Agrostat 2010

The AGROSTAT conference aims at drawing an overview of the use of statistical methods in the food industry and at evaluating practical benefits given by new techniques. It offers an ideal opportunity to statisticians and industrial users to meet, exchange experiences, keep in touch with the state-of-art of statistical methods in the food industry and evaluate their impact upon food quality and industrial competitiveness.
The conference focuses strongly on applications. It should be of particular interest for professionals using statistics in the food industry, i.e., people in charge of quality control, production engineering, research and development.
The aim is to highlight the power of statistical analysis as a decision tool and as a help for defining locally optimal competitive industrial strategies.

Privileged conference themes

• Sensometrics: Statistical methods for sensory analysis. Planning of sensorial evaluations, analysis of expert panel or consumer data, analysing relationships between instrumental and sensorial measurements, relating consumer preferences to sensorial data.
• Chemometrics: Extraction of useful information from data collected in analytical chemistry, from physical measurement data, etc. Exploration and prediction in a supervised or an unsupervised framework with linear or nonlinear procedures. Analysis of multi-way data tables.
• Process Control: Use of statistical or artificial intelligence methods to develop and better control a process and to enhance product quality: quantitative and qualitative modelling, experimental design, validation of fast measurement methods, control charts, neuronal nets, fuzzy logic, etc.
• Risk Analysis: Better understanding and control of the evolution of micro-organisms and of their effects upon human health. Prevention of the risks linked with their development in food industries. Epidemiology, predictive microbiology, dose-effect model, shelf-life testing, etc.

Posters related to other topics are welcome.

On February 23th, the day before the conference, a special afternoon of introduction to sensory analysis is proposed to members of industries and research laboratories.

Language

In 2010, for the second time, the AGROSTAT conference will be organized out of France and the organizers would really like to welcome non French speakers.
All slides of presentations and posters will be in English. Oral presentations will be in English or French but a simultaneous translation will be proposed.