Preface

The appearance of this issue will mark almost two years since its inception by the late Editor, Professor Don B. Owen. Professor Malay Ghosh suggested a special issue on Pitman's Measure of Closeness (PMC) to Professor Owen in autumn of 1989. After a thorough review process the issue was finalized in June 1991. It is with remorse that we publish this special issue in memory of Professor Owen.

The completion of the issue coincided with a special conference, “Pitman's Measure of Cfoseness: Celebrating a Decade of Renaissance,” held on June 15, 1991 at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). The papers in this special issue, except those of Professor Kubokawa and Drs. Bertuzzi and Gandolfi, were presented and discussed. The conference participants included C.R. Rao (Pennsylvania State University), Colin Blyth (Queen's University), and H.T. David (Iowa State University). Further, P.K. Sen (University of North Carolina) and Malay Ghosh (University of Florida) gave keynote addresses that respectively set the themes for the morning and afternoon sessions.

The conference banquet held in the Regent's Room at the University of Texas at San Antonio, featured stimulating addresses by C.R. Rao and Colin Blyth on some of the major controversies of PMC such as intransitiveness and Berkson's conjecture. We are grateful to the University of Texas at San Antonio for making this conference a reality. In particular, we thank Professor Shair Ahmad, Director of the Division of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics at UTSA for funding travel expenses not only for the invited speakers but also for many of the younger researchers. We also acknowledge University President Samuel Kirkpatrick who made the KIVA room available for the technical sessions and the Regent's Room for the Banquet. We also acknowledge the financial support of Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. as a cosponsor of the conference.