## More on Factor-Augmented VAR’s (Principal Components Regression)

February 24, 2014
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Here's a sampling of emails that I received on my recent "Factor-Augmented VAR" post.Serena Ng at Columbia notes that her "Targeted Predictors" paper (with Jushan Bai) is motivated by considerations similar to those that motivate partial least squares ...

## Three ways to add a smoothing spline to a scatter plot in SAS

February 24, 2014
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Like many SAS programmers, I use the Statistical Graphics (SG) procedures to graph my data in SAS. To me, the SGPLOT and SGRENDER procedures are powerful, easy to use, and produce fabulous ODS graphics. I was therefore surprised when a SAS customer told me that he continues to use the [...]

## BayesFactor update: 0.9.7.

February 24, 2014
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BayesFactor version 0.9.7 has been released to CRAN. It does have a few bug fixes, so update soon. A list of changes can be found in the NEWS file.

## Bayes factor t tests, part 2: Two-sample tests

February 23, 2014
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In the previous post, I introduced the logic of Bayes factors for one-sample designs by means of a simple example. In this post, I will give more detail about the models and assumptions used by the BayesFactor package, and also how to do simple analyses of two- sample designs.See the previous posts for background:What is a Bayes factor?Bayes factor t tests, part 1This article will cover two-sample t tests.Bayesian t…

## Statistical politicians

February 23, 2014
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Last week we had the pleasure of Professor Stephen Pollock (University of Leicester) visiting our Department, best known in academic circles for his work on time series filtering (see his papers, and his excellent book). But he has another career as a member of the UK House of Lords (under the name Viscount Hanworth — he is a hereditary peer). It made me wonder how many other politicians have PhDs…

## Arnold’s "Signature"

February 23, 2014
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Anonymity is part of the culture when it comes to refereeing papers submitted for possible publication in economics, econometrics, and statistics. Referees' names are typically "blinded", and some journals use a "double-blind" process, so that authors ...

## Teach students to learn to fish

February 23, 2014
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There is a common saying that goes roughly, “Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a person to fish and you feed her for a lifetime.” Statistics education is all about teaching people to … Continue reading →

## Teach students to learn to fish

February 23, 2014
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There is a common saying that goes roughly, “Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a person to fish and you feed her for a lifetime.” Statistics education is all about teaching people to … Continue reading →

## Parallel Monte Carlo using Scala

February 23, 2014
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$Parallel Monte Carlo using Scala$

Introduction In previous posts I have discussed general issues regarding parallel MCMC and examined in detail parallel Monte Carlo on a multicore laptop. In those posts I used the C programming language in conjunction with the MPI parallel library in order to illustrate the concepts. In this post I want to take the example from […]

## Parallel Monte Carlo using Scala

February 23, 2014
By
$Parallel Monte Carlo using Scala$

Introduction In previous posts I have discussed general issues regarding parallel MCMC and examined in detail parallel Monte Carlo on a multicore laptop. In those posts I used the C programming language in conjunction with the MPI parallel library in order to illustrate the concepts. In this post I want to take the example from … Continue reading Parallel Monte Carlo using Scala

## Postdoc with Huffpost Pollster to do Bayesian poll tracking

February 23, 2014
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Mark Blumenthal writes: HuffPost Pollster has an immediate opening for a social and data scientist to join us full time, preferably in our Washington D.C. bureau, to work on development and improvement of our poll tracking models and political forecasts. You are someone who has: * A passion for electoral politics, * Advanced training in […]The post Postdoc with Huffpost Pollster to do Bayesian poll tracking appeared first on Statistical…

## qdap 1.1.0 Released on CRAN

February 23, 2014
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We’re very pleased to announce the release of qdap 1.1.0 This is the fourth installment of the qdap package available at CRAN. Major development has taken place since the last CRAN update. The qdap package automates many of the tasks … Continue reading →

## Unemployment revisited

February 23, 2014
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Approximately a year ago I made a post graphing unemployment in Europe and other locations. I have always wanted to do this again, not because the R-code would be so interesting, but just because I wanted to see the plots. As time progressed I attempte...

## Check Out the Society of Quantitative Analysts (SQA)

February 22, 2014
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If you're in or around Manhattan, in industry or interested in academic-industry crossover (and who wouldn't be?), the Society of Quantitative Analysts is for you. A totally class act.  Check out, for example, Director Jonathan Reiss and and next ...

## Don’t Hesitate to Post Comments

February 22, 2014
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A brief plea: PLEASE don't hesitate to post comments. Instead what usually happens is that people email me directly, and I can't respond, and I feel bad that I can't respond, and the sender feels bad that I didn't respond, and most importantly, people ...

## Quickies

February 22, 2014
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I received a few emails today on bloggable topics. Rather than expanding each response into a full post, I thought I’d just handle them all quickly. 1. Steve Roth asks what I think of this graph: I replied: Interseting but perhaps misleading, as of course any estimate of elasticity of -20 or +5 or whatever […]The post Quickies appeared first on Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.

## Bayesian Tests to Quantify the Result of a Replication Attempt

February 22, 2014
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This manuscript looks like a nice use of Bayes factors to assess replication results. I have not read it yet in detail, but the idea sounds right on target. From the abstract: To quantify replication outcomes we propose a novel Bayesian replication te...

## Machine Learning Lesson of the Day: The K-Nearest Neighbours Classifier

$Machine Learning Lesson of the Day: The K-Nearest Neighbours Classifier$

The K-nearest neighbours (KNN) classifier is a non-parametric classification technique that classifies an input by identifying the K data (the K “neighbours”) in the training set that are closest to counting the number of “neighbours” that belong to each class of the target variable classifying by the most common class to which its neighbours belong […]

## Open and Closed Intervals: A Problem for ML Inference But Not Bayes

February 21, 2014
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Does maximum likelihood inference have a support problem?  Maximum likelihood (ML) has a problem with parameters that take values in open sets (Is that all of them? Almost!). Bayesian inference doesn't obviously have this problem.  Briefly, using max...

## Open and Closed Intervals: A Problem for ML Inference But Not Bayes

February 21, 2014
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Does maximum likelihood inference have a support problem?  Maximum likelihood (ML) has a problem with parameters that take values in open sets (Is that all of them? Almost!). Bayesian inference doesn't obviously have this problem.  Briefly, using max...

## Here’s why the scientific publishing system can never be "fixed"

February 21, 2014
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There's been much discussion recently about how the scientific publishing system is "broken". Just the latest one that I saw was a tweet from Princeton biophysicist Josh Shaevitz: Editor at a ‘fancy’ journal to my postdoc “This is amazing work … Continue reading →

## One day discount on Practical Data Science with R

February 21, 2014
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Please forward and share this discount offer for our upcoming book. Manning Deal of the Day February 22: Half off Practical Data Science with R. Use code dotd022214au at www.manning.com/zumel/. Related posts: Data Science, Machine Learning, and Statis...

## Canvas Shows All the Lint Generated by a Clothes Dryer during One Year

February 21, 2014
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The concept is original, yet simple. Assistant Professor of Arts Technology Rick Valentin and his partner created a life-size physical visualization of all the lint that they collected from their clothes dryer during the last year. The work thus cons...