JSM '00, August 13-17, 2000, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

SESSION TITLE: Consistent Estimation of Mixture Complexity

SESSION DESCRIPTION:  
The consistent estimation of mixture complexity is of 
fundamental importance in nearly all applications of
finite mixture models.  An enormous body of literature
exists on the application, computational issues, and
theoretical aspects of mixture models when the number
of components is known, but only recently has significant
progress been made on estimating the unknown number of
components.  
The objectives of this proposed session are two-fold:
to bring together numerous researchers active in the area
and present a sampling of the newest results, and to 
introduce mixture model practitioners to the available
theory and methods.
The relevance of the proposed session to the JSM 2000 theme
stems from the fact that mixture models are routinely employed 
across the entire diverse application range of statistics, 
including nearly all of the social and experimental sciences.

Program Chair (Statistical Computing): Steve Marron <marron@stat.unc.edu>

Session Organizer & Chair: Carey E. Priebe <cep@jhu.edu>

Invited Speaker: Larry Wasserman    <larry@stat.cmu.edu>
Invited Speaker: Ricardo Cao        <rcao@udc.es>
Invited Speaker: Jack Kalbfleisch   <jdkalbfl@math.uwaterloo.ca>
Invited Speaker: Jiahua Chen        <jhchen@setosa.uwaterloo.ca>
Invited Speaker: Bruce Lindsay      <bgl@psu.edu>
Invited Speaker: Marianthi Markatou <markat@neyman.stat.columbia.edu>

NOTE: Larry Wasserman is one speaker (confirmed)
      Ricardo Cao is one speaker (confirmed)
      Jack Kalbfleisch & Jiahua Chen are *one* speaker (confirmed)
      Bruce Lindsay & Marianthi Markatou are *one* speaker (confirmed)