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218
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2
null
This interesting question is the subject of some research in [ACERA](http://www.acera.unimelb.edu.au/). The lead researcher is Andrew Speirs-Bridge, and his work is eminently google-able :)
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T05:13:21.963
2010-07-20T05:13:21.963
null
null
187
null
219
2
null
40
3
null
The Xorshift PNG designed by George Marsaglia. Its period (2^128-1) is much shorter than the Mersenne-Twister but the algorithm is very simple to implement and lends itself to parallelization. Performs well on many-core architectures such as DSP chips and Nvidia's Tesla.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T05:21:14.590
2010-07-20T05:33:00.140
2010-07-20T05:33:00.140
154
154
null
220
1
221
null
79
93750
If $X_1, ..., X_n$ are independent identically-distributed random variables, what can be said about the distribution of $\min(X_1, ..., X_n)$ in general?
How is the minimum of a set of IID random variables distributed?
CC BY-SA 4.0
null
2010-07-20T05:23:04.163
2020-06-30T20:49:14.163
2020-06-30T20:49:14.163
227013
85
[ "distributions", "random-variable", "extreme-value" ]
221
2
null
220
55
null
If the cdf of $X_i$ is denoted by $F(x)$, then the cdf of the minimum is given by $1-[1-F(x)]^n$.
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T05:35:48.807
2012-04-12T23:26:05.790
2012-04-12T23:26:05.790
159
159
null
222
1
282
null
91
278937
What are principal component scores (PC scores, PCA scores)?
What are principal component scores?
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T05:37:46.557
2022-07-25T13:56:39.230
2016-08-20T15:27:48.417
28666
191
[ "pca", "definition" ]
223
1
null
null
6
388
I have a friend who is an MD and wants to refresh his Statistics. So is there any recommended resource online (or offline) ? He did stats ~20 years ago.
Intro to statistics for an MD?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T05:54:15.017
2022-11-23T13:18:24.017
2012-02-01T18:51:11.727
4872
79
[ "references" ]
224
1
null
null
9
2210
Which visualization libraries (plots, graphs, ...) would you suggest to use in a standalone application (Linux, .Net, Windows, whatever). Reasonable performance would be nice as well.
Recommended visualization libraries for standalone applications
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T06:03:59.930
2011-05-27T03:36:21.040
2011-05-27T03:36:21.040
183
128
[ "data-visualization", "software" ]
225
1
229
null
8
818
Why is the average of the highest value from 100 draws from a normal distribution different from the 98% percentile of the normal distribution? It seems that by definition that they should be the same. But... Code in R: ``` NSIM <- 10000 x <- rep(NA,NSIM) for (i in 1:NSIM) { x[i] <- max(rnorm(100)) } qnorm(.98) q...
Why is the average of the highest value from 100 draws from a normal distribution different from the 98th percentile of the normal distribution?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T06:07:37.007
2012-04-01T04:18:55.447
2010-07-20T08:47:33.180
196
196
[ "r", "distributions", "extreme-value" ]
226
2
null
222
24
null
Principal component analysis (PCA) is one popular approach analyzing variance when you are dealing with multivariate data. You have random variables X1, X2,...Xn which are all correlated (positively or negatively) to varying degrees, and you want to get a better understanding of what's going on. PCA can help. What PCA ...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T06:23:21.623
2010-07-20T06:23:21.623
null
null
173
null
227
2
null
222
4
null
Let $i=1,\dots,N$ index the rows and $j=1,\dots,M$ index the columns. Suppose you linearize the combination of variables (columns): $$Z_{i,1} = c_{i,1}\cdot Y_{i,1} + c_{i,2}\cdot Y_{i,2} + ... + c_{i,M}\cdot Y_{i,M}$$ The above formula basically says to multiply row elements with a certain value $c$ (loadings) and sum...
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T06:24:32.793
2012-07-02T02:33:13.853
2012-07-02T02:33:13.853
159
144
null
228
2
null
216
3
null
- http://insideria.com/2009/12/28-rich-data-visualization-too.html 28 Rich Data Visualization Tools - http://www.rgraph.net/ R graph - http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T06:27:16.233
2010-07-20T06:27:16.233
null
null
10
null
229
2
null
225
10
null
The maximum does not have a normal distribution. Its cdf is $\Phi(x)^{100}$ where $\Phi(x)$ is the standard normal cdf. In general the moments of this distribution are tricky to obtain analytically. There is an ancient paper on this by [Tippett (Biometrika, 1925)](http://www.jstor.org/stable/2332087).
