COMMENT: ON CLOSING OF ENGLISH JOURNAL OF JSCS AND THE BIRTH OF NEW JOURNAL JJSD

As announced by the current editors Wataru Sakamoto and Hiroshi Yadohisa, the English journal of JSCS “Journal of the Japanese Society of Computational Statistics” (JJSCS) closes at this issue (Volume 30, Number 2), and is going to join a new journal “Japanese Journal of Statistics and Data Science” (JJSD) that will start in 2018 as an official journal of the Japanese Federation of Statistical Science Associations (JFSSA). All of six member societies will jointly contribute to the publication of JJSD. JSCS was established in 1986. I played the role of chief editor of JJSCS since then until 1990, and was responsible for the publication of volumes 1 to 3. The major purpose of establishing JSCS was to make a progress in computational statistics in Japan by providing a forum for people working in various aspects of computational statistics, e.g., statisticians engaged in the research and application of statistical theory and methods, computer scientists/engineers engaged in the development of statistical software, and statisticians/data analysts engaged in the analysis of data obtained with surveys, experiments or other means, and provide them opportunities for exchanging information and ideas and, if possible, for finding seeds for joint works among them. For producing better products as well as for getting more valuable outcomes using the products, it is vital to know what the counterpart really wishes between the producers and the users (or consumers) of everything including statistical methods and software. In those days our major interest was in the R & D of statistical program packages (SPP) as described in President Address (JSCS Japanese journal, Volume 1, Number 1) by the first president Chooichiro Asano. I myself was interested in R & D of SPP on personal computers with my colleagues, that is useful both for the data analysis and for the research work of statistical methods. There are three remarkable traditions in JSCS. I like these traditions and think that they have contributed very much to the achievement of the purpose of establishment mentioned above. One is social gathering at the time of scientific meeting. Every time it is organized in such a way that participants can talk freely in a comfortable atmosphere for exchanging information and ideas. The second one is the tradition that president of JSCS is elected alternately from academic and non-academic communities so that both sides will be satisfied equally in a long period. The third one is that it is very positive in international activities, for example, Japan and Korea Conferences, Japan and China Symposia, and also organizing international meetings such as 25 JSCS Symposium in Busan in 2011, two international scientific meetings for 30 Anniversary in Okinawa and Seattle in 2015 and 2016. Since around a decade ago the environment of statistics has been changing due to advances in the computer and information technology, and accordingly it has strong effect on statistical science especially computational statistics. Let us briefly review what happened.