International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science
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Royal Statistical Scandal
Royal Statistical Scandal False and misleading claims by the Royal Statistical Society Including on human poverty and UN global goals Documentary evidence Matt Berkley Draft 27 June 2019 1 "The Code also requires us to be competent. ... We must also know our limits and not go beyond what we know.... John Pullinger RSS President" https://www.statslife.org.uk/news/3338-rss-publishes-revised-code-of- conduct "If the Royal Statistical Society cannot provide reasonable evidence on inflation faced by poor people, changing needs, assets or debts from 2008 to 2018, I propose that it retract the honour and that the President makes a statement while he holds office." Matt Berkley 27 Dec 2018 2 "a recent World Bank study showed that nearly half of low-and middle- income countries had insufficient data to monitor poverty rates (2002- 2011)." Royal Statistical Society news item 2015 1 "Max Roser from Oxford points out that newspapers could have legitimately run the headline ' Number of people in extreme poverty fell by 137,000 since yesterday' every single day for the past 25 years... Careless statistical reporting could cost lives." President of the Royal Statistical Society Lecture to the Independent Press Standards Organisation April 2018 2 1 https://www.statslife.org.uk/news/2495-global-partnership-for- sustainable-development-data-launches-at-un-summit 2 https://www.statslife.org.uk/features/3790-risk-statistics-and-the-media 3 "Mistaken or malicious misinformation can change your world... When the government is wrong about you it will hurt you too but you may never know how. -
AMSTATNEWS the Membership Magazine of the American Statistical Association •
May 2021 • Issue #527 AMSTATNEWS The Membership Magazine of the American Statistical Association • http://magazine.amstat.org 2021 COPSS AWARD WINNERS ALSO: ASA, International Community Continue to Decry Georgiou Persecution Birth of an ASA Outreach Group: The Origins of JEDI AMSTATNEWS MAY 2021 • ISSUE #527 Executive Director Ron Wasserstein: [email protected] Associate Executive Director and Director of Operations Stephen Porzio: [email protected] features Senior Advisor for Statistics Communication and Media Innovation 3 President’s Corner Regina Nuzzo: [email protected] 5 ASA, International Community Continue to Decry Director of Science Policy Georgiou Persecution Steve Pierson: [email protected] Director of Strategic Initiatives and Outreach 8 What a Year! Practical Significance Celebrates Resilient Donna LaLonde: [email protected] Class of 2021 Director of Education 9 Significance Launches Data Economy Series with April Issue Rebecca Nichols: [email protected] 10 CHANCE Highlights: Spring Issue Features Economic Managing Editor Impact of COVID-19, Kullback’s Career, Sharing Data Megan Murphy: [email protected] 11 Forget March Madness! Students Test Probability Skills Editor and Content Strategist with March Randomness Val Nirala: [email protected] 12 My ASA Story: James Cochran Advertising Manager Joyce Narine: [email protected] 14 StatFest Back for 21st Year in 2021 Production Coordinators/Graphic Designers 15 Birth of an ASA Outreach Group: The Origins of JEDI Olivia Brown: [email protected] Megan Ruyle: [email protected] 18 2021 COPSS Award Winners Contributing Staff Members 23 A Story of COVID-19, Mentoring, and West Virginia Kim Gilliam Amstat News welcomes news items and letters from readers on matters of interest to the association and the profession. -
Higher-Order Asymptotics
Higher-Order Asymptotics Todd Kuffner Washington University in St. Louis WHOA-PSI 2016 1 / 113 First- and Higher-Order Asymptotics Classical Asymptotics in Statistics: available sample size n ! 1 First-Order Asymptotic Theory: asymptotic statements that are correct to order O(n−1=2) Higher-Order Asymptotics: refinements to first-order results 1st order 2nd order 3rd order kth order error O(n−1=2) O(n−1) O(n−3=2) O(n−k=2) or or or or o(1) o(n−1=2) o(n−1) o(n−(k−1)=2) Why would anyone care? deeper understanding more accurate inference compare different approaches (which agree to first order) 2 / 113 Points of Emphasis Convergence pointwise or uniform? Error absolute or relative? Deviation region moderate or large? 3 / 113 Common Goals Refinements for better small-sample performance Example Edgeworth expansion (absolute error) Example Barndorff-Nielsen’s R∗ Accurate Approximation Example saddlepoint methods (relative error) Example Laplace approximation Comparative Asymptotics Example probability matching priors Example conditional vs. unconditional frequentist inference Example comparing analytic and bootstrap procedures Deeper Understanding Example sources of inaccuracy in first-order theory Example nuisance parameter effects 4 / 113 Is this relevant for high-dimensional statistical models? The Classical asymptotic regime is when the parameter dimension p is fixed and the available sample size n ! 1. What if p < n or p is close to n? 1. Find a meaningful non-asymptotic analysis of the statistical procedure which works for any n or p (concentration inequalities) 2. Allow both n ! 1 and p ! 1. 5 / 113 Some First-Order Theory Univariate (classical) CLT: Assume X1;X2;::: are i.i.d. -
