Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Differentiation Of Human, Dog, And Cat Hair Fibers Using Dart Tofms And Machine Learning, Laura Ahumada, Erin R. Mcclure-Price, Chad Kwong, Edgard O. Espinoza, John Santerre

SMU Data Science Review

Hair is found in over 90% of crime scenes and has long been analyzed as trace evidence. However, recent reviews of traditional hair fiber analysis techniques, primarily morphological examination, have cast doubt on its reliability. To address these concerns, this study employed machine learning algorithms, specifically Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Random Forest, on Direct Analysis in Real Time time-of-flight mass spectra collected from human, cat, and dog hair samples. The objective was to develop a chemistry- and statistics-based classification method for unbiased taxonomic identification of hair. The results of the study showed that LDA and Random Forest were highly …

Reu-Deim Classification Of Hispanic Voters In Hispanic Groups Using Name And Zip Code Data In Palm Beach, Florida, Kamila Soto-Ortiz

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

When it comes to registering to vote, Hispanic voters can only register as “Hispanic” in the “Race/Ethnicity” category, causing difficulties when analyzing voting trends amongst the Hispanic community. Upon the recent idea that not all Hispanic Groups vote the same, the goal is to create a model that can possibly identify a voter’s Hispanic Group with the information provided on the public Florida voter file. This is accomplished using name and zip code data for all voters in Palm Beach, Florida. This paper will explore the model implemented, its findings and limitations. Palm Beach, Florida, is met with low confidence …

Traditional Vs Machine Learning Approaches: A Comparison Of Time Series Modeling Methods, Miguel E. Bonilla Jr., Jason Mcdonald, Tamas Toth, Bivin Sadler

SMU Data Science Review

In recent years, various new Machine Learning and Deep Learning algorithms have been introduced, claiming to offer better performance than traditional statistical approaches when forecasting time series. Studies seeking evidence to support the usage of ML/DL over statistical approaches have been limited to comparing the forecasting performance of univariate, linear time series data. This research compares the performance of traditional statistical-based and ML/DL methods for forecasting multivariate and nonlinear time series.

So Long My Friend, Bryan Mcnair

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

No abstract provided.

An Introduction To Calling Bullshit: Learning To Think Outside The Black Box, Jevin D. West, Carl T. Bergstrom

Numeracy

Bergstrom, Carl T. and Jevin D. West. 2020. Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. (New York: Random House) 336 pp. ISBN 978-0525509202.

While statistical methods receive greater attention, the art of critically evaluating information in everyday life more commonly depends on thinking outside the black box of the algorithm. In this piece we introduce readers to our book and associated online teaching materials—for readers who want to more capably call “bullshit” or to teach their students to do the same.

The Uncertainty Of Confidence, Michael J. Leach

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This is a free-verse poem about the estimation of population parameters in statistical models. The spacing of words is intended to reflect uncertainty.

Review Of Social Workers Count: Numbers And Social Issues By Michael Anthony Lewis, Michael T. Catalano

Numeracy

Lewis, Michael Anthony. 2017. Social Workers Count: Numbers and Social Issues. 2019. New York: Oxford University Press. 223 pp. ISBN 978-019046713-5

The numeracy movement, although largely birthed within the mathematics community, is an outside-the-box endeavor which has always sought to break down or at least transgress traditional disciplinary boundaries. Michael Anthony Lewis’s book is a testament that this effort is succeeding. Lewis is a social worker and sociologist with an impressive resume, author of Economics for Social Workers, co-editor of The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee, and member of the faculty at the Silberman School …

Fourth Down Decision Making: Challenging The Conservative Nature Of Nfl Coaches, Will Palmquist, Ryan Elmore, Benjamin Williams

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

This thesis analyzes the hypothesis that coaches in the National Football League are often too conservative in their decision making on fourth downs. I used R Studio and NFL play-by-play data to simulate actual football plays and drives according to different fourth down strategies. By measuring expected points per drive over thousands of simulated drives, we are able to evaluate the effectiveness of different fourth down strategies. This research points to a number of conclusions regarding the nature of NFL coaches on fourth downs as well as the complexity of modeling and simulating decision making in a complex sport such …

Applying The Data: Predictive Analytics In Sport, Anthony Teeter, Margo Bergman

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

The history of wagering predictions and their impact on wide reaching disciplines such as statistics and economics dates to at least the 1700’s, if not before. Predicting the outcomes of sports is a multibillion-dollar business that capitalizes on these tools but is in constant development with the addition of big data analytics methods. Sportsline.com, a popular website for fantasy sports leagues, provides odds predictions in multiple sports, produces proprietary computer models of both winning and losing teams, and provides specific point estimates. To test likely candidates for inclusion in these prediction algorithms, the authors developed a computer model, and test …

The Importance Of Type I Error Rates When Studying Bias In Monte Carlo Studies In Statistics, Michael Harwell

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Two common outcomes of Monte Carlo studies in statistics are bias and Type I error rate. Several versions of bias statistics exist but all employ arbitrary cutoffs for deciding when bias is ignorable or non-ignorable. This article argues Type I error rates should be used when assessing bias.

