February 17, 2011
Science Magazine Special Data Issue
http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/data
Posted by kshedden at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)
Sergey Brin and data mining
An interesting (somewhat sensationalistic) article:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_sergeys_search/all/1
Posted by kshedden at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)
Google and data formats
Read about Google's new data visualization site, and the data format they are promoting:
http://www.slate.com/id/2285354
Posted by kshedden at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)
Journalism in the Age of Data
An excellent series of videos:
http://datajournalism.stanford.edu
Posted by kshedden at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2011
Statistics and ESP
This article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html?_r=1&hp
has provoked many strong responses, including this:
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2011/01/that_silly_esp.html
Posted by kshedden at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2010
An R "meta blog"
There are quite a few interesting things here if you poke around:
Posted by kshedden at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)
Create your own job
Think outside the box about things you might do when you graduate.
With all the new ways data are being collected and analyzed, there are many opportunities for statisticians to become entrepreneurs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12yec.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage
Posted by kshedden at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2010
The Joy of Stats
An excellent series of videos about statistics:
http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/whats-on/the-joy-stats
Posted by kshedden at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)
Publication bias
Interesting writing about publication bias. Unfortunately you need to buy the magazine to get the full article.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/the-truth-wears-off/
Posted by kshedden at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2010
Important and interesting applications of statistics
The second of these is likely to become an area with a lot of opportunities for statisticians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/books/04victorian.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/education/04teacher.html?hp
Posted by kshedden at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2010
Readings about the census
Here are a series of recent articles about the US census. There are a lot of statistical issues in the census, and also a lot of non-statistical issues. But it's all interesting.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/304/5676/1452.full?sid=4ad2c618-f032-4669-ace7-9eb882393ec4
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/310.full?sid=4ad2c618-f032-4669-ace7-9eb882393ec4
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7306/full/466532a.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7310/full/4661043a.html
And for an even greater challenge, consider the census in China:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6003/436.full?sid=0d0a2deb-292b-4fe3-b7c5-6132c483f353
or a census of the oceans!
http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/magazine/879803/The-sea-the-Census-and-statistics-.html
Posted by kshedden at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2010
Good advice for writing involving numbers
http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/numbers-in-the-news/
Posted by kshedden at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2010
Data for a better planet
http://www.slate.com/id/2274809/
Posted by kshedden at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2010
Election poll summary
Some interesting comments about how the election polls performed this year:
Posted by kshedden at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2010
Article on statistics in the journal "Nature"
Nature is a leading scientific journal. Here is a recent commentary on the increasingly important role played by statisticians in scientific research:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7318/full/467914a.html
Posted by kshedden at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2010
Probability and statistics in the NYT
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/stories-vs-statistics/?hp
Posted by kshedden at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2010
Article about election polls
The election is coming up. Here's an article that talks about some of the times when polls have been seriously wrong:
http://www.slate.com/id/2271659/
Posted by kshedden at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2010
Debate on early stopping of clinical trials
If you're interested in clinical trials, here is a juicy debate about something called "early stopping" -- you don't need advanced statistics to understand this.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/303/12/1180
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/304/2/156
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/304/2/157
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/304/2/157-a
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/304/2/158
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/304/2/158-a
Posted by kshedden at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2010
Forensic biostatistics
A couple of biostatisticians were the first to identify the flaws in this research that ended up leading to some clinical trials being halted and a medical researcher being suspended from his job:
Posted by kshedden at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2010
Statistical summaries of human development
Here is an interesting discussion about something that comes up frequently -- when a lot of variables are combined to form a summary, the summary may end up tracking almost perfectly with one of the variables. This raises questions about what one really learns by doing this. See the following links for one example.
http://mapscroll.blogspot.com/search?q=hdi
Posted by kshedden at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2010
Placebo effect in NYT
A short article on the important issue of placebo responses in medical trials:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/enhancing-the-placebo/?hp
Posted by kshedden at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2010
Grade Inflation Data
This web site presents some data and analysis relating to grade inflation. As a student, it may interest you to see how UM stacks up compared to other places. As a student of statistics, you may be interested to see how the creators of this web site attempt to convey a somewhat complex analysis in visual form.
Posted by kshedden at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2010
NY TIme article on probability
This is an excellent article:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/chances-are/?hp
Posted by kshedden at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2010
Job search blog
This seems to provide some good ideas for your present or future job searches:
Posted by kshedden at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)
The Case for Undergraduate Statistics
This article is a bit old, but it makes its point very well:
http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2000/usei/case.html
Posted by kshedden at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
Revolution computing blog
An R and statistics blog:
http://blog.revolution-computing.com
Posted by kshedden at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2010
Jared Diamond book on natural experiments
This new book edited by Jared Diamond discusses how empirical methods (mainly statistical methods) are used in some surprising ways:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/DIANAT.html
Posted by kshedden at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
Statistical analysis of ancient languages
An interesting article from the New Scientist:
Posted by kshedden at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2010
NPR Interview: Multiple testing in medical studies
Here is a short interview with a statistician from the National Institute of Statistical Sciences about multiple testing and observational studies:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124655793
Posted by kshedden at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2010
Critical article on statistical methods
This article takes a fairly critical view of how statistics is commonly practiced:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/57091/title/Odds_Are,_Its_Wrong
A good chunk of what he says is unfair or misleading. But its worth knowing about this since this viewpoint surfaces from time to time. The stuff about multiple testing is fair and on-target. It's worth a read, and some of the comments are interesting as well.
Posted by kshedden at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2010
IBM commercials about data analysis
In case you haven't seen these, IBM does a fantastic job advertising statistics ... and you might notice that they never use the word "statistics" -- but that's all they are talking about. Highly recommended.
