in a forest entomology study" at the Conference of Multivariate Methods in Environmetrics in Chicago in October, 2006. Jun Zhu presented an invited paper entitled "Markov chain Monte Carlo for a spatial-temporal autologistic regression model" at the Conference of Spatial and Spatio-Temporal Statistics at the University of Arkansas in April, 2007. Technical Reports: Miller, C. P. and M.C. Christman (2006). A random walk model for animal movement in confined regions. University of Florida, Department of Statistics, Technical Report 2006-028. Secor, D., M.C. Christman, F. Curriero, D. Jasinski, E. Perry, S. Preston, K. Rechkow and M. Trice (2006). The cumulative frequency diagram method for determining water quality attainment. Report of the Chesapeake Bay Program STAC Panel to Review of Chesapeake Bay Program Analytical Tools. 2006. Other project related activities: George Fernandez served as an associate editor for statistics for American Society for Horticultural Sciences Journal, Hort Science and American Potato Research Journal. Don Bullock serves as technical editor for Crop Science. John Stevens received a one year grant from the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station for a project entitled "Probe-level statistical models for differential expression of genes in bovine NT studies." Funding for grant which began in September, 2007 totals $18,500. The project is associated with the W1112 regional committee "Reproductive performance in domestic ruminants" and was motivated in part by discussions at the 2006 NCCC-170 meetings in Madison, WI. A committee has been formed to write a series of papers of a tutorial nature that will describe the basic concepts and issues associated with the analysis of generalized linear mixed models. Numerical examples will be used to illustrate each topic. The committee has outlined five papers and assigned a person or persons to lead the writing for each paper. Don Bullock and several other project members have incorporated ideas and examples from the annual meetings into the classes which they teach at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Specific goals for the next three years: (1) Educate project members in statistical issues and methodology related to statistical problems in which large number of variables are collected on relatively few experimental units. Application areas include biotechnology, precision agriculture and chemometrics. (2) Develop additional modules for spatial workshops, refine the current modules and offer versions tailored to specific subject matter audiences. (3) Continue to develop methodology to address both spatial and general statistical problems in the area of precision agriculture. (4) Revise the mixed model workshop to include generalized linear mixed models and the use of new software. (5) Offer the mixed model workshop upon request from subject matter groups.

Christman, M.C. and E.N.H. Leone (2007). Statistical aspects of the analysis of group size effects in confined Animals. Applied Animal Behavior Science, 103, 265-283. Christman, M.C (2007). Statistical modeling of observational data with spatial dependencies. Journal of Wildlife Management. In press. Christman, M. C. (2007). Comment on "Model-assisted estimation of forest resources with generalized additive models" by J.D. Opsomer, F. J. Breidt, G.G. Moisen and G. Kauermann. Journal of the American Statistical Association. In press. DeFalco L.A , G.C.J Fernandez and R.S. Nowak (2007). Variation in the establishment of a non-native annual grass influences competitive interactions with Mojave Desert perennials. Biological Invasions, 9, 293-307. Dharmalingam S.P., J.M. Frantz, J.C. Locke, C.R. Krause and G.C.J. Fernandez (2007). Impact of applied nitrogen concentration on growth of Elatior Begonia and New Guinea Impatiens and susceptibility of Begonia to Botrytis cinerea. Journal of American Society of Horticultural Science, 132, 193 - 201. Estevez, I. and M.C. Christman (2006). Analysis of the movement and use of space by animals in confinement. Applied Animal Behavior Science, 97, 221-240. Fernandez, G. (2007). Design and analysis of commonly used comparative horticultural experiments. HortScience, 42(5), 1052-1069 (PDF at