I’m organizing a new R Users Group for the University of Utah and Research Park sponsored by the Study Design and Biostatistics Center. We welcome all to come. The first meeting will be dedicated to finding out what users needs and abilities are. We also welcome all skill levels. But I will also give a
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Know any R blogs in your own language?
A happy announcement Hello everyone. After playing around with the idea of extending R-bloggers to languages other then English, today I went a head and did it. The new sub-site can be found at: http://www.r-bloggers.com/lang/ So far it offers the content of only 3 4 bloggers, writing posts about R in Indonesian, Italian, Dutch and Korean. Asking for help As opposed to...
Programming with R – Checking Data Types
There are a number of useful functions in R that test the variable type or convert between different variable types. These can be used to validate function input to ensure that sensible answers are returned from a function or to ensure that the function doesn’t fail. Following on from a previous post on a simple function
Because it’s Friday: Asteroids
A huge mass of rock hurtling in from space could really make a mess of your weekend plans. So it's comforting to know that the world's astronomers are out there keeping an eye for any potential earth-grazers. See their discoveries over the past 30 years in this beautifully-designed animation: Earth crossers are in red; earth approachers are in yellow;...
New R User Group in Cincinnati / Dayton
The latest local R user group to join the fold is CinDay RUG, serving the Cincinnati/Dayton area in Ohio. The group was founded by Stu Rodgers, who decided to set it up after posting a query on LinkedIn and finding several other R users in the area. Even if you think there's not enough likeminded folks in your area...
Update: Forbes wants your R stories by Nov 17
I mentioned recently that Forbes is seeking stories about R for a forthcoming issue. Well, the story will now be in the December issue (bumped up from the January issue), so be sure to get your post your stories about R to the Mean Business blog by November 17. Forbes: Names You Need to Know in 2011: R Data...
Risk-Opportunity Analysis
I will be attending Ralph Vince's risk-opportunity analysis workshop in Tampa this weekend. Drop me a note if you're in the area and would like to meet for coffee / drinks.
What would impressionnists do with R ?
I've been playing with images recently, probably inspired from my trip in San Francisco. There was an exhibit at the De Young museum of fine arts with pieces borrowed from the Musée d'Orsay. I did not go to the exhibit because it is easy enough fo...
Bayesian Inference for Latent Gaussian Models
An exciting conference in Zurich next February, 02-05. (I think I will attend! And not for skiing reasons!) Latent Gaussian models have numerous applications, for example in spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology and climate modelling. This workshop brings together researchers who develop and apply Bayesian inference in this broad model class. One methodological focus is on 
Speeding up Optmatch while improving match quality
“Fast, cheap, correct: Pick two.” Does this phrase apply to statistical matching algorithms? In the case of Optmatch, you can have all three. “Cheap” is easy: it is open source. You can download it for free. Today I’m going to explain how to make the matching process both faster and more substantively relevant using a technique we call...
Zero Inflated Models and Generalized Linear Mixed Models with R.
Zuur, Saveliev, Ieno (2012).
