A Conversation with George G. Roussas

George G. Roussas was born in the city of Marmara in central Greece, on June 29, 1933. He received a B.A. with high honors in Mathematics from the University of Athens in 1956, and a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964. In 1964--1966, he served as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the California State University, San Jose, and he was a faculty member of the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1966--1976, starting as an Assistant Professor in 1966, becoming a Professor in 1972. He was a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Director of the Laboratory of Applied Mathematics at the University of Patras, Greece, in 1972--1984. He was elected Dean of the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Patras in 1978, and Chancellor of the university in 1981. He served for about three years as Vice President-Academic Affairs of the then new University of Crete, Greece, in 1981--1985. In 1984, he was a Visiting Professor in the Intercollege Division of Statistics at the University of California, Davis, and he was appointed Professor, Associate Dean and Chair of the Graduate Group in Statistics in the same university in 1985; he served in the two administrative capacities in 1985--1999. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute since 1974, a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society since 1975, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics since 1983, and a Fellow of the American Statistical Association since 1986. He served as a member of the Council of the Hellenic Mathematical Society, and as President of the Balkan Union of Mathematicians.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-STS299A the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Using Graphing Calculators to Integrate Mathematics and Science

The computational, graphing, statistical and programming capabilities of today’s graphing calculators make it possible for teachers and students to explore aspects of functions and investigate real-world situations in ways that were previously inaccessible because of computational constraints. Many of the features of graphing calculators can be used to integrate topics from mathematics and science. Here we provide a few illustrations of activities that use the graphing, parametric graphing, regression, and recursion features of graphing calculators to study mathematics in science contexts

Implementation of the Combined--Nonlinear Condensation Transformation

We discuss several applications of the recently proposed combined nonlinear-condensation transformation (CNCT) for the evaluation of slowly convergent, nonalternating series. These include certain statistical distributions which are of importance in linguistics, statistical-mechanics theory, and biophysics (statistical analysis of DNA sequences). We also discuss applications of the transformation in experimental mathematics, and we briefly expand on further applications in theoretical physics. Finally, we discuss a related Mathematica program for the computation of Lerch's transcendent.Comment: 23 pages, 1 table, 1 figure (Comput. Phys. Commun., in press