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T06:28:47.557
2012-03-31T07:26:34.197
2012-03-31T07:26:34.197
4856
159
null
230
2
null
224
6
null
You could have a look at Processing: [http://processing.org/](http://processing.org/)
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T06:35:21.287
2010-07-20T06:35:21.287
null
null
173
null
231
2
null
223
5
null
This is the one I've used successfully: [Statistics Without Maths for Psychology: Using Spss for Windows](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Statistics-without-Psychology-Christine-Dancey/dp/013124941X). I just stumbled on this too, this might be useful: [Statistics Notes in the British Medical Journal](http://www-users.york.ac.u...
null
CC BY-SA 4.0
null
2010-07-20T06:41:13.570
2022-11-23T13:18:24.017
2022-11-23T13:18:24.017
362671
199
null
232
2
null
196
15
null
- Mondrian: Exploratory data analysis with focus on large data and databases. - iPlots: a package for the R statistical environment which provides high interaction statistical graphics, written in Java.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T06:41:25.627
2010-07-20T07:26:11.410
2010-07-20T07:26:11.410
103
103
null
234
2
null
222
8
null
Say you have a cloud of N points in, say, 3D (which can be listed in a 100x3 array). Then, the principal components analysis (PCA) fits an arbitrarily oriented ellipsoid into the data. The principal component score is the length of the diameters of the ellipsoid. In the direction in which the diameter is large, the da...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T06:47:14.180
2010-07-20T06:47:14.180
null
null
198
null
235
2
null
216
5
null
[RaphaelJS](http://raphaeljs.com/) can do some pretty amazing stuff and it just got some major backing from [Sencha](http://www.sencha.com/) (formerly ExtJS). Raphael is pretty smart about browsers by using a VML backend for Internet Explorer and SVG for everything else. However, the library is pretty low-level. For...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T07:17:58.993
2010-07-20T08:45:07.490
2010-07-20T08:45:07.490
13
13
null
236
2
null
224
0
null
Unfortunately, it only runs on macs, but otherwise a great application (basically Processing in python): - http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Home > NodeBox is a Mac OS X application that lets you create 2D visuals (static, animated or interactive) using Python programming code and export them as a PDF or a QuickTim...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T07:30:34.160
2010-07-21T18:33:33.063
2010-07-21T18:33:33.063
138
138
null
237
2
null
173
2
null
I'm going to leave the main question alone, because I think I will get it wrong (although I too analyse data for a healthcare provider, and to be honest, if I had these data, I would just analyse them using standard techniques and hope for the best, they look pretty okay to me). As for R packages, I have found the TSA ...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T07:31:08.963
2010-08-09T12:18:10.497
2010-08-09T12:18:10.497
8
199
null
238
2
null
224
9
null
There is always lovely gnuplot: - http://www.gnuplot.info/ > Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven graphing utility for linux, OS/2, MS Windows, OSX, VMS, and many other platforms. The source code is copyrighted but freely distributed (i.e., you don't have to pay for it). It was originally created to allow scie...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T07:33:09.067
2010-07-20T07:33:09.067
2020-06-11T14:32:37.003
-1
138
null
240
2
null
213
4
null
My first response would be that if you can do multivariate regression on the data, then to use the residuals from that regression to spot outliers. (I know you said it's not a regression problem, so this might not help you, sorry !) I'm copying some of this from a [Stackoverflow question I've previously answered](https...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T07:55:30.107
2010-07-20T07:55:30.107
2017-05-23T12:39:26.203
-1
114
null
241
2
null
213
6
null
I'm not sure what you mean when you say you aren't thinking of a regression problem but of "true multivariate data". My initial response would be to calculate the Mahalanobis distance since it doesn't require that you specify a particular IV or DV, but at its core (as far as I understand it) it is related to a leverag...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T07:56:06.767
2010-07-20T07:56:06.767
null
null
196
null
242
1
306
null
13
892
This is a bit of a flippant question, but I have a serious interest in the answer. I work in a psychiatric hospital and I have three years' of data, collected every day across each ward regarding the level of violence on that ward. Clearly the model which fits these data is a time series model. I had to difference the ...
Using time series analysis to analyze/predict violent behavior
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T07:56:16.297
2017-10-24T18:31:05.713
2010-07-20T15:53:21.083
5
199
[ "time-series", "forecasting" ]
243
2
null
203
8
null
Depending on the size of the dataset in question, a permutation test might be preferable to a bootstrap in that it may be able to provide an exact test of the hypothesis (and an exact CI).