The Meaning of Probability
CHAPTER 2 THE MEANING OF PROBABILITY INTRODUCTION by Glenn Shafer The meaning of probability has been debated since the mathematical theory of probability was formulated in the late 1600s. The five articles in this section have been selected to provide perspective on the history and present state of this debate. Mathematical statistics provided the main arena for debating the meaning of probability during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The debate was conducted mainly between two camps, the subjectivists and the frequentists. The subjectivists contended that the probability of an event is the degree to which someone believes it, as indicated by their willingness to bet or take other actions. The frequentists contended that probability of an event is the frequency with which it occurs. Leonard J. Savage (1917-1971), the author of our first article, was an influential subjectivist. Bradley Efron, the author of our second article, is a leading contemporary frequentist. A newer debate, dating only from the 1950s and conducted more by psychologists and economists than by statisticians, has been concerned with whether the rules of probability are descriptive of human behavior or instead normative for human and machine reasoning. This debate has inspired empirical studies of the ways people violate the rules. In our third article, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman report on some of the results of these studies. In our fourth article, Amos Tversky and I propose that we resolve both debates by formalizing a constructive interpretation of probability. According to this interpretation, probabilities are degrees of belief deliberately constructed and adopted on the basis of evidence, and frequencies are only one among many types of evidence. -
THE HISTORY and DEVELOPMENT of STATISTICS in BELGIUM by Dr
THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF STATISTICS IN BELGIUM By Dr. Armand Julin Director-General of the Belgian Labor Bureau, Member of the International Statistical Institute Chapter I. Historical Survey A vigorous interest in statistical researches has been both created and facilitated in Belgium by her restricted terri- tory, very dense population, prosperous agriculture, and the variety and vitality of her manufacturing interests. Nor need it surprise us that the successive governments of Bel- gium have given statistics a prominent place in their affairs. Baron de Reiffenberg, who published a bibliography of the ancient statistics of Belgium,* has given a long list of docu- ments relating to the population, agriculture, industry, commerce, transportation facilities, finance, army, etc. It was, however, chiefly the Austrian government which in- creased the number of such investigations and reports. The royal archives are filled to overflowing with documents from that period of our history and their very over-abun- dance forms even for the historian a most diflScult task.f With the French domination (1794-1814), the interest for statistics did not diminish. Lucien Bonaparte, Minister of the Interior from 1799-1800, organized in France the first Bureau of Statistics, while his successor, Chaptal, undertook to compile the statistics of the departments. As far as Belgium is concerned, there were published in Paris seven statistical memoirs prepared under the direction of the prefects. An eighth issue was not finished and a ninth one * Nouveaux mimoires de I'Acadimie royale des sciences et belles lettres de Bruxelles, t. VII. t The Archives of the kingdom and the catalogue of the van Hulthem library, preserved in the Biblioth^que Royale at Brussells, offer valuable information on this head. -
John Ashworth Nelder: 8 October 1924 – 7 August 2010
John Ashworth Nelder: 8 October 1924 – 7 August 2010. John Nelder died on Saturday 7th August 2010 in Luton & Dunstable Hospital UK, where he was recovering from a fall. John was very active even at the age of 85, and retained the strong interest in our work – and statistics generally – that we will all remember with deep affection. However, he was becoming increasingly frail and it was a shock but perhaps, in retrospect, not a surprise to hear that he had died peacefully in his sleep. John was born on 8th October 1924 in Dulverton, Somerset, UK. He was educated at Blundell's School and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where he read Mathematics (interrupted by war service in the RAF) from 1942-8, and then took the Diploma in Mathematical Statistics. Most of John’s formal career was spent as a statistician in the UK Agricultural Research Service. His first job, from October 1949, was at the newly set-up Vegetable Research Station, Wellesbourne UK (NVRS). Then, in 1968, he became Head of the Statistics Department at Rothamsted, and continued there until his first retirement in 1984. The role of statistician there was very conducive for John, not only because of his strong interests in biology (and especially ornithology), but also because it allowed him to display his outstanding skill of developing new statistical theory to solve real biological problems. At NVRS, John developed the theory of general balance to provide a unifying framework for the wide range of designs that are needed in agricultural research (see Nelder, 1965, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A). -
