Last week's Cologne R user group meeting was all about R and databases. We had three talks from a generic overview on how to connect R to databases, to a specific example with kdb+ and perhaps the future with ArangoDB, a NoSQL database.Connecting R with databasesDiego de Castillo's talk ... [Read more...]

The next Cologne R user group meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, 26 February 2014. We are delighted to welcome: Diego de Castillo: R and databases Kim Kuen Tang: Hands on using R and kdb+ together Frank Celler: ArangoDB (Lightning Talk) Further details and the agenda are available on our KölnRUG Meetup ... [Read more...]

Here is the poster for the 2nd R in Insurance conference on Monday 14 July 2014 at Cass Business School in London:R in Insurance 2014 conference poster. Download PDF versionImportant dead lines to keep in mind:Abstract submissions: 28 March 2014Early b... [Read more...]

The other day I had data that showed the development of many products over time. I grouped the products into categories and visualised the data as line graphs in lattice. But instead of adding an extensive legend to the plot I wanted to add labels to each line's latest point. ... [Read more...]

The registration for the second conference on R in Insurance on Monday 14 July 2014 at Cass Business School in London has opened. This one-day conference will focus again on applications in insurance and actuarial science that use R, the lingua franca for statistical computation. Topics covered may include actuarial statistics, capital ... [Read more...]

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Rasmus' post of last week on binomial testing made me think about p-values and testing again. In my head I was tossing coins, thinking about gender diversity and toast. The toast and tossing a buttered toast in particular was the most helpful thought experiment, as I didn't have a fixed ... [Read more...]

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The Christmas and New Year's break is over, yet there is still time to return unwanted presents. Return to Santa was the title of an article in the Economist that highlighted the impact on online retailers, as return rates can be alarmingly high. The article quotes a study by Christian ... [Read more...]

Last week's Cologne R user group meeting was the best attended so far. Well, we had a great line up indeed. Matt Dowle came over from London to give an introduction to the data.table package. He was joined by his collaborator Arun Srinivasan, who is based in Cologne. Their ... [Read more...]

Quick reminder: The next Cologne R user group meeting is scheduled for this Friday, 13 December 2013. We are delighted to welcome: Matt Dowle and Arun Srinivasan: Introduction to data.table Thomas Rahlf: Book presentation - Datendesign mit R Further details and the agenda are available on our KölnRUG Meetup site. ... [Read more...]

Following the very positive feedback that Andreas and I have received from delegates of the first R in Insurance conference in July of this year, we are planning to repeat the event next year. We have already reserved a bigger auditorium. The second conference on R in Insurance will be ... [Read more...]

Following on from last week, where I presented a simple example of a Bayesian network with discrete probabilities to predict the number of claims for a motor insurance customer, I will look at continuos probability distributions today. Here I follow example 16.17 in Loss Models: From Data to Decisions [1]. Suppose there ... [Read more...]

Here is a little Bayesian Network to predict the claims for two different types of drivers over the next year, see also example 16.16 in [1]. Let's assume there are good and bad drivers. The probabilities that a good driver will have 0, 1 or 2 claims in any given year are set to 70%, 20% and 10%, ... [Read more...]

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For most purposes PDF or other vector graphic formats such as windows metafile and SVG work just fine. However, if I plot lots of points, say 100k, then those files can get quite large and bitmap formats like PNG can be the better option. I just have to be mindful ... [Read more...]

The Cologne R user group met last Friday for two talks on split apply combine in R and XLConnect by Bernd Weiß and Günter Faes respectively, before the usual Schnitzel and Kölsch at the Lux.Split apply combine in R The apply family of functions in R is ... [Read more...]

Quick reminder: The next Cologne R user group meeting is scheduled for this Friday, 18 October 2013. We will discuss and hear about the apply family of functions and the XLConnect package. Further details and the agenda are available on our KölnRUG Meetup site. Please sign up if you would like ... [Read more...]