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T08:05:04.060
2010-07-20T09:09:01.443
2010-07-20T09:09:01.443
196
196
null
244
2
null
224
18
null
The Visualization Tool Kit [VTK](http://www.vtk.org) is pretty impressive for 3D visualizations of numerical data. Unfortunately, it is also pretty low level. [Graphviz](http://graphviz.org/) is used pretty extensively for visualizing graphs and other tree-like data structures. [igraph](http://igraph.sourceforge.net/)...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T08:13:31.763
2010-07-20T08:47:44.613
2010-07-20T08:47:44.613
13
13
null
245
2
null
222
3
null
Principal component scores are a group of scores that are obtained following a Principle Components Analysis (PCA). In PCA the relationships between a group of scores is analyzed such that an equal number of new "imaginary" variables (aka principle components) are created. The first of these new imaginary variables i...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T08:20:36.037
2010-07-20T08:20:36.037
null
null
196
null
246
2
null
242
6
null
You fitted the model to the differences, which means that you're describing the change in levels of violence. You get a lag of 2 days. A lag is indicative of the memory of the process. In other words, the change in levels of violence today has some dependency on the change in levels of violence in the last two days. Fo...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T08:28:52.710
2010-07-20T08:28:52.710
null
null
198
null
247
2
null
224
3
null
Might be a bit narrow in scope, but if you're doing any work in Clojure on the JVM there's the excellent [Incanter](http://incanter.org): > Incanter is a Clojure-based, R-like platform for statistical computing and graphics.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T08:36:36.217
2010-07-20T08:36:36.217
null
null
171
null
248
2
null
196
4
null
ggobi and the R links to Ggobi are really rather good for this. There are simpler visualisations (iPlots is very nice, also interactive, as mentioned). But it depends whether you are doing something more specialised. For example TreeView lets you visualise the kind of cluster dendrograms you get out of microarrays....
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T08:38:38.223
2010-07-20T08:38:38.223
null
null
211
null
249
1
null
null
4
774
I have a set of $N$ bodies, which is a random sample from a population whose mean and variance I want to estimate. A property of each body is being measured $m_i$ times ($m_i>1$) and different for each body index $i$ identifies which body it is; the property is expected to be distributed around zero). I would like to ...
Variance components
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T08:49:13.050
2012-12-05T18:20:34.357
2012-12-05T18:20:34.357
17230
213
[ "standard-deviation", "variance", "anova", "random-effects-model" ]
250
2
null
130
5
null
Update (August 2014): as @gappy comments below, as of R version 3.0.0 the limits are higher and means R is capable of handling larger datasets. Here's a data point: R has a ["big data ceiling"](http://www.bytemining.com/2010/05/hitting-the-big-data-ceiling-in-r/), useful to know if you plan on working with huge data se...
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T08:53:15.833
2014-08-01T17:38:23.147
2014-08-01T17:38:23.147
171
171
null
252
2
null
73
6
null
For me personally, I use the following three packages the most, all available from the awesome [Omega Project for Statistical Computing](http://www.omegahat.org) (I do not claim to be an expert, but for my purposes they are very easy to use): - RCurl: It has lots of options which allows access to websites that the def...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T09:13:29.427
2010-07-28T10:02:05.600
2010-07-28T10:02:05.600
81
81
null
253
2
null
138
8
null
If you're an economist/econometrician then Grant Farnworth's paper on using R is indispensable and is available on CRAN at: [http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Farnsworth-EconometricsInR.pdf](http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Farnsworth-EconometricsInR.pdf)
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T09:26:05.113
2010-07-20T11:37:25.383
2010-07-20T11:37:25.383
215
215
null
254
2
null
249
5
null
I think if I understand your description correctly, you need to use a [linear mixed model](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_effects_model). However, this maybe overkill, since these models are used to find differences between groups. For example, if you have two types of bodies and you wish to determine if they are ...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T09:30:18.797
2010-07-20T10:50:24.037
2010-07-20T10:50:24.037
8
8
null
255
2
null
213
8
null
It may be an overshoot, but you may train an unsupervised Random Forest on the data and use the object proximity measure to detect outliers. More details [here](http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~breiman/RandomForests/cc_home.htm#outliers).
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T09:30:51.697
2010-07-20T09:30:51.697
null
null
null
null
256
1
265
null
24
9466
What is the easiest way to understand boosting? Why doesn't it boost very weak classifiers "to infinity" (perfection)?
How does boosting work?
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T09:34:22.213
2015-08-25T12:17:32.040
2013-08-16T15:55:48.363
7290
217
[ "machine-learning", "boosting" ]
257
1
262
null
17
11376
We may assume that we have CSV file and we want a very basic line plot with several lines on one plot and a simple legend.