This History of Modern Mathematical Statistics Retraces Their Development
BOOK REVIEWS GORROOCHURN Prakash, 2016, Classic Topics on the History of Modern Mathematical Statistics: From Laplace to More Recent Times, Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 754 p. This history of modern mathematical statistics retraces their development from the “Laplacean revolution,” as the author so rightly calls it (though the beginnings are to be found in Bayes’ 1763 essay(1)), through the mid-twentieth century and Fisher’s major contribution. Up to the nineteenth century the book covers the same ground as Stigler’s history of statistics(2), though with notable differences (see infra). It then discusses developments through the first half of the twentieth century: Fisher’s synthesis but also the renewal of Bayesian methods, which implied a return to Laplace. Part I offers an in-depth, chronological account of Laplace’s approach to probability, with all the mathematical detail and deductions he drew from it. It begins with his first innovative articles and concludes with his philosophical synthesis showing that all fields of human knowledge are connected to the theory of probabilities. Here Gorrouchurn raises a problem that Stigler does not, that of induction (pp. 102-113), a notion that gives us a better understanding of probability according to Laplace. The term induction has two meanings, the first put forward by Bacon(3) in 1620, the second by Hume(4) in 1748. Gorroochurn discusses only the second. For Bacon, induction meant discovering the principles of a system by studying its properties through observation and experimentation. For Hume, induction was mere enumeration and could not lead to certainty. Laplace followed Bacon: “The surest method which can guide us in the search for truth, consists in rising by induction from phenomena to laws and from laws to forces”(5). -
JSM 2017 in Baltimore the 2017 Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore, Maryland, Which Included the CONTENTS IMS Annual Meeting, Took Place from July 29 to August 3
Volume 46 • Issue 6 IMS Bulletin September 2017 JSM 2017 in Baltimore The 2017 Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore, Maryland, which included the CONTENTS IMS Annual Meeting, took place from July 29 to August 3. There were over 6,000 1 JSM round-up participants from 52 countries, and more than 600 sessions. Among the IMS program highlights were the three Wald Lectures given by Emmanuel Candès, and the Blackwell 2–3 Members’ News: ASA Fellows; ICM speakers; David Allison; Lecture by Martin Wainwright—Xiao-Li Meng writes about how inspirational these Mike Cohen; David Cox lectures (among others) were, on page 10. There were also five Medallion lectures, from Edoardo Airoldi, Emery Brown, Subhashis Ghoshal, Mark Girolami and Judith 4 COPSS Awards winners and nominations Rousseau. Next year’s IMS lectures 6 JSM photos At the IMS Presidential Address and Awards session (you can read Jon Wellner’s 8 Anirban’s Angle: The State of address in the next issue), the IMS lecturers for 2018 were announced. The Wald the World, in a few lines lecturer will be Luc Devroye, the Le Cam lecturer will be Ruth Williams, the Neyman Peter Bühlmann Yuval Peres 10 Obituary: Joseph Hilbe lecture will be given by , and the Schramm lecture by . The Medallion lecturers are: Jean Bertoin, Anthony Davison, Anna De Masi, Svante Student Puzzle Corner; 11 Janson, Davar Khoshnevisan, Thomas Mikosch, Sonia Petrone, Richard Samworth Loève Prize and Ming Yuan. 12 XL-Files: The IMS Style— Next year’s JSM invited sessions Inspirational, Mathematical If you’re feeling inspired by what you heard at JSM, you can help to create the 2018 and Statistical invited program for the meeting in Vancouver (July 28–August 2, 2018). -
Strength in Numbers: the Rising of Academic Statistics Departments In
Agresti · Meng Agresti Eds. Alan Agresti · Xiao-Li Meng Editors Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics DepartmentsStatistics in the U.S. Rising of Academic The in Numbers: Strength Statistics Departments in the U.S. Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U.S. Alan Agresti • Xiao-Li Meng Editors Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U.S. 123 Editors Alan Agresti Xiao-Li Meng Department of Statistics Department of Statistics University of Florida Harvard University Gainesville, FL Cambridge, MA USA USA ISBN 978-1-4614-3648-5 ISBN 978-1-4614-3649-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-3649-2 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2012942702 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. -
Cramer, and Rao
