StatFilter: Would anybody be able to recommend a good introduction to the statistical computing language "R" that a reasonably quantitatively-adept psychologist might be able to work through on his own? Something like a step-by-step book or textbook with exercises would be great to help me become more fluent in R. (My colleagues at work who use R are primarily computer scientists who either first learned MatLab or are brilliant autodidacts when it comes to learning different scripting languages, and thus don't have any suggestions; Googling has mostly proferred a somewhat obscurely structured guide from the R authors and lots of invocations to just learn on my own, somehow...). I've become familiar with how to do many individually useful tasks in data structuring and analysis, but I feel a bit like a very high-functioning tourist who has learned a lot of phrases to get around but who would be lost and mugged in an alleyway if I strayed off the beaten path.
posted by Keter
on Feb 7, 2013 -
16 answers
The
Wikipedia page on statistics about rape shows a very high crime rate for countries like UK, US and Australia in stark contrast to, say, India. The gap can't be explained simply by under-reporting, as that exists in all these countries (even assuming different rates of under-reporting). Is it because these countries have different definitions of rape? Or something else?
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posted by vidur
on Jan 13, 2013 -
32 answers
What statistical test should I use to determine if there is a significant difference in the percent change in the presence of bacterial species observed among five groups before and after treatment.
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posted by waving
on Dec 18, 2012 -
19 answers
My stats notes are getting too long to distribute using the university printers. A publisher wants to turn them into a printed book, but I want to keep control of the electronic distribution of my work. How should I approach this situation?
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posted by mixing
on Nov 26, 2012 -
17 answers
What after bio-statistics software experience is most attractive to future employers?
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posted by waving
on Sep 6, 2012 -
5 answers
Considering the huge amount of oil/energy expended driving trucks full of food all over the country, would it make more sense to increase our train infrastructure (is that even possible?) to move more food? That's the question, but not why I've come to Metafilter.
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posted by kestralwing
on Aug 14, 2012 -
10 answers
Does Facebook publish statistics? I'm specifically interested in statistics about photo uploads and camera metadata / popularity.
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posted by ztdavis
on Aug 2, 2012 -
1 answer
Say I'm an industrial designer (I'm not), and I have to design a car seat, desk chair, climbing harness, body armor, or some other piece of equipment that has to be able to interact with a whole bunch of differently-shaped humans on a regular basis. What resource do I use to find out things like average foot width, or average knee circumference, average jaw length, or any other specific anatomical measurements?
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posted by cirgue
on Jul 11, 2012 -
6 answers
How could I approach modeling the number of accidents on a certain stretch of road? I've got some semi-ecological approaches in mind but no idea if they're workable. Are there standard approaches to this sort of problem?
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posted by col_pogo
on May 7, 2012 -
9 answers
Statistics make my head go wobbly. But I need to understand something about odds ratios. Actually, I don't need to understand -- I just need to make sure I'm not screwing up this particular figure. Please help!
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posted by neroli
on Apr 19, 2012 -
15 answers
My workplace has 3 small bathrooms. It seems to me that if I go to use one of them, and it's occupied, there is a statically higher chance the 2nd and even 3rd bathroom will be occupied (vs the chance that they would be occupied if the 1st one was not). Is it true?
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posted by lohmannn
on Apr 13, 2012 -
30 answers
I'm trying to find the primary source of a much-repeated, but somewhat dubious, statistic.
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posted by Skeptic
on Apr 11, 2012 -
17 answers
Could someone help me to analyze statistical relationship between two dimensions of a frequency matrix - preferably in Excel?
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posted by Susurration
on Apr 10, 2012 -
10 answers
SPSS-filter: changing systems-missing values to user-missing values to match survey skip pattern.
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posted by palindromic
on Mar 14, 2012 -
2 answers
Where can I find the income distribution for India? My google-fu is weak on this one.
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posted by vidur
on Mar 6, 2012 -
6 answers
"Fewer persons alive at 70 today survive until 90 than forty years ago." True or False?