What is the easiest way to create publication-quality plots under Linux?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T09:38:44.770
2022-05-22T13:23:32.747
2017-05-19T12:32:22.213
101426
217
[ "data-visualization" ]
258
1
null
null
14
3544
Rules: - one classifier per answer - vote up if you agree - downvote/remove duplicates. - put your application in the comment
What is the best out-of-the-box 2-class classifier for your application?
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T09:43:23.910
2016-04-11T08:36:06.453
2011-11-17T00:45:57.047
null
217
[ "machine-learning", "classification", "application" ]
259
2
null
258
12
null
[Support vector machine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_vector_machine)
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T09:44:11.807
2010-07-20T09:44:11.807
null
null
217
null
260
2
null
258
14
null
[Random forest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_forest) - easily captures complicated structure/nonlinear relationship - invariant to variables' scale - no need to create dummy variables for categorical predictors - variable selection is not much needed - relatively hard to overfit
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T09:45:06.377
2016-04-11T08:36:06.453
2016-04-11T08:36:06.453
85709
217
null
261
2
null
257
13
null
It's hard to go past R for graphics. You could do what you want in 3 lines. For example, assuming the csv file has four columns: ``` x <- read.csv("file.csv") matplot(x[,1],x[,2:4],type="l",col=1:3) legend("topleft",legend=c("A","B","C"),lty=1,col=1:3) ```
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T09:45:18.933
2010-07-20T09:45:18.933
null
null
159
null
262
2
null
257
14
null
The easiest way is to use R Use `read.csv` to enter the data into R, then use a combination of the `plot` and `line` commands If you want something really special, then look at the libraries [ggplot2](http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/) or [lattice](http://lmdvr.r-forge.r-project.org/figures/figures.html). In `ggplot2` the foll...
null
CC BY-SA 4.0
null
2010-07-20T09:50:45.953
2022-05-22T13:23:32.747
2022-05-22T13:23:32.747
11887
8
null
263
2
null
257
11
null
My favorite tool is Python with [matplotlib](https://matplotlib.org/). The advantages: - Immediate export from the environment where I do my experiments in - Support for the scipy/numpy data structures - Familiar syntax/options (matlab background) - Full latex support for labels/legends etc. So same typesetting as ...
null
CC BY-SA 4.0
null
2010-07-20T09:53:11.583
2022-05-22T12:59:53.333
2022-05-22T12:59:53.333
313631
190
null
264
2
null
134
7
null
[Here](https://dcc-backup.ligo.org/public/0027/T030168/000/T030168-00.pdf) is an article describing one possible algorithm. Source code included and a quite serious application (gravitational wave detection based on laser interferometry), so you can expect it to be well tested.
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T09:59:00.690
2018-02-27T15:34:22.913
2018-02-27T15:34:22.913
22047
217
null
265
2
null
256
28
null
In plain English: If your classifier misclassifies some data, train another copy of it mainly on this misclassified part with hope that it will discover something subtle. And then, as usual, iterate. On the way there are some voting schemes that allow to combine all those classifiers' predictions in sensible way. Becau...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T10:05:48.050
2010-07-20T10:17:16.153
2010-07-20T10:17:16.153
null
null
null
266
2
null
134
3
null
As you mentioned sorting would be `O(n·log n)` for a window of length `n`. Doing this moving adds another `l=vectorlength` making the total cost `O(l·n·log n)`. The simplest way to push this is by keeping an ordered list of the last n elements in memory when moving from one window to the next one. As removing/inserting...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T10:23:56.707
2010-07-20T10:23:56.707
null
null
128
null
267
1
271
null
9
10166
If I have two lists A and B, both of which are subsets of a much larger list C, how can I determine if the degree of overlap of A and B is greater than I would expect by chance? Should I just randomly select elements from C of the same lengths as lists A and B and determine that random overlap, and do this many times t...
How do I calculate if the degree of overlap between two lists is significant?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T10:35:55.960
2013-07-17T02:30:07.350
null
null
194
[ "statistical-significance" ]
268
2
null
47
3
null
You could of for a supervised self-organizing map (e.g. with [kohonen](http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/kohonen/index.html) package for R), and use the login frequency as dependent variable. That way, the clustering will focus on separating the frequent visitors from the rare visitors. By plotting the number of u...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:01:06.313
2010-07-20T11:01:06.313
null
null
107
null
269
1
416
null
45
423555
What is the difference between a population and a sample? What common variables and statistics are used for each one, and how do those relate to each other?
What is the difference between a population and a sample?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:07:42.403
2017-06-16T02:01:31.063
2010-08-07T17:55:39.090
null
62
[ "standard-deviation", "variance", "sample", "population" ]
270
1
279
null
18
7841
Due to the factorial in a poisson distribution, it becomes unpractical to estimate poisson models (for example, using maximum likelihood) when the observations are large. So, for example, if I am trying to estimate a model to explain the number of suicides in a given year (only annual data are available), and say, ther...
