It is quite common in political science for researchers to run statistical models, find that a coefficient for a variable is not statistically significant, and then claim that the variable "has no effect." This is equivalent to proposing a research &#8... [Read more...]

I just returned from the useR! 2012 conference for developers and users of R. One of the common themes to many of the presentations was integration of R-based statistical systems with other systems, be they other programming languages, web systems, or enterprise data systems. Some highlights for me were an update ... [Read more...]

The second round of group games ended last night (sadly with Sweden’s elimination). Here is what the last number of days has done to the plots. [Read more...]

This dynamic representation of the popularity of names over the years is a favorite. It’s not new, but I still find new things to appreciate, like names that used to apply to both sexes and now only one (Ellie), or vice versa (Harley). It seems l... [Read more...]

Yet another full day working on Bayesian Core with Jean-Michel in Carnon… This morning, I ran along the canal for about an hour and at last saw some pink flamingos close enough to take pictures (if only to convince my daughter that there were flamingos in the area!). Then I ... [Read more...]

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From Wiki:"... the bottom and top of the box are always the 25th and 75th percentile (the lower and upper quartiles, respectively), and the band near the middle of the box is always the 50th percentile (the median). But the ends of the whiskers can represent several possible alternative values..."... [Read more...]

From Wiki:"... the bottom and top of the box are always the 25th and 75th percentile (the lower and upper quartiles, respectively), and the band near the middle of the box is always the 50th percentile (the median). But th... [Read more...]

Just finish my last assignment for this week. IT’S WEEKEND, officially. Let me take a break to have a look at the tenth problem, another prime problem. It’s no doubt that prime is the center of the number theory and fundamental … Continue reading → [Read more...]

Recently British government (by Office  of National Statistics: ONS) just published their version of R manual for analysis of the government survey. The links to PDF and MS word versions of the manual including the R syntax are as below. Note: The R syntax link is not working now. I ... [Read more...]

My girlfriend’s biological clock is ticking, and so we’ve started trying to spawn. Since I’m impatient, that has naturally lead to questions like “how long will it take?”. If I were to believe everything on TV, the answer would be easy: have unprotected sex once and pregnancy ... [Read more...]

Forgive me if you are already aware of this, but I found it quite alarming. I know that most code is interpreted by the computer in binary and we input in decimal, so problems can arise in conversion and with floating point. But the example I have below is so ... [Read more...]

Last week, Joe Rickert used R and four years of US Census data to create an image plot of the relative probabilities of being born on a given day of the year: Chris Mulligan also tackled this problem with R, but this time using 20 years of Census data from 1969 to 1988. ... [Read more...]

Where do these come from? Since most statistical packages calculate these estimates automatically, it is not unreasonable to think that many researchers using applied econometrics are unfamiliar with the exact details of their computation. For the purposes of illustration, I am going to estimate different standard errors from a basic ... [Read more...]

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Just a quick note that I’ve posted the slides, code, and dataset from my useR 2012 talk. I’m having a great time here in Nashville and will write up a conference review soon, with links to the many excellent packages … Continue reading → [Read more...]

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  R is an incredibly powerful programming tool used by a large community of people who require an easy to use, light weight, FREE, and fundamentally awesome statistics package! I have recently discovered that R can be used by geologists whose IT skills are often pitied by their more computer literate ... [Read more...]

The most recent edition of the Revolution Newsletter is out. The news section is below, and you can read the full June edition (with highlights from this blog and community events) online. You can subscribe to the Revolution Newsletter to get it monthly via email. Revolution R Enterprise 6 Now Available! ... [Read more...]