Mike Larsen, editor of Chance magazine, passed along the announcement for a graphics contest. Entries are due 15 Jan 2009, and there is a specific requirement, which is that they display the data described below (and also here).

CHANCE GRAPHIC DISPLAY CONTEST: Burtin’s antibiotic data

The year 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Will Burtin (1908-1972). Burtin was an early developer of what has come to be called scientific visualization.
In the post World War II world antibiotics were called “wonder drugs” for they provided quick and easy cures for what had previously been intractable diseases. Data were being gathered to aid in learning which drug worked best for what bacterial infection. Being able to see the structure of drug performance from outcome data was an enormous aid for practitioners and scientists alike. In the fall of 1951 Burtin published a graph showing the performance of the three most popular antibiotics on 16 different bacteria.

The data that were used in his display are shown in Table 1. The entries of the table are the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), a measure of the effectiveness of the antibiotic. The MIC represents the concentration of antibiotic required to prevent growth in vitro. The covariate “gram staining” describes the reaction of the bacteria to Gram staining. Gram-positive bacteria are those that are stained dark blue or violet; whereas, Gram-negative bacteria do not react that way.

CONTEST: Submit a graphical illustration of these data and an accompanying written description of the graph. Due 1/15/09. The three best entries will be published in CHANCE, and the authors will receive a complimentary one-year subscription (extension) to CHANCE. If multiple authors submit a winning entry, one author will receive the subscription. Winners will be announced in Volume 22, Issue 2. Entries will be judged by representatives of CHANCE’s editorial board on clarity, insightfulness, succinctness, originality, and aesthetic appeal.
Please email your entries to Howard Wainer ([email protected]), preferably as a PDF file, by the due date given above. Include “CHANCE graphics contest submission” in the subject line.