Why data matters: extracting insights, making better decisions
Business Analytics & Optimization
Identifying Patterns in Data Reveals Insights into the Future
A Smarter Planet Relies On Data Analysis
Intelligent Data Management and Analysis For A Smarter Planet
Making Sense of Data On A Smarter Planet
Data Analysis and Predictions for Smarter Healthcare Decisions:
Smarter Math Builds Equations for a Smarter Planet
Posted by kshedden at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2010
Articles about data and statistics in The Economist
Here is a series of articles that recently appeared in The Economist magazine about data analysis. You will see that there are opportunities for people with statistics training to have a big impact in all sorts of areas.
Highly recommended reading for anyone who wants to pursue a career involving any kind of analysis or decision making involving data and uncertainty!
All too much (Monstrous amounts of data)
Data, data everywhere
A different game (Information is transforming traditional businesses)
Clicking for gold (How internet companies profit from data on the web)
The open society (Governments are letting in the light)
Show me (New ways of visualizing data)
Needle in a haystack (Uses for information about information)
Posted by kshedden at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2009
Statistics and computational science
This article is about a major new direction in science, in which statistics plays a critical part:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/science/15books.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=data&st=cse
Posted by kshedden at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2009
Statistics and global development
Some of you may find this video presentation interesting. It uses basic statistics and data visualization to explore the variation in development across countries, and the pace at which countries have developed in history:
http://www.gapminder.org/videos/ted-us-state-department/
Posted by kshedden at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2009
Statistics articles in NY Times
Here are links to two recent NY Times articles with a lot of statistical
content.
Andy Gelman is a statistician at NYU who has done a lot of work on
statistical models of voter behavior:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/opinion/19silver.html?_r=1
Don Berry is a statistician at the M.D. Anderson cancer center who is well
known for his work quantifying the benefits of new cancer screening and
treatment techniques. There are some very interesting issues in the type
of work described here about correcting for "length biased sampling,"
which basically means that when you sample people with a disease, you are
more likely to get people who have a longer, slower progressing form of
the disease than a more rapidly progressing disease. Unfortunately they
don't get into that in the article at all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/health/17cancer.html?ref=health
Posted by kshedden at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2009
NYT review of Malcolm Gladwell's latest book
There is some interesting statistical content in this book review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html
Posted by kshedden at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2009
Criticisms of statistical methods in social science
See here for positive and negative views on how statistics is used in social science research:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/books/20poli.html
It's not uncommon to hear criticisms that statistical analysis (i) misses the big picture, (ii) is overly concerned with technicalities , or (iii) serves to exclude most people from the discussion. Often these criticisms are true. But sometimes the real issues are statistical and there's no way to make progress other than addressing them head-on.
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2009
NY Times article about analysis of large data sets
All,
This article should help to make clear how many opportunities there are for people with good statistical training (and a little bit of computing knowledge):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/technology/12data.html?_r=1&hpw
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2009
Career information for statistics concentrators
The link below is the Career Center's news letter for Statistics concentrators. It has information on the Career Expo which is next week as well as information on internships, jobs, graduate programs and much more. All statistics concentrators are invited and encouraged to meet with a career center advisor and create a Career Center Connector Account (internship/job database).
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs072/1102219015489/archive/1102719226175.html
http://www.careercenter.umich.edu/students/findingjob/c3student/index.html
Posted by kshedden at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2009
Occupational outlook for statisticians
This the US Bureau of Labor Statistic's outlook for employment in the statistical field:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos045.htm
Note also this recent article in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/06stats.html
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 03:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2009
Provost's interview on information technology
Here is an interview with our Provost, Teresa Sullivan, about information technology and research involving large data sets:
http://www.ur.umich.edu/update/archives/090908/sullivan
Posted by kshedden at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2009
NY Times article about statistics
Here is a link to an article in the New York Times that is very favorable about the future importance of statistics, and opportunities for people in the field:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/06stats.html
Posted by kshedden at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
August 05, 2009
Washington Post article on the Joint Statistical Meetings
The JSM is the main annual meeting of statisticians. This year it was in Washington D.C.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080403117.html?hpid=topnews
Posted by kshedden at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2009
Analytics at IBM
Below are two links to the web site of IBM's Business Analytics and Optimization group. A big part of what they do is statistical:
http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bao/ideas.html
Posted by kshedden at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2009
Statistics in internet advertising
There will be an increasing number of opportunities in the field of computational advertising, as discussed in this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/business/media/31ad.html
They never use the word "statistics", but that's what it's all about.
Posted by kshedden at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2009
Some reading on careers
A couple of articles worth reading if you are thinking about possible directions for your future:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/weekinreview/12lohr.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/jobs/12starts.html
Posted by kshedden at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2009
Google executive on statistics
From Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist:
“I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. People think I’m joking, but who would’ve guessed that computer engineers would’ve been the sexy job of the 1990s? The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, not only at the professional level but even at the educational level for elementary school kids, for high school kids, for college kids. Because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it.”
The complete article is here:
Posted by kshedden at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2009
R in the news
Those of you who love or hate R may be interested in this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html?em
Posted by kshedden at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2009
Employment for statisticians
Those of you worried about the economy and your future employability may be reassured somewhat by these articles. The second one doesn't mention statistics explicitly but the industries that are referred to hire a lot of statisticians.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123119236117055127.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Mo
st_Popular
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122999321221628707.html
Follow-up (added 1/12): check this out for an alternative perspective:
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/hey-wait-minute/2009/01/09/im-lumberjack-and-thats-ok
Posted by kshedden at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)