I) Theory and Applications: This section publishes articles 1) that make novel and original contributions to the foundations, theoretical development, and methodology of statistics and probability, and 2) that adapt and extend existing theory in an important way to special fields of application. The statistical theory and methods include all techniques relevant to statistics and probability: not only more traditional mathematical methods but also computational and graphical methods. The articles should be motivated by a scientific or practical problem in the real world, and illustrated by application of the proposed method to the problem. Illustration of techniques with real data is especially welcome and strongly encouraged. This section also publishes review articles that may be a review of an area of applied statistics or a review of statistical methodology or theory. The review articles should report on completed research and adequately compare existing methods.

II) Software and Algorithms: This section publishes articles that deal with the development, evolution and validation of statistical software and algorithms.

III) Data and Software Review: This section publishes articles 1) that present new and useful data, 2) that evaluate the quality of important data sources, and 3) that improve existing knowledge about statistical software available to the public. Data sets and software reported must be accessible to society members. Normally, authors submitting articles of their own data sets or software systems are also expected to submit reviewed data sets and the systems for posting to the JSCS web site. Exceptions for reasons of security or confidentiality may be granted by the editor. Articles reviewing commercially controlled data sets and/or software can also be submitted.