Poisson regression with large data: is it wrong to change the unit of measurement?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:08:47.770
2022-04-22T11:18:35.717
2010-10-08T16:05:24.073
8
90
[ "modeling", "poisson-distribution", "large-data" ]
271
2
null
267
9
null
If I understand your question correctly, you need to use the [Hypergeometric distribution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergeometric_distribution). This distribution is usually associated with urn models, i.e there are $n$ balls in an urn, $y$ are painted red, and you draw $m$ balls from the urn. Then if $X$ is the n...
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T11:10:42.150
2013-07-17T02:30:07.350
2013-07-17T02:30:07.350
805
8
null
272
2
null
161
4
null
Also, for some elaborate discussion (including bashing of ADF / PP / KPSS :) you might want to have a look at the book by Maddala and Kim: [http://www.amazon.com/Cointegration-Structural-Change-Themes-Econometrics/dp/0521587824](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0521587824) Quite extensive and not very easy to r...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:14:41.487
2010-07-20T11:14:41.487
null
null
216
null
273
2
null
25
1
null
- Clearly R - RadidMiner is nice, but switching to thinking in terms of operators takes a moment - Matlab / Octave If you describe a specific problem, I may be able to get more specific.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:18:01.390
2010-07-20T11:18:01.390
null
null
216
null
274
2
null
269
14
null
The population is the whole set of values, or individuals, you are interested in. The sample is a subset of the population, and is the set of values you actually use in your estimation. So, for example, if you want to know the average height of the residents of China, that is your population, ie, the population of Chin...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:21:59.493
2010-07-20T11:21:59.493
null
null
90
null
275
2
null
270
7
null
In case of Poisson it is bad, since counts are counts -- their unit is an unity. On the other hand, if you'd use some advanced software like R, its Poisson handling functions will be aware of such large numbers and would use some numerical tricks to handle them. Obviously I agree that normal approximation is another go...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:29:53.070
2010-07-20T12:26:55.800
2010-07-20T12:26:55.800
null
null
null
276
1
553
null
13
10659
Is there a rule-of thumb or even any way at all to tell how large a sample should be in order to estimate a model with a given number of parameters? So, for example, if I want to estimate a least-squares regression with 5 parameters, how large should the sample be? Does it matter what estimation technique you are usi...
How large should a sample be for a given estimation technique and parameters?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:43:25.013
2010-09-16T22:25:36.037
null
null
90
[ "sample-size", "estimation", "least-squares", "maximum-likelihood" ]
277
1
null
null
28
14538
When would one prefer to use a Conditional Autoregressive model over a Simultaneous Autoregressive model when modelling autocorrelated geo-referenced aerial data?
Spatial statistics models: CAR vs SAR
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T11:49:02.490
2016-06-23T07:40:23.197
2016-06-23T07:40:23.197
7486
215
[ "modeling", "spatial" ]
278
1
null
null
8
339
When a non-hierarchical cluster analysis is carried out, the order of observations in the data file determine the clustering results, especially if the data set is small (i.e, 5000 observations). To deal with this problem I usually performed a random reorder of data observations. My problem is that if I replicate the a...
How to deal with the effect of the order of observations in a non hierarchical cluster analysis?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:49:27.543
2010-09-17T20:36:37.643
2010-09-17T20:36:37.643
null
221
[ "clustering" ]
279
2
null
270
19
null
When you're dealing with a Poisson distribution with large values of \lambda (its parameter), it is common to use a normal approximation to the Poisson distribution. As [this site](http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~dinov/courses_students.dir/Applets.dir/NormalApprox2PoissonApplet.html) mentions, it's all right to use the norm...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:54:15.197
2010-07-20T11:54:15.197
null
null
62
null
280
2
null
138
5
null
The [R project](http://www.r-project.org/) website has lots of manuals to start, and I suggest you the [Nabble R forum](http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/) and the [R-bloggers](http://www.r-bloggers.com/) site as well.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:54:50.530
2010-07-20T11:54:50.530
null
null
221
null
281
2
null
73
4
null
Day-to-day the most useful package must be "foreign" which has functions for reading and writing data for other statistical packages e.g. Stata, SPSS, Minitab, SAS, etc. Working in a field where R is not that commonplace means that this is a very important package.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T11:59:56.727
2012-08-27T17:52:32.967
2012-08-27T17:52:32.967
919
215
null
282
2
null
222
78
null
First, let's define a score. John, Mike and Kate get the following percentages for exams in Maths, Science, English and Music as follows: ``` Maths Science English Music John 80 85 60 55 Mike 90 85 70 45 Kate 95 80 40 50 ``` In t...
null
CC BY-SA 4.0
null
2010-07-20T12:02:26.817
2022-07-25T13:56:39.230
2022-07-25T13:56:39.230
919
81
null
283
1
307
null
71
98662
What is meant when we say we have a saturated model?