http//www.crda.unr.edu/crda/publications/hort%20paper%20design.pdf ) Fleming-Waddell, J.N., L.M. Wilson, G.R. Olbricht, T. Vuocolo, K. Byrne, B.A. Craig, R.L. Tellam, N.E. Cockett and C.A. Bidwell (2007). Analysis of gene expression during the onset of muscle hypertrophy in callipyge lambs. Animal Genetics. In press. Grobbel, J.P., M.E. Dikeman, E.J. Yancey, J.S. Smith, D.H. Kropf, and G.A. Milliken. (2006). Effects of ascorbic acid, rosemary, and OriganoxTM in preventing bone marrow discoloration in beef lumbar vertebrae in aerobic and anaerobic packaging systems. Meat Science, 72, 47-56. Henry, W.B., D.L. Shaner and M.S. West, M.S. (2007). Shikimate accumulation in sunflower, wheat, and proso millet after glyphosate application. Weed Science, 55,1-5. Jensen, O.P., M. C. Christman and T. J. Miller (2006). Landscape-based geostatistics:A case study of the distribution of blue crab in Chesapeake Bay. Environmetrics, 7, 605-621. Leone, E. H., I. Estevez and M.C. Christman (2007). Environmental complexity and group size effects on the use of space by domestic fowl. Applied Animal Behavior Science, 102, 39-52. Milliken, G. A., K. A. Garrett, and S. E. Travers (2007). Experimental design for two-color microarrays applied in a pre-existing split-plot experiment. Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology, 6(1), Article 20. Morgan, J.A., D.G. Milchunas, D.R. LeCain, M. West, and A.R. Mosier (2007). Carbon dioxide enrichment alters plant community structure and accelerates shrub growth in the shortgrass steppe. PNAS, 104: 14724-14729 (online September 4 2007, 10.1073/pnas.0703427104). North, E. W., J.H. Vølstad, M.C. Christman, R.R. Hood, L. Zhong, Z. Schlag, T.F. Gross, D. Lewis, J. Dew, M. Li, J.L. Manuel, R.I. Newell and V.S. Kennedy (2007). Investigating the influence of environmental variability and larval behavior on juvenile recruitment to oyster populations with linked larval transport and fisheries demographic models. ICES Journal. Special issue. In press. Russell, R.E., R.K. Swihart and B.A. Craig (2007). Vole movements in complex environments: The effects of matrix structure on movement behavior of meadow voles. Journal of Mammalogy. In press. Settle, D. M., J. D. Fry, G. A. Milliken, N. A. Tisserat and T. C. Todd (2007). Quantifying the effects of lance nematode parasitism in creeping bentgrass. Plant Disease, 91, 1170-1179. Sexauer Gustin a, M., P.V. Chavan, K.E. Dennett, S. Donaldson, E. Marchand, G.C.J Fernandez (2006). Use of constructed wetlands with four different experimental designs to assess the potential for methyl and total Hg outputs. Applied Geochemistry, 21, 2023-2035. Singer, J., S. Logsdon, and D. Meek (2007). Tillage and compost effects on corn growth, nutrient accumulation, and grain yield. Agronomy Journal, 99, 80-87. Singer, J. T. Sauer, B. Blaser, and D. Meek (2007). Radiation use efficiency in dual winter cereal-forage production systems. Agronomy Journal, 99, 1175-1179. Thalacker-Mercer, A.E., J.C. Fleet, B.A. Craig, N.S. Carnell and W.W. Campbell (2007). Inadequate protein intake affects skeletal muscle gene expression in older humans. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In press. Toscano, M., D.C. Lay, B.A. Craig and E.A. Pajor (2007). Assessing the adaptation of swine to 57 hours of feed deprivation in terms of behavioral and physiological responses. Journal of Animal Science. In press. Walter, J., M.C. Christman, J. Hoenig and R. Mann (2007). Combining data from multiple years or areas to improve variogram estimation. Environmetrics 18, 583-598. Zhang, H. and D. Zimmerman (2007). Hybrid estimation of semivariogram parameters. Mathematical Geology. In press. Zhang, H. (2007). Maximum likelihood estimation for multivariate spatial linear coregionalization models. Environmetrics, 18, 125-139. Zhu, J., J.G. Rasmussen, J. Moeller, B.H. Aukema and K.F. Raffa (2007). Spatial-temporal modeling of forest gaps generated by colonization from below- and above-ground bark beetle species. Journal of the American Statistical Association. In press. Zhu, J., Y. Zheng, A.L. Carroll and B.H. Aukema (2007). Autologistic regression analysis of spatial-temporal binary data via Monte Carlo maximum likelihood. Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics. In press.