## Testing for Multivariate Normality

March 9, 2014
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In a recent post I commented on the connection between the multivariate normal distribution and marginal distributions that are normal. Specifically, the latter do not necessarily imply the former.So, let's think about this in terms of testing for norm...

## Loss‐Efficient Factor Selection

March 9, 2014
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Alexi Onatski has an interesting recent paper, "Asymptotic Analysis of the Squared Estimation Error in Misspecified Factor Models." There's also an Appendix.Four interesting cases have emerged in the literature, corresponding to two types of ...

## Reviewing the peer review process?

March 9, 2014
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I received the following email: Dear Colleague, Recently we informed you about SciRev, our new website where researchers can share their experiences with the peer review process and select an efficient journal for submitting their work. Since our start, we already received over 500 reviews and many positive reactions, which reveal a great need for […]The post Reviewing the peer review process? appeared first on Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and…

## Money(proper foot)ball?

March 9, 2014
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This is an interesting (although a bit overused, of late) topic. In some quarters, we statisticians are all akin to "moneyballs" (by the way: I should say I haven't read the book or watched the movie \$-\$ but that's by design, as I suspect I wouldn't re...

## PK calculation of IV and oral dosing in JAGS

March 9, 2014
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I am examining IV and oral dosing of problem of Chapter 6, Question 6 or Roland and Tozer Rowland and Tozer (Clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, 4th edition) with Jags. In this problem one subject gets an IV and an oral dose.DataThe data lo...

## Andrew Gelman, the Early Years

March 9, 2014
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Andrew Gelman reminisced recently some early research (see here, here, and here). One of those earlier links mentioned a conference Gelman went early in his career which included Jaynes. I have the proceedings to that conference and was able to grab th...

## Can a classifier that never says “yes” be useful?

March 8, 2014
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Many data science projects and presentations are needlessly derailed by not having set shared business relevant quantitative expectations early on (for some advice see Setting expectations in data science projects). One of the most common issues is the common layman expectation of “perfect prediction” from classification projects. It is important to set expectations correctly so […] Related posts: Setting expectations in data science projects More on ROC/AUC On Being a…

## Recent Advances in Bayesian Inference at U.C. Irvine, March 14

March 8, 2014
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Recent Advances in Bayesian InferenceVenue:University of California at Irvine,1517 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway buildingDate:Friday, March 14, 2014Speakers:9:30 John Kruschke (Indiana University). Precision as the goal for data collection.10:...

## Disagreeing to disagree

March 8, 2014
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I was going to post yet one more discussion of our discussion of the discussion of the discussion of some paper that I don’t really care about, but then I was like, aaaahh, what’s the point? So instead here’s a pointer to the first paper I ever published. It’s the very last one on this […]The post Disagreeing to disagree appeared first on Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.

## Short Review: How Children Succeed

March 8, 2014
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How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough Unless your definition of children includes college students, the second word of the title is a misnomer. This book is about how young people, from infants to colleg...

## Short Review: How Children Succeed

March 8, 2014
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How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough Unless your definition of children includes college students, the second word of the title is a misnomer. This book is about how young people, from infants to colleg...

## Applied Statistics Lesson of the Day – Additive Models vs. Interaction Models in 2-Factor Experimental Designs

$Applied Statistics Lesson of the Day – Additive Models vs. Interaction Models in 2-Factor Experimental Designs$

In a recent “Machine Learning Lesson of the Day“, I discussed the difference between a supervised learning model in machine learning and a regression model in statistics.  In that lesson, I mentioned that a statistical regression model usually consists of a systematic component and a random component.  Today’s lesson strictly concerns the systematic component. An […]

## Ever wonder how popular your favorite R functions are?

March 8, 2014
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How's that fried pickle sandwich treating you?  Perhaps your taste in R  functions are less bizarre than your taste in R commands?Now you can easily find out using this new shiny app!  In this post I use the R function frequency table co...

## Per capita GDP versus years since women received right to vote

March 7, 2014
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Below is a plot of per capita GPD (in log scale) against years since women received the right to vote for 42 countries. Is this cause, effect, both or neither? We all know correlation does not imply causation, but I … Continue reading →

## Selection bias in the reporting of shaky research

March 7, 2014
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I’ll reorder this week’s posts a bit in order to continue on a topic that came up yesterday. A couple days ago a reporter wrote to me asking what I thought of this paper on Money, Status, and the Ovulatory Cycle. I responded: Given the quality of the earlier paper by these researchers, I’m not […]The post Selection bias in the reporting of shaky research appeared first on Statistical Modeling,…

## RUG-Philippines Meetup: Markov Switching Models in R

March 7, 2014
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To the R users based in the Philippines, there will be upcoming meetup, here are the details:topics: Markov Switching Models in R           by Ohly Santos           How to use the op...

## Advances in scalable Bayesian computation [day #4]

March 7, 2014
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Final day of our workshop Advances in Scalable Bayesian Computation already, since tomorrow morning is an open research time ½ day! Another “perfect day in paradise”, with the Banff Centre campus covered by a fine snow blanket, still falling…, and making work in an office of BIRS a dream-like moment. Still looking for a daily theme, […]

## On replacing calculus with statistics

March 7, 2014
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-+*Russ Roberts had this to say about the proposal to replacing the calculus requirement with statistics for students. Statistics is in many ways much more useful for most students than calculus. The problem is, to teach it well is extraordinarily difficult. It’s very easy to teach a horrible statistics class where you spit back the […]

## IJF news

March 7, 2014
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This is a short piece I wrote for the next issue of the Oracle newsletter produced by the International Institute of Forecasters. Special section topics We continue to publish special sections on selected topics. Because of the change in the way regular papers are now handled, we do not publish whole special issues any more. Rather, each issue has regular papers at the front, and if there are any special…

## Analytics Software Popularity Update: Counting Blogs, Simplifying Job Searches

March 7, 2014
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My latest update to The Popularity of Data Analysis Software is an attempt to use blog counts to estimate the popularity of analytics software. While I was able to greatly broaden the coverage of packages when studying job data, I … Continue reading →

## Freshman hordes slightly more godless than ever

March 6, 2014
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This article is an update to my annual series on one of the most under-reported stories of the decade: the fraction of college freshmen who report no religious preference has tripled since 1985, from 8% to 24%, and the trend is accelerating.In last yea...

## How much time (if any) should we spend criticizing research that’s fraudulent, crappy, or just plain pointless?

March 6, 2014
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I had a brief email exchange with Jeff Leek regarding our recent discussions of replication, criticism, and the self-correcting process of science. Jeff writes: (1) I can see the problem with serious, evidence-based criticisms not being published in the same journal (and linked to) studies that are shown to be incorrect. I have been mostly […]The post How much time (if any) should we spend criticizing research that’s fraudulent, crappy,…

## The Secret to Entropy’s role in Statistics

March 6, 2014
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Entropy is the single most powerful statistical tool discovered to date. That’s a bold claim. I intend to back that claim up in this post. Forget for a moment about Entropy and Statistics and start fresh. Suppose we know two variables , are relat...