[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Canty_award1.jpg” caption=”Charmaine Dean, president of the Statistical Society of Canada, presents Dr. Angelo Canty with the Canadian Journal of Statistics Award for the best paper published in that journal for 2006. Photo by Chris Hammond. “]”Pulling up your bootstraps” takes on a whole new meaning for Dr. Angelo Canty, who investigates probability and statistics at McMaster University.

The Statistical Society of Canada announced last week that Canty, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, along with colleagues from the US and Switzerland, have been awarded the Canadian Journal of Statistics Award for the best paper published in that journal for 2006.

The paper, entitled Bootstrap diagnostics and remedies, provides new techniques that will be of great benefit to statisticians around the world.

According to a Statistical Society of Canada press release, “Bootstrap techniques are popular, flexible tools that statisticians use to quantify uncertainty in estimation procedures. These methods are applied in many areas from the analysis of data arising from cancer studies to modeling insurance claims.”

With colleagues Dr. Anthony Davison (professor of Statistics, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland), Dr. David Hinkley (professor of Statistics, University of California, Santa Barbara) and Dr. Valerie Ventura (research associate professor, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh), Canty has created new procedures that statisticians can easily use to check the mathematical assumptions that are implicit in bootstrap techniques — ultimately providing more reliable statistical analyses.

“Dr. Canty's award is a prime example of the innovative research taking place in the Faculty of Science,” said Dr. John Capone, dean of Science.

Canty said, “My co-authors and I are delighted by this honour from the Statistical Society of Canada. The bootstrap method is widely applicable and we hope that this award and the paper for which it was given will encourage others to continue research into diagnostics to improve the reliability and acceptance of statistical analyses based on this method.”