Virginia SAS Users Group Meeting

Join us for the Virgina SAS Users Group Spring Meeting
March 28th from 9 AM to 3 PM at the Tuckahoe Public Library

Meeting Agenda:

9:00 -  9:30  Morning Meet & Greet
9:30 – 10:30 Why the Bell Tolls 108 times? Stepping Through Time with SAS® – Peter Eberhardt
10:30 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 12:00 The SAS® DATA Step: Where Your Input Matters – Peter Eberhardt
12:00 -  1:00  Networking Lunch
1:00 – 2:00   Three short topics: Import & Freq & Summary – John Meyers
2:30 – 3:30   R U Experienced? Using SAS and R Together – Brian Adams

Remember: Students get in Free!

 Contact Brian Adams btadams478@gmail.com  for more details.

Thank you to SunTrust for sponsoring this meeting!

Particle Discovery and the Role of Bayes in Design of Hypothesis Tests

Statistics Colloquium

Tuesday, Feb 21st at 4pm in Clark 107, University of Virginia

Speaker:  Richard Lockhart from Simon Fraser University

The discovery of the pentaquark, announced in Stepanyi et al (2003). Phys Rev Lett, 91, 252001, illustrates the problem of finding bumps in histograms as evidence of the existenceof hitherto  undetected particles.  The later retraction of a claim based on a P-valuebelow 3 parts in a billion illustrates the need for some care in designing hypothesis tests. I will discuss the Poisson process models used and the resulting tests for missing components in a mixture.  I propose to apply prior distributions describing the sought after bump and indicate the nature of resulting Neyman Pearson tests.  The discussion has a few features which I think merit attention: 1) I recommend the use of sample size dependent priors to design good tests; 2) I draw an analogy between this problem and goodness-of-fit; 3) I am led to test statistics whose asymptotic law is that of the integral of a log-Gaussian process. If I have time I will discuss the potential use of priors in testing ill-defined null hypotheses.

SLab and ITS Software Workshop: Introduction to R

Wednesday, October 19
2:00 p.m.
Alderman Library Electronic Classroom

Introduction to R, the widely used open source statistical environment.  Instructor: Kathy Gerber.

MathSciNet Tutorials

The American Mathematical Society is pleased to announce that MathSciNet Tutorials are now available!  Learn how to take full advantage of the rich structure of the MathSciNet database.  Tutorials include – Publications, Authors, Journals, and Citations searches – as well as tutorials on the Free Tools and Preferences options.  Every user will find new features and search options that will enhance their use of the database.

Go to http://www.mathscinet.info/index.html to start using the MSN Tutorials!

Lori Sprague
Manager, Sales Administration
American Mathematical Society
Providence, RI  02904
las@ams.org
www.ams.org

Mathematica Technical Talks

Just a quick note to let you know I will be on campus to give two Mathematica technical talks on Thursday, October 13. If you haven’t seen Mathematica lately, you will be surprised to see how suitable Mathematica is for projects and course examples in any STEM, business and economics, or liberal arts field.

My talks are given 100% in Mathematica, and a big part of what I want to discuss is the exciting new free-form input in Mathematica 8. Here’s a quick video preview:

http://url.wolfram.com/bTXP-y4/

Details:

“Mathematica in Education and Research”

9-9:50am & 10-10:50am, including Q&A

Room 214, Mechanical Engineering Bldg., UVA

Attendees with no prior experience report that these talks help with getting started using Mathematica language and workflow.

All attendees will receive an electronic copy of the examples, which can be adapted to individual projects.

Please feel free to pass this invitation on to colleagues and students–please let me know if you plan to attend, so I can make sure we have enough space. I look forward to meeting you!

Thanks,

Andy Dorsett

Wolfram Research, Inc.

1-800-965-3726 ext. 3495

fax: 217-398-1108

andy_dorsett@wolfram.com

http://www.wolfram.com

Certain Core Competencies Can Help Software Engineers Stand Out

In the “Career Management” blog at Tech Republic (1/21), Head Blogs Editor Toni Bowers writes that, according to CareerCast, software engineer is “the hottest job for 2011.” For those “who would like to know how to stand out from the pack” in this competitive field, Bowers lists “five core skills to help build critical competencies.” The list, created by Bruce Douglas, “Chief Evangelist from IBM Rational,” includes electric vehicle mechanics, probability and statistics, environmental engineering, engineering economics, and ethics.

Reposted from the 1/21/11 ASEE First Bell.

Latest Version of MathSciNet

Newest Release of MathSciNet

The American Mathematical Society is pleased to announce the latest version of MathScinet. The new release includes the following enhancements and features:

· Improved display of mathematics using MathJax, an open source JavaScript display engine for mathematics that works in all modern browsers (http://www.mathjax.org/)

· Direct links to books, book chapters, and series using DOIs registered by publishers

· Bibliographic entries and direct links for Ph.D. theses in mathematics, applied mathematics, and statistics from the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database

For more information please see:

http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/help/about.html.

Mathematica Tutorials

“Hands-on Start to Mathematica” is a free, two-part online screencast that introduces Mathematica basics to get you started with your first calculations, visualizations, and interactive examples. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Part 1 here:

http://url.wolfram.com/bP_SaJC/

Many students have asked for more in-depth training, so we now also offer “M10: A Student’s First Course in Mathematica,” a self-paced video training course providing step-by-step instructions on the basic features of Mathematica for students.  Through the included videos and practice exercises, students learn how to navigate the user interface, build calculations, create graphics and dynamic models, work with data, and more–for under $30:

http://url.wolfram.com/cETtNQA/

Introduction to Qualitative Research Using NVivo 8

Reminder: Wednesday, March 3 at 2:00pm in the Alderman Library Scholars’ Lab Classroom.

Nancy Kechner will introduce the NVivo software application and its value in analyzing qualitative research data. Please join us in the Scholars’ Lab classroom for this workshop.

Want to perform qualitative research? Don’t know where to start? Please attend this very basic introduction to qualitative research using NVivo software. Those attending are expected to have very little experience using NVivo.

We hope to see you in the Scholars’ Lab! And check out our full calendar of events for the Spring semester here:
http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/scholarslab/about/events.html

Upcoming RCL Short Course

Intro to Logistic Regression

Kathy Gerber
Research Computing Support Specialist
Thursday, October 29, 2009, from 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
In the Brown Science and Engineering Library Electronic Classroom

This session was initially scheduled for Thursday, October 15, 2009, from 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

This session will provide an overview to logistic regression, as it pertains to quantitative statistics.

You can register for this course by submitting a help ticket at http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/brown/rescomp/help/index.html