What is a "saturated" model?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:09:08.457
2022-03-24T21:14:54.740
2010-07-20T14:26:17.513
null
215
[ "modeling", "regression" ]
284
2
null
50
6
null
A random variable, usually denoted X, is a variable where the outcome is uncertain. The observation of a particular outcome of this variable is called a realisation. More concretely, it is a function which maps a probability space into a measurable space, usually called a state space. Random variables are discrete (can...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:25:30.920
2010-07-20T12:25:30.920
null
null
215
null
285
2
null
47
1
null
You might consider transforming (perhaps a log) the positively skewed variables. If after exploring various clustering algorithms you find that the four variables simply reflect varying intensity levels of usage, you might think about a theoretically based classification. Presumably this classification is going to be u...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:26:39.483
2010-07-20T12:26:39.483
null
null
183
null
286
2
null
170
23
null
There's a superb Probability book here: [https://web.archive.org/web/20100102085337/http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/probability_book/book.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20100102085337/http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Echance/teaching_aids/books_articles/probability_book/book.html) which you c...
null
CC BY-SA 4.0
null
2010-07-20T12:28:32.410
2023-06-02T11:50:50.423
2023-06-02T11:50:50.423
362671
211
null
287
1
506
null
16
5784
Can someone explain to me the difference between method of moments and GMM (general method of moments), their relationship, and when should one or the other be used?
What is the difference/relationship between method of moments and GMM?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:29:17.607
2021-02-26T17:25:32.740
2013-10-22T14:58:47.763
5739
90
[ "estimation", "method-of-moments", "generalized-moments" ]
288
1
null
null
7
3063
Suppose that I culture cancer cells in n different dishes g₁, g₂, … , gn and observe the number of cells ni in each dish that look different than normal. The total number of cells in dish gi is ti. There is individual differences between individual cells, but also differences between the populations in different dish...
Estimating beta-binomial distribution
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:29:34.187
2012-11-15T07:31:15.177
2010-07-21T03:10:58.123
null
220
[ "estimation", "beta-binomial-distribution" ]
289
2
null
224
5
null
For visualizing graphs in a Java/SWT environment, check out Zest: [http://eclipse.org/gef/zest](http://eclipse.org/gef/zest)
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:32:41.060
2010-07-20T12:32:41.060
null
null
80
null
290
1
445
null
9
2053
I know of Cameron and Trivedi's Microeconometrics Using Stata. What are other good texts for learning Stata?
Resources for learning Stata
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T12:33:30.577
2017-10-12T15:20:16.267
2015-10-31T10:17:52.700
22468
189
[ "references", "stata" ]
291
2
null
7
11
null
A good place to look is Carnegie Mellon University's [Data and Story Library or DASL](http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/DASL/), which contains data files that "illustrate the use of basic statistics methods... A good example can make a lesson on a particular statistics method vivid and relevant. DASL is designed to help teachers...
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T12:35:43.100
2016-03-29T09:06:44.293
2016-03-29T09:06:44.293
22228
211
null
292
2
null
276
2
null
It should always be large enough! ;) All parameter estimates come with an estimate uncertainty, which is determined by the sample size. If you carry out a regression analysis, it helps to remind yourself that the Χ2 distribution is constructed from the input data set. If your model had 5 parameters and you had 5 data p...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:38:38.663
2010-07-20T12:38:38.663
null
null
56
null
293
2
null
192
4
null
I think you need to rework this question. It all depends on the problem/data which has generated the cross-tab.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:43:02.087
2010-07-20T12:43:02.087
null
null
211
null
294
2
null
53
61
null
Bernard Flury, in his excellent book introducing multivariate analysis, described this as an anti-property of principal components. It's actually worse than choosing between correlation or covariance. If you changed the units (e.g. US style gallons, inches etc. and EU style litres, centimetres) you will get substan...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:47:39.550
2010-07-20T12:47:39.550
null
null
211
null
295
2
null
31
18
null
A nice definition of p-value is "the probability of observing a test statistic at least as large as the one calculated assuming the null hypothesis is true". The problem with that is that it requires an understanding of "test statistic" and "null hypothesis". But, that's easy to get across. If the null hypothesis is t...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T12:52:55.920
2010-07-20T12:52:55.920
null
null
62
null
296
2
null
7
13
null
[MLComp](https://web.archive.org/web/20100730170034/http://mlcomp.org/) has quite a few interesting datasets, and as a bonus your algorithm will get ranked if you upload it.
