• The R-Podcast Episode 6: Importing Data from External Sources

    Updated: 2012-04-30 01:58:39
    In this episode: Listener feedback and importing data from external sources into R. We dive into the basics of importing delimited text files using read.table and its varients. We also discuss recommendations for importing MS Excel spreadsheet files, relational databases such as MySQL, data from HTML tables, and files produced by other statistical computing packages. [...]

  • R equivalents to SAS and SPSS procedures

    Updated: 2012-04-27 22:29:51
    With more than 5,000 R packages now available (from the CRAN and BioConductor repositories), for any statistical or data analysis procedure you can confidently say, "there's a package for that". To make it easier for SAS and SPSS users to find what they need in R, Bob Muenchen has updated his useful table of equivalent R packages for SAS and SPSS add-ons. For example, if you're doing conjoint analysis, the equivalent packages are: Conjoint Analysis SAS/STAT: PROC TRANSREG IBM SPSS Conjoint R: homals, psychoR, bayesm Other categories of analysis include Operations Research, Power Analysis, Correspondence Analysis,& Structural Equation Modeling, Text...

  • Sage Bionetworks Synapse

    Updated: 2012-04-27 21:50:00
    Michael Kellen, Director of Technology at Sage Bionetworks, is trying to build a GitHub for science. It's called Synapse and Kellen described it in a talk at the Sage Bionetworks Commons Congress 2012, this past weekend: 'Synapse' Pilot for Building an...

  • The Best Statistical Programming Language is …Javascript?

    Updated: 2012-04-27 20:47:14
    R-Bloggers has recently been buzzing about Julia, the new kid on the statistical programming block. Julia, however, is hardly the sole contender for the market of R defectors, with Clojure-fork Incanter generating buzz as well. Even with these two making noise, I think there’s a huge point that everyone is missing, and it’s front-and-center on [...]

  • How to determine the version of MKL being used by MATLAB

    Updated: 2012-04-25 10:39:14
    #leftcontainerBox { float:left; position: fixed; top: 60%; left: 70px; } #leftcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; clear:both; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; padding-bottom:2px; } #bottomcontainerBox { height: 30px; width:50%; padding-top:1px; } #bottomcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; height: 30px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } MATLAB uses the Intel Math Kernel Library (MKL) behind the scenes to perform many linear algebra operations. I wondered what version of the MKL was being used by MATLAB 2012a on my 64 bit Windows machine. The most straightforward way to determine this is to simply ask MATLAB: >> version -lapack ans = Intel(R) Math Kernel [...]

  • Add a Wolfram Demonstration to Your Site in One Easy Step

    Updated: 2012-04-24 21:44:25
    With nearly 8,000 interactive knowledge apps available on a huge variety of topics in the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, you’re bound to find one—or more—that you want to share. Now you can easily embed any Demonstration you like on your own blog or website in one step. Watch this short video or read on to see [...]

  • Scott Laidlaw and Jen Harris – Inspired by Math #7 (Part 2 of 2)

    Updated: 2012-04-22 15:44:32
    Here's the second part of my interview with Scott and Jen from Imagine Education. Watch this video first, and listen to Part 1.

  • Mathematics in stained glass

    Updated: 2012-04-13 11:33:51
    #leftcontainerBox { float:left; position: fixed; top: 60%; left: 70px; } #leftcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; clear:both; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; padding-bottom:2px; } #bottomcontainerBox { height: 30px; width:50%; padding-top:1px; } #bottomcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; height: 30px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } I work in a beautiful old building at The University of Manchester called The Sackville Street Building.  Yesterday, I took part in a very interesting historical tour of the building and was astonished at the amount of beautiful things that I had never noticed before and yet walk past every day. For example, I was delighted [...]

  • Workaround for a bug in the MATLAB 2012a installer

    Updated: 2012-04-11 17:49:15
    #leftcontainerBox { float:left; position: fixed; top: 60%; left: 70px; } #leftcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; clear:both; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; padding-bottom:2px; } #bottomcontainerBox { height: 30px; width:50%; padding-top:1px; } #bottomcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; height: 30px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } I recently installed MATLAB 2012a on a Windows machine along with a certain set of standard Mathworks toolboxes.  In addition, I also installed the excellent NAG Toolbox for MATLAB which is standard practice at my University. I later realised that I had not installed all of the Mathworks toolboxes I needed so I fired up the MATLAB [...]

  • Explore the Computable Document Format: Free Virtual Workshop

    Updated: 2012-04-10 02:22:24
    Ever since we launched the Computable Document Format (CDF) last summer, people have been excited about the ease of deploying interactive documents to their clients and on their websites, and we’re seeing CDFs used to enhance blogs, textbooks, and other applications in many different areas. Now we’re holding a virtual workshop where you can hear [...]

  • Scott Laidlaw and Jen Harris – Inspired by Math #7 (Part 1 of 2)

    Updated: 2012-04-08 16:34:00
    A mutual friend introduced me some months ago to Jen Harris and Scott Laidlaw. Jen and Scott founded Imagine Education to produce and market an amazing Math Game, Ko's Journey. I rarely promote commercial ventures but I sincerely believe in the work that these two are doing. If you think that Sal Khan is changing [...]

  • Non replicable research

    Updated: 2012-04-06 18:12:41
    An article in Nature (paywalled, or read a Reuter's summary) suggests that many scientific "discoveries" are nothing of the kind, being the product of most likely too little skepticism on the part of the researchers that did the work. It's easy to fool yourself into thinking you've made a discovery if you don't take into account [...]

  • Carnival of Math #85 packed with stuff!

    Updated: 2012-04-06 04:05:18
    Check it out!

  • An illustration of the difference between the average and the median

    Updated: 2012-04-03 19:23:47
    Also, what happens when you use the average as a measure of location with a power law distribution: In humorous comic form.  

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