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posted by jrb223
on Mar 1, 2012 -
13 answers
Can anyone point me to actual data on how often motorists receive traffic tickets? I'm looking for where the top of the bell curve is, so to speak - obviously, individuals vary widely, which is kind of the point of my question - how often does the "median" driver receive traffic tickets?
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posted by randomkeystrike
on Mar 1, 2012 -
12 answers
Is it true that it is always better to estimate parameters jointly, even when they are completely unrelated?
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posted by TheyCallItPeace
on Feb 20, 2012 -
3 answers
Statistics filter: If I asses the same paired variables for the same population at multiple points in time, can I integrate the relation into an overall correlation?
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posted by lord_yo
on Feb 1, 2012 -
3 answers
Would you be kind to someone who is culturally proficient, but statistically deficient? Specifically, what is going on in the tables at the end of
this paper?
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posted by robself
on Jan 26, 2012 -
6 answers
I am looking for a little translation help on an inflation statistics paper in German language (look in more inside for the link). This official paper is quite interesting for students of statistics and social students interested in perceived cost of living vs actual cost of living, in Europe as well as in any other country, as it allegedly shows that indeed there were some excessive rouding of prices during the conversion to euro in Germany.
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posted by elpapacito
on Jan 2, 2012 -
5 answers
Are there more arriving or departing flights in the United States? Bonus: previous years, other countries, domestic vs. international, etc.
posted by michaelh
on Dec 12, 2011 -
16 answers
How do I calculate the confidence interval for the mean response of some general nonlinear fit?
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posted by selenized
on Nov 7, 2011 -
12 answers
What sort of survey are my colleagues planning? It would involve questionnaires dropped off at a variety of businesses (tour agencies and hotels, mostly), aimed at capturing details about their clients. This doesn't seem to fit the examples I see discussed in online resources on survey methods. To top it off, both the time frame and budget are limited. Where can I find best practices for this sort of survey--and how can I determine which best practices should be given highest priority?
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posted by col_pogo
on Oct 14, 2011 -
6 answers
[StatsFilter] I have a data set which consists of 1000 groups. I'd like to perform the same commands on each group using the statistical software R. How can I write a loop function to perform this task? Or would any of the functions from the *apply family do a better job?
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posted by fix
on Oct 10, 2011 -
12 answers
Please clear up the use of statistics by two people trying to compare crime rates in one huge city (NYC) to Charleston, SC. a much smaller city.
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posted by Elsie
on Sep 29, 2011 -
25 answers
I'm trying to find the number of food products that are sold in the U.S. that contain high fructose corn syrup. I've done some preliminary searches and have found some lists, but I've come up dry when trying to find actual numbers. I'd like a reliable source that I can cite, but I'll take almost anything at this point. I am at a university and have access to a large number of subscription database resources, so I'll keep looking. But I thought metafilter might be able to help out here.
posted by pahool
on Sep 15, 2011 -
6 answers
How can I test if one predictor variable in a regression is significantly better than another predictor variable?
i.e. If I regress X against A I get an r^2 of .99 and when I regress X against B I get .98. I need a test to see whether this difference is statistically significant.
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posted by vegetableagony
on Sep 13, 2011 -
16 answers
How do TV channels figure out how many people watched a particular episode (e.g. XX million watched American Idol)?
I often hear things like XX million viewers watched American Idol or some other show.
How do the news guys / broadcasters come up with these numbers??
Surely they are not able to track what is being watched in peoples homes.
So I guess this is some kind of math or projection. Any idea how this is done?
posted by r2d2
on Aug 27, 2011 -
17 answers
Why is the divorce rate higher for those who have lived together before marriage than those who haven't?
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posted by coraline
on Jul 12, 2011 -
17 answers
How would I find a function that transforms random variables from an non-normal probability distribution to a normal distribution?
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posted by formless
on Mar 30, 2011 -
9 answers
Statistics whizzes, help settle an argument!
How random are the results if a friend thinks of a number from 1-100, I think of a 1-100 number separately and then we add them together (subtracting 100 if the result is over 100)?
So: Friend thinks of 29, I think of 90, result is 19.
To me that seems properly random even if one or both of us tries to game it, but am I being
statistically naive?
posted by Sebmojo
on Jan 31, 2011 -
29 answers