null
CC BY-SA 4.0
null
2010-07-20T12:54:28.273
2022-11-22T02:51:53.290
2022-11-22T02:51:53.290
362671
127
null
297
2
null
3
7
null
I really enjoy working with [RooFit](http://roofit.sourceforge.net/) for easy proper fitting of signal and background distributions and [TMVA](http://tmva.sourceforge.net/) for quick principal component analyses and modelling of multivariate problems with some standard tools (like genetic algorithms and neural networks...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T13:08:42.907
2010-07-20T13:08:42.907
null
null
56
null
298
1
null
null
214
501393
Am I looking for a better behaved distribution for the independent variable in question, or to reduce the effect of outliers, or something else?
In linear regression, when is it appropriate to use the log of an independent variable instead of the actual values?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T13:11:50.297
2021-12-09T20:01:45.203
2021-08-24T07:10:36.977
35989
125
[ "regression", "distributions", "data-transformation", "logarithm", "faq" ]
299
2
null
298
16
null
One typically takes the log of an input variable to scale it and change the distribution (e.g. to make it normally distributed). It cannot be done blindly however; you need to be careful when making any scaling to ensure that the results are still interpretable. This is discussed in most introductory statistics text...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T13:16:29.303
2010-07-20T13:22:18.760
2010-07-20T13:22:18.760
5
5
null
300
2
null
278
4
null
A "right" answer cannot depend on an arbitrary ordering of some method you are using. You need to consider all possible orderings (or some representative sample) and estimate your parameters for every case. This will give you distributions for the parameters you are trying to estimate. Estimate the "true" parameter val...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T13:19:31.293
2010-07-20T13:19:31.293
null
null
56
null
301
2
null
298
11
null
You tend to take logs of the data when there is a problem with the residuals. For example, if you plot the residuals against a particular covariate and observe an increasing/decreasing pattern (a funnel shape), then a transformation may be appropriate. Non-random residuals usually indicate that your model assumptions a...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T13:22:40.320
2010-07-20T13:22:40.320
null
null
8
null
302
2
null
276
2
null
I've heard two rules of thumb in this regard. One holds that so long as there are enough observations in the error term to evoke the central limit theorem, e.g. 20 or 30, you are fine. The other holds that for each estimated slope one should have at least 20 or 30 observations. The difference between using 20 or 30 ...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T14:04:12.107
2010-07-20T14:04:12.107
null
null
196
null
303
2
null
288
3
null
You have a hierarchical bayesian model. Brief details below: Likelihood Function: $$f(n_i | p_i, t_i) = (t_i n_i) p_i^{n_i} (1-p_i)^{(t_i - n_i)}$$ Priors on $p_i, \alpha, \beta$: $$pi \sim Beta(\alpha, \beta)$$ $$\alpha ~ N(\alpha_{mean}, \alpha_{var}) I(\alpha > 0)$$ $$\beta ~ N(\beta_{mean}, \beta_{var}) I(\beta > ...
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T14:08:42.377
2012-11-15T07:31:15.177
2012-11-15T07:31:15.177
9007
null
null
304
2
null
298
3
null
Shane's point that taking the log to deal with bad data is well taken. As is Colin's regarding the importance of normal residuals. In practice I find that usually you can get normal residuals if the input and output variables are also relatively normal. In practice this means eyeballing the distribution of the trans...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T14:13:50.103
2010-07-20T14:13:50.103
null
null
196
null
305
1
796
null
53
36585
It seems like when the assumption of homogeneity of variance is met that the results from a Welch adjusted t-test and a standard t-test are approximately the same. Why not simply always use the Welch adjusted t?
When conducting a t-test why would one prefer to assume (or test for) equal variances rather than always use a Welch approximation of the df?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T14:19:41.383
2022-11-07T16:03:40.413
2010-07-26T13:05:38.663
159
196
[ "variance", "t-test", "heteroscedasticity" ]
306
2
null
242
9
null
The model that fits the data doesn't have to be a time series model; I would advise thinking outside the box a little. If you have multiple variables (e.g. age, gender, diet, ethnicity, illness, medication) you can use these for a different model. Maybe having certain patients in the same room is an important predic...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T14:21:37.820
2010-07-20T14:21:37.820
null
null
5
null
307
2
null
283
46
null
A saturated model is one in which there are as many estimated parameters as data points. By definition, this will lead to a perfect fit, but will be of little use statistically, as you have no data left to estimate variance. For example, if you have 6 data points and fit a 5th-order polynomial to the data, you would ha...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T14:23:30.843
2010-07-20T14:23:30.843
null
null
229
null
308
2
null
290
2
null
There are couple of good links with introductory material at Princeton Uni Library [website](http://libguides.princeton.edu/content.php?pid=27916&sid=459449).
