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Wolfgang Polasek

The photo is provided by the Institute for Advanced Studies and the University of Vienna

We are very sad to report that our Associate Editor (AE), Wolfgang Polasek, died after severe illness on May 23rd, 2013. Wolfgang Polasek acquired his PhD in statistics in 1976 and his lectureship (Habilitation) in econometrics and Bayesian statistics in 1982 at the University of Vienna. In the following three decades, Wolfgang Polasek contributed to the leading journals in economics and statistics, and visited the most prominent universities all around the world. He joined us as an AE for the very first issue of the (new) Computational Statistics in 1992 and he remained active in this role until about three weeks before his passing away, making him one of the two longest-serving AEs of Computational Statistics. His countless editorial contributions have gained from his academic self-understanding of being very precise in detail and open minded for new ideas and concepts. Many authors (and our journal) have benefitted from his familiarity with both model-based theory on the one hand and scopes and limits of data-based measurement on the other hand. Wolfgang Polasek was always constructive in this critique and clear in his recommendations. Hereby, the editors of Computational Statistics express their deep gratitude for his dedication to academic conventions in general, and to his work for Computational Statistics in particular.We also want to express our deepest condolences to his surviving wife, children, and grandchildren.