Mathematical, Statistical and Computing Section 2011
A large part of the Section’s activity was focused on the need to update our Rules and Regulations. A special meeting of the Mathematical, Statistical and Computing Section Committee was held in November to do this and a vote at the Annual General Meeting in December voted to accept the updated Section Rules and Regulations. Following acceptance of the updated Section Rules & Regulations, the Section Committee was elected and will serve in a manner consistent with the updated Rules & Regulations.
The deadline and announcement of the Ranald Macdonald Postgraduate Research Award was altered this year. The winner of this Award will be the best UK Postgraduate thesis (MSc, MRes, MPhil, Professional Doctorate, DPhil or PhD) using mathematics or statistics in a novel way to investigate an aspect of Psychology (awarded between 1 August 2010 and 31 December 2011). The prize consists of £150 and expenses up to £200. (Presenting a summary or an aspect of their work at the following Annual Scientific Meeting is a condition of award acceptance.)
Further details of the Award are available on the Section website.
After travelling to a number of different locations over the last few years, this year’s Annual Scientific Meeting and Annual General Meeting returned to London and was held at the BPS Offices and Meeting Rooms at 30 Tabernacle Street.
The keynote lecture at the Scientific Meeting was presented by Professor Zoltan Dienes (Sussex University) and was entitled 'Using Bayes to make the most of null results'. Indeed, a number of papers addressing or employing Bayesian analyses were presented, along with a number of empirical papers employing more conventional analyses. The papers presented and the subsequent discussions were not only extremely interesting and in some cases provocative, but all were noted as being of a particularly high quality.
Andrew Rutherford, Chair
- Annual Review 2011
- More about the work of the Mathematical, Statistical and Computing Section