null
CC BY-SA 3.0
null
2010-07-20T14:38:07.360
2015-08-07T12:32:14.717
2015-08-07T12:32:14.717
22047
22
null
309
2
null
305
3
null
The fact that something more complex reduces to something less complex when some assumption is checked is not enough to throw the simpler method away.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T14:40:32.910
2010-07-20T14:40:32.910
null
null
null
null
310
2
null
270
1
null
You can simply ignore the 'factorial' when using maximum likelihood. Here is the reasoning for your suicides example. Let: λ : Be the expected number of suicides per year ki: Be the number of suicides in year i. Then you would maximize the log-likelihood as: LL = ∑ ( ki log(λ) - λ - ki! ) Maximizing the above is equiva...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T14:41:33.560
2010-07-20T14:41:33.560
null
null
null
null
311
2
null
220
23
null
Rob Hyndman gave the easy exact answer for a fixed n. If you're interested in asymptotic behavior for large n, this is handled in the field of [extreme value theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_value_theory). There is a small family of possible limiting distributions; see for example the first chapters of [t...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T14:47:31.380
2010-07-20T14:47:31.380
null
null
89
null
312
1
318
null
5
171
I'm a physics graduate who ended up doing infosec so most of the statistics I ever learned is useful for thermodynamics. I'm currently trying to think of a model for working out how many of a population of computers are infected with viruses, though I assume the maths works out the same way for real-world diseases so r...
What approach could be used for modelling virus infections?
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T15:03:40.450
2022-11-30T05:56:14.203
null
null
null
[ "distributions", "modeling", "poisson-distribution", "binomial-distribution", "disease" ]
313
2
null
31
13
null
Imagine you have a bag containing 900 black marbles and 100 white, i.e. 10% of the marbles are white. Now imagine you take 1 marble out, look at it and record its colour, take out another, record its colour etc.. and do this 100 times. At the end of this process you will have a number for white marbles which, ideally, ...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T15:10:15.333
2010-07-21T00:33:56.993
2010-07-21T00:33:56.993
226
226
null
314
2
null
257
12
null
R is definitely the answer. I would just add to what Rob and Colin already said: To improve the quality of your plots, you should consider using [the Cairo package](http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Cairo/index.html) for the output device. That will greatly improve the quality of the final graphics. You simply ...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T15:10:34.927
2010-07-20T15:10:34.927
null
null
5
null
315
2
null
224
6
null
If you can use R try [ggplot2](http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/).
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T15:15:57.377
2010-07-20T15:15:57.377
null
null
36
null
316
2
null
73
8
null
ggplot2 - hands down best visualization for R. RMySQL/RSQLite/RODBC - for connecting to a databases sqldf - manipulate data.frames with SQL queries Hmisc/rms - packages from Frank Harrell containing convenient miscellaneous functions and nice functions for regression analyses. GenABEL - nice package for genome-wide ass...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T15:20:38.567
2010-07-20T15:28:42.347
2010-07-20T15:28:42.347
36
36
null
317
2
null
114
18
null
[The Endeavour](http://www.johndcook.com/blog/) sometimes features statistics posts. Otherwise it is mostly around the interplay of computer science and math.
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T15:21:01.857
2010-07-20T15:21:01.857
null
null
56
null
318
2
null
312
5
null
Computer virus propagation is structurally similar to infectious diseases propagation (vaccinations = anti-virus software, virus via email = getting a virus from someone etc). Use the following links: [Mathematical modelling of infectious disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infectious_disea...
null
CC BY-SA 4.0
null
2010-07-20T15:23:53.653
2022-11-30T05:56:14.203
2022-11-30T05:56:14.203
362671
null
null
319
2
null
31
34
null
No amount of verbal explanation or calculations really helped me to understand at a gut level what p-values were, but it really snapped into focus for me once I took a course that involved simulation. That gave me the ability to actually see data generated by the null hypothesis and to plot the means/etc. of simulated...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T15:33:42.533
2010-07-20T15:33:42.533
null
null
71
null
320
2
null
283
28
null
A saturated model is a model that is overparameterized to the point that it is basically just interpolating the data. In some settings, such as image compression and reconstruction, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you're trying to build a predictive model it's very problematic. In short, saturated models le...
null
CC BY-SA 2.5
null
2010-07-20T15:47:04.940
2010-07-20T15:47:04.940
null
null
61
null