Art, Artfulness, Or Artifice?: A Review Of The Art Of Statistics: How To Learn From Data, By David Spiegelhalter, Jason Makansi

Numeracy

David Spiegelhalter. 2019. The Art of Statistics: How to Learn From Data. (London: The Penguin Group). 444 pp. ISBN 978-1541618510

The author successfully eases the reader away from the rigor of statistical methods and calculations and into the realm of statistical thinking. Despite an engaging style and attention-grabbing examples, the reader of The Art of Statistics will need more than a casual grounding in statistics to get what Spiegelhalter, I believe, intends from his book. It should be viewed as a companion to a more rigorous textbook on statistical methods but not necessarily a book that makes statistics any …

The Author’S Reflections On No B.S. (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe In Black People Enough Not To Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear About Black People, Ivory A. Toldson

Numeracy

Toldson, Ivory. A. 2019. No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear About Black People (Boston, MA: Brill-Sense) 194 pp. ISBN 978-9004397026.

This essay provides an introduction to No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear About Black People. In the essay, the author discusses how cynical views about the educational potential of Black children motivated him to write a book that challenges negative statistics. The essay also outlines the harmful …

Mathematics Versus Statistics, Mindy B. Capaldi

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Mathematics and statistics are both important and useful subjects, but the former has maintained prominence in the American education system. On the other hand, statistics is more prevalent in daily life and is an increasingly marketable subject to know. This article gives a personal history of one mathematician’s bumpy road to learning and teaching statistics. Additionally, arguments for how and why to include statistics in the K-12 and college curricula are provided.

Comparative Analysis Of Students’ Performance Between Online And On Campus In An Introductory Statistics Course, Kendal Mcdonald

The Corinthian

In this research, we compare students’ performance in an online and on-campus introductory statistics and probability course at Georgia College. MyStatLab is the learning management system used in both the online and on-campus courses for homework and quizzes. The online data is produced by five summer courses between Summer 2014 to Summer 2017 and the on-campus data is produced from nine on-campus courses from Spring 2014, Spring 2016, and Spring 2017. For homework, the research compares the scores made between online and on-campus. For quizzes, we test if there is a difference between the scores and the number of attempts …

Minimizing The Perceived Financial Burden Due To Cancer, Hassan Azhar, Zoheb Allam, Gino Varghese, Daniel W. Engels, Sajiny John

SMU Data Science Review

In this paper, we present a regression model that predicts perceived financial burden that a cancer patient experiences in the treatment and management of the disease. Cancer patients do not fully understand the burden associated with the cost of cancer, and their lack of understanding can increase the difficulties associated with living with the disease, in particular coping with the cost. The relationship between demographic characteristics and financial burden were examined in order to better understand the characteristics of a cancer patient and their burden, while all subsets regression was used to determine the best predictors of financial burden. Age, …

Calculus Of The Impossible: Review Of The Improbability Principle (2014) By David Hand And The Logic Of Miracles (2018) By Lásló Mérő, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

David J. Hand. 2014. The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day (New York, NY: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 288 pp. ISBN: 978-0374175344.

Lásló Mérő. 2018. The Logic of Miracles: Making Sense of Rare, Really Rare, and Impossibly Rare Events (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) 288 pp. ISBN: 978-0300224153.

David Hand and Lásló Mérő both grapple with the occurrence of seemingly impossible events in these two popular science books. In this comparative review, I describe the two books, and explain why I prefer Hand's treatment of the impossible.

The Battle Against Malaria: A Teachable Moment, Randy K. Schwartz

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Malaria has been humanity’s worst public health problem throughout recorded history. Mathematical methods are needed to understand which factors are relevant to the disease and to develop counter-measures against it. This article and the accompanying exercises provide examples of those methods for use in lower- or upper-level courses dealing with probability, statistics, or population modeling. These can be used to illustrate such concepts as correlation, causation, conditional probability, and independence. The article explains how the apparent link between sickle cell trait and resistance to malaria was first verified in Uganda using the chi-squared probability distribution. It goes on to explain …

Moneyball For Creative Writers: A Statistical Strategy For Publishing Your Work, Jon Wesick

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Writers face a challenge getting their poems and stories published. Rather than following the traditional strategy I model creative writing submission as a statistical process and explore the use of numerical metrics to maximize publications.

Gathering Steam In Health Care: A Student History, Michael J. Leach

The STEAM Journal

In this reflection, I demonstrate STEAM in health care by outlining my 15 years as a university student engaged in formal education, extracurricular learning, research, and employment.

