book review

Review of “R For Dummies”

October 15, 2012 | Pat

The authors are Andrie de Vries and Joris Meys. Executive summary Pretty much all I’d hoped for — and I had high hopes. Significance The “Dummies” series is popular for introducing specific topics in an inviting way. R For Dummies is a worthy addition to the pack. There is a ... [Read more...]

Annotations for “R For Dummies”

October 15, 2012 | Pat

Here are detailed comments on the book.  Elsewhere there is a review of the book. How to read R For Dummies In order to learn R you need to do something with it.  After you have read a little of the book, find something to do.  Mix reading and doing ...
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Two new, important books on R

June 22, 2012 | Pat

Two books were recently published that are sure to help R grow even faster. R has a reputation, partially deserved, for being hard to learn.  These books will help.  The first makes learning easier, the second can make learning less necessary for initiates. I have not yet touched either book. ... [Read more...]

Review of “The Origin of Financial Crises” by George Cooper

March 19, 2012 | Pat

The subtitle is “Central banks, credit bubbles and the efficient market fallacy”. Executive summary This is much too important of a book to remain as obscure as it is.  Besides, it is quite a fun read. It talks about two subjects: Why markets for goods and services tend toward equilibrium ... [Read more...]

Bayesian modeling using WinBUGS

November 6, 2011 | xi'an

Yes, yet another Bayesian textbook: Ioannis Ntzoufras’ Bayesian modeling using WinBUGS was published in 2009 and it got an honourable mention at the 2009 PROSE Award. (Nice acronym for a book award! All the mathematics books awarded that year were actually statistics books.) Bayesian modeling using WinBUGS is rather similar to the ... [Read more...]

Bayesian ideas and data analysis

October 30, 2011 | xi'an

Here is [yet!] another Bayesian textbook that appeared recently. I read it in the past few days and, despite my obvious biases and prejudices, I liked it very much! It has a lot in common (at least in spirit) with our Bayesian Core, which may explain why I feel so ... [Read more...]

principles of uncertainty

October 13, 2011 | xi'an

“Bayes Theorem is a simple consequence of the axioms of probability, and is therefore accepted by all as valid. However, some who challenge the use of personal probability reject certain applications of Bayes Theorem.“  J. Kadane, p.44 Principles of uncertainty by Joseph (“Jay”) Kadane (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh) is a ... [Read more...]

understanding computational Bayesian statistics

October 9, 2011 | xi'an

I have just finished reading this book by Bill Bolstad (University of Waikato, New Zealand) which a previous ‘Og post pointed out when it appeared, shortly after our Introducing Monte Carlo Methods with R. My family commented that the cover was nicer than those of my own books, which is ... [Read more...]

Handbook of Markov chain Monte Carlo

September 21, 2011 | xi'an

At JSM, John Kimmel gave me a copy of the Handbook of Markov chain Monte Carlo, as I had not (yet?!) received it. This handbook is edited by Steve Brooks, Andrew Gelman, Galin Jones, and Xiao-Li Meng, all first-class jedis of the MCMC galaxy. I had not had a chance ... [Read more...]

Review of “Risk and Meaning” by Nicolas Bouleau

September 5, 2011 | Pat

The subtitle is: Adversaries in Art, Science and Philosophy. Executive Summary Genius or madness? I haven’t decided. Irreversibility of interpretation The book drives home that once we decide how something is we can’t go back to our state of innocence. Figures 1 through 3 exhibit this idea via a randomly ... [Read more...]

Numerical analysis for statisticians

August 25, 2011 | xi'an

“In the end, it really is just a matter of choosing the relevant parts of mathematics and ignoring the rest. Of course, the hard part is deciding what is irrelevant.” Somehow, I had missed the first edition of this book and thus I started reading it this afternoon with a ... [Read more...]

Statistical analyses using R

April 22, 2011 | xi'an

Another book I received from the Short Book Reviews section of the International Statistical Review is Everitt’s and Hothorn’s Handbook of statistical analyses using R. Here is a [blog-ified] version of my book review. This book is the second (blue) edition of a successful (violet) handbook that can ... [Read more...]

Book review: 25 Recipes for Getting Started with R

February 24, 2011 | Tal Galili

Recently I was asked by O’Reilly publishing to give a book review for Paul Teetor new introductory book to R.  After giving the book some attention and appreciating it’s delivery of the material, I was happy to write and post this review.  Also, I’m very happy to ... [Read more...]

Review of “R Graphs Cookbook” by Hrishi Mittal

January 24, 2011 | Pat

Executive summary: Extremely useful for new users, informative to even quite seasoned users. Refereeing Once upon a time a publisher asked if I would referee a book (unspecified) about R.  In an instance that can only be described as psychotic I said yes.  That bit of insanity turned out to ...
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Short review of the R book

January 5, 2011 | xi'an

David Scott wrote a review of Introducing Monte Carlo Methods with R in the International Statistical Review that is rather negative, since the main bulk reads as follows: I found some aspects of the book very disappointing. The first chapter (“Basic R Programming”) has some unfortunate mistakes and some statements, ...
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Blog year 2010 in review

December 30, 2010 | Pat

The blog year started in August and consists of 30-something posts.  Here is a summary. Quant concepts backtesting: Backtesting — almost wordless cointegration: American TV does cointegration efficient frontier: Anomalies meet volatility implied alpha: Implied alpha — almost wordless portfolio theory: Ancient portfolio theory random walk: The tightrope of the random walk ...
[Read more...]
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