2000 PARZEN PRIZE FOR STATISTICAL INNOVATION awarded by TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS to C. R. RAO April 24, 2000 292 Breezeway MSC 4 pm Pictures from Parzen Prize Presentation and Reception, 4/24/2000 The 2000 EMANUEL AND CAROL PARZEN PRIZE FOR STATISTICAL INNOVATION is awarded to C. Radhakrishna Rao (Eberly Professor of Statistics, and Director of the Center for Multivariate Analysis, at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802) for outstanding distinction and eminence in research on the theory of statistics, in applications of statistical methods in diverse fields, in providing international leadership for 55 years in directing statistical research centers, in continuing impact through his vision and effectiveness as a scholar and teacher, and in extensive service to American and international society. The year 2000 motivates us to plan for the future of the discipline of statistics which emerged in the 20th century as a firmly grounded mathematical science due to the pioneering research of Pearson, Gossett, Fisher, Neyman, Hotelling, Wald, Cramer, and Rao. Numerous honors and awards to Rao demonstrate the esteem in which he is held throughout the world for his unusually distinguished and productive life. C. R. Rao was born September 10, 1920, received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University (England) in 1948, and has been awarded 22 honorary doctorates. He has worked at the Indian Statistical Institute (1944-1992), University of Pittsburgh (1979- 1988), and Pennsylvania State University (1988- ). Professor Rao is the author (or co-author) of 14 books and over 300 publications. His pioneering contributions (in linear models, multivariate analysis, design of experiments and combinatorics, probability distribution characterizations, generalized inverses, and robust inference) are taught in statistics textbooks. -
CEMA Regular Lecture Series, 2011-2012
Volume 2 November 2012 CEMA Centre d’Études Maghrébines en Algérie Newsletter Letter from the Director, Dr. CEMA Special Lecture Series: CEMA Activities at a Glance Robert P. Parks, and Letter The Saharan Lectures & The Pages 5-9 from Associate Director, Dr. CEMA Public Health Lecture Karim Ouaras Series Outreach, AIMS 2013 CFP, Page 2-3 Page 4 Scholars, Recent Publications Pages 10-14 ; Volume Volume 22 2 NovemberNovember 20122012 Letter from CEMA Director, Dr. Robert P. Parks 2011-2012 has been an exciting year at CEMA. Between November 2011 and October 2012, more than 90 researchers spoke at CEMA activities – at fifteen lectures, two thematic round-table activities, two symposia, one six-week fellowship, and one three-day conference. CEMA assisted the research of 47 American and international scholars. And we received nearly 6,500 walk-in visits to the center. Activity is booming and as CEMA grows, so does its audience. We hope to be able to expand our activities to Algiers and the universities and research institutes of the Center of the country this year. Programmatically, we have been active. This year CEMA organized twelve lectures as part of its regular lecture series, which primarily highlights new or on-going research in history, politics, and sociology. CEMA also organizes three special lecture series: ‘the Oran Lecture,’ ‘the Saharan Lectures,’ and a new series on Public Health. ‘The Oran Lecture,’ which we hope to recommence this year, highlights the research of non-Orani Maghrebi scholars in the social sciences and the humanities. Co- organized with the National Research Center for Social and Cultural Anthropology (CRASC), ‘The Saharan Lectures’ builds from the AIMS-West African Research Association (WARA) Saharan Crossroads Initiative, which seeks to underscore the cultural, economic, and social links between the Maghreb and Sahel region. -
Erich Leo Lehmann, 19172009
J. R. Statist. Soc. A (2010) 173, Part 3, pp. 683–689 Obituaries Erich Leo Lehmann, 1917–2009 Erich L. Lehmann, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, passed away on September 12th, 2009, aged 91 years. Erich was one of the engines that drove much of the development of theoretical and mainstream statistics during the second half of the 20th century. At the same time he kept himself aware of developments in applied statistics and prob- ability. He knew both the subject matter and the individuals developing our subject. He was a member of the powerful team of individuals that Jerzy Neyman built up at Berkeley in the 1950s. These included David Blackwell, Joe Hodges, Lucien Le Cam, Michel Loève, Henry Scheffé and Elizabeth Scott. Erich co-authored articles with each, except for the probabilist Loève. Erich was born in Strasbourg, France, on November 20th, 1917. His family moved to Frank- furt where they lived until 1933. When the Nazis came into power the family fled to Switzerland where Erich went to high school. In 1938, following his father’s advice, he went to study math- ematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. Erich remarked that he was ‘always the best student in mathematics’, but he did not enjoy the accompanying astronomy and physics. Of the latter he said ‘I hated it’ (in ‘A conversation with Erich L. Lehmann’, with Morris DeGroot, in volume 1 of Statistical Science (1986)). In 1940, again influenced by his father, Erich went to New York and then following a suggestion by R. Courant he crossed the country to study at Berkeley.