Measurement Error Estimation Methods In Survey Methodology, Alireza Zahedian, Roshanak A. Saba

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

One of the most important topics that are discussed in survey methodology is the accuracy of statistics or survey errors that may occur in the parameters estimation process. In statistical literature, these errors are grouped into two main categories: sampling errors and non-sampling errors. Measurement error is one of the most important non-sampling errors. Since estimating of measurement error is more complex than other types of survey errors, much more research has been done on ways of preventing or dealing with this error. The main problem associated with measurement error is the difficulty to measure or estimate this error in …

Review Of Naked Statistics: Stripping The Dread From Data By Charles Wheelan, Michael T. Catalano

Numeracy

Wheelan, Charles. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from Data (New York, NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014). 282 pp. ISBN 978-0-393-07195-5

In his review of What Numbers Say and The Numbers Game, Rob Root (Numeracy 3(1): 9) writes “Popular books on quantitative literacy need to be easy to read, reasonably comprehensive in scope, and include examples that are thought-provoking and memorable.” Wheelan’s book certainly meets this description, and should be of interest to both the general public and those with a professional interest in numeracy. A moderately diligent learner can get a decent understanding of basic statistics …

Inferences In Log-Rate Models, Herbert C. Heien, William A. Baumann

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Log-Rate models are used in analyzing rates of individuals who are exposed to a risk of having a certain characteristic. The explanatory variables could be categorical or in a continuous scale. In finding a Log-Rate Model, parameters are estimated and goodness-of-fit are studied to carefully extract the best model to fit our data. Here we revisit three aspects of Log-Rate Models using the data set give at the end of the paper. The three aspects are parameter estimation, goodness-of-fit of the model, and marginal effect of the factors.

Choosing Between Parametric And Non-Parametric Tests, Russ Johnson

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

A common question in comparing two sets of measurements is whether to use a parametric testing procedure or a non-parametric procedure. The question is even more important in dealing with smaller samples. Here, using simulation, several parametric and nonparametric tests, such as, t-test, Normal test, Wilcoxon Rank Sum test, van-der Waerden Score test, and Exponential Score test are compared.

P-Values Versus Significance Levels, Phillip I. Good

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

In this article Phillip Good responds to Richard Anderson's article Conceptual Distinction between the Critical p Value and the Type I Error Rate in Permutation Testing.

Conceptual Distinction Between The Critical P Value And The Type I Error Rate In Permutation Testing: Author Response To Peer Comments, Richard B. Anderson

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Richard Anderson responds to comments regarding his target article Conceptual Distinction between the Critical p Value and the Type I Error Rate in Permutation Testing.

A Response To Anderson's (2013) Conceptual Distinction Between The Critical P Value And Type I Error Rate In Permutation Testing, Fortunato Pesarin, Stefano Bonnini

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Pesarin and Bonnini respond to Anderson's (2013) Conceptual Distinction between the Critical p value and Type I Error Rate in Permutation Testing

Conceptual Distinction Between The Critical P Value And The Type I Error Rate In Permutation Testing, Richard B. Anderson

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

To counter past assertions that permutation testing is not distribution-free, this article clarifies that the critical p value (alpha) in permutation testing is not a Type I error rate and that a test's validity is independent of the concept of Type I error.

Mathematics And The Hunger Games, Michael A. Lewis

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The Hunger Games plot features a dystopian future in which twelve outer districts are oppressed by a centralized capital. The story focuses on the heroism of a sixteen-year-old girl named Katniss and how she tries to rise above the oppression that she experiences. It also features a special lottery and other twists that are sources of mathematical interest. This essay focuses on some of the mathematical issues raised by The Hunger Games in an effort to show that this story can be used to teach students (as well as other interested parties) some important concepts from mathematics.

Statistics For National Development, Sani I. Doguwa

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

Good statistics that has been collected according to agreed good practices are crucial as a tool for development. Gross domestic product (GDP) and other measures of economic activity such as Gross National Income (GNI) together with their individual components, show how the economy is responding to government policy and other influences. The balance of payments can demonstrate the requirement for policy adjustments and is also one of the indicators scrutinised by potential foreign investors in the country. Agricultural statistics clearly have implications for longer-term planning, particularly if they show a move away from the land into urban areas or a …

A Simulation Study Of The Impact Of Forecast Recovery For Control Charts Applied To Arma Processes, John N. Dyer, B. Michael Adams, Michael D. Conerly

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Forecast-based schemes are often used to monitor autocorrelated processes, but the resulting forecast recovery has a significant effect on the performance of control charts. This article describes forecast recovery for autocorrelated processes, and the resulting simulation study is used to explain the performance of control charts applied to forecast errors.