Stat graphics and computing

Newsletter v22 i1 now out!

2011-08-04T05:41:00.000-07:00

Download now!. Featured articles:

Visualization: It’s More than Pictures! by Robert Kosara
Visualization, Graphics, and Statistics by Andrew Gelman and Antony Unwin
Heuristic Methods in Finance by Enrico Schumann and David Ardia

2011 Chambers Award

2011-04-25T06:43:00.001-07:00

We are pleased to announce that the judges of the Chambers Award have
selected the winner of the 2011 competition: Ian Fellows, from
University of California - Los Angeles. Ian received this year's
award for his submission "Deducer's Plot Builder: A General GUI for
Statistical Graphics", an elegant graphical user interface for
creating publication quality statistical graphics. It is designed as a
free easy-to-use alternative to proprietary data analysis software
such as SPSS, JMP, and Minitab, with a menu system for common data
manipulation and analysis tasks, as well as a spreadsheet to view and
edit data frames.

In addition to the US$1000 prize, the winner will have his JSM
registration paid by the Computing Section and be reimbursed for
travel and housing at the meeting. As usual, the award will be
presented at the Section's business meeting/mixer on Monday evening.

The judges for this year's competition were Yihui Xie, Michael Kane,
and Hadley Wickham. Many thanks!

Newsletter v20 i2 now out!

2011-01-16T16:35:00.000-08:00

Download now!. Featured articles:

barNest: Illustrating nested summary measures by Jim Lemon and Ofir Levy
You say "graph invariant," I say "test statistic" by Carey E. Priebe, Glen A. Coppersmith and Andrey Rukhin
Computation in Large-Scale Scientific and Internet Data Applications is a Focus of MMDS 2010by Michael W. Mahoney

Use of Graphics in Clinical Trials

2010-08-23T05:39:00.001-07:00

The JSM 2010 Invited Session, "Use of Graphics in Clinical Trials" was standing room only - if you missed out you can download the presentations online: http://stat-computing.org/events/2010-jsm/

Latest newsletter (20-2) now online!

2009-12-23T04:06:00.000-08:00

The new issue, Vol. 20-2, of the ASA section for statistical computing
and graphics is online now!

This issue contains three articles:

High-Flying Graphics at the 2009 Data Expo by Rick Wicklin

Hadoop for Statistical Analysis and Exploration by Byron Ellis

Statistical Graphics! - Who needs Visual Analytics? by Martin Theus

Our section heads provide interesting views in their column "A word from
our section chairs", we look back at the highlights of the JSM 2009, and
feature a reader response from Naomi Robbins. These articles all provide
interesting reading and we hope you enjoy them.

Happy holidays and a wonderful new year 2010 to everyone!

Nicholas Lewin-Koh (Computing)
Andreas Krause (Graphics)

The Statistical Computing and Graphics Award

2009-12-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

The ASA Sections of Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics have established the Statistical Computing and Graphics Award to recognize an individual or team for innovation in computing, software, or graphics that has had a great impact on statistical practice or research. Typically, awards are granted bi-annually.

The prize carries with it a cash award of $5,000 plus an allowance of up to $1,000 for travel to the annual Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) where the award will be presented.

Learn more

Webinar: How to Avoid Some Common Graphical Mistakes

2009-11-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

Interested in avoiding common graphical mistakes? You might be interested in the ASA webinar hosted by Naomi Robbins, offered this February. Find out more at http://www.amstat.org/sections/graphics/webinar.cfm

New newsletter now available

2009-07-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

The new Volume 20, No 1 of the Statistical Computing and Graphics newsletter is online now! The newsletter includes:

Words from our new chairs, Jose Pinheiro and Antony Unwin,

"Gapminder: Liberating the x-axis from the burden of time",

"The Fan plot: displaying relative quantities and proportions",

A conference report on MMDS 2008 (Modern Massive Data Sets),

Short contributions on "Taking it to higher dimensions" and

"A six-dimensional scatterplot" as well as

The Technology and Commerce Corner and Conference News.

Best regards,

Nicholas Lewin-Koh and Andreas Krause (SCGN co-editors)

Statistical graphics and computing courses at the JSM.

2009-05-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

Interested in taking a course on stat computing or graphics while you're at the JSM? Here are two options.

Looking at data, 30-31 July.
Dianne Cook, Heike Hofmann and Hadley Wickham.

Graphics are a fundamental part of data analysis, used in initial data inspection and exploration, model building and checking and also communicating information. In this course we will teach the basics of static graphics and move on to the new developments in direct manipulation and dynamic graphics that facilitate exploratory data analysis. The methods taught are readily available in open source software, enabling all participants to reproduce, extend and use them with their own data after the workshop.

Comprehensive data analysis using interactive statistical graphics, 4 August.
Martin Theus and Simon Urbanek

Applied statistics is the basis for decision making and knowledge discovery in a variety of fields and applications. Interactive graphical methods are successfully used in the early stages of the analytic process and appreciated due their ability to identify patterns and anomalies quickly. However, it was not until recently that methods and tools became available that allow the extension of purely descriptive graphical analysis to interactive visualization of statistical properties and model-based analysis. This course consists of a methodology part and a practical, hands-on part. In the first, we will review the basic methodology of interactive graphics in a concise framework. We will also explore the tools available and their fitness for a specific data analytic task. We will further focus on the integration of statistics and models in the interactive visualization in practice. We will also cover the most recent advances in model selection and comparison aimed at understanding model behavior with respect to the underlying data, allowing for models that are better suited for a given application than standard statistical approaches. During the course, we will demonstrate the practical use of the available state-of-the-art interactive graphics software for data analysis. Attendees will be able to (re)run the practical parts on their own and are encouraged to bring their laptops.

Latest newsletter now online!

2008-12-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

The new Volume 19, no 2 of the Statistical Computing and Graphics newsletter is online now!

It includes a feature article by Stuart K. Randa and Robert J. Klare on "Autoweibull", and Rainer Muche, Christina Ring and Christoph Ziegler on "Development and Validation of Logistic Prognostic Models Using Predefined SAS Macros". The newsletter also contains a preview of the 2009 JSM program, the solution to last issue's puzzle, and meeting roundup of useR! 2008.

The newsletter is available at: http://stat-computing.org/newsletter/v192.pdf

Graphics contest in Chance magazine

2008-12-28T07:32:00.001-08:00

CHANCE magazine is having a graphics contest to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Will Burtin (1908-1972).
Burtin was an early developer of what has come to be called scientific visualization. To enter, submit a graphical illustration of the data and an accompanying written description of the graph by January 15 2009. Be in to win a free subscription to chance.

Found more about the competition on the competition website.

Data expo 2009

2008-08-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been stuck in an airport because your flight was delayed or cancelled? Do you think you could have predicted it if you’d had more data?

The 2009 asa data expo challenges you to explore and graphically summarise airline on-time performance data collected by the dot. Records span over 20 years and include almost 120 million commercial flights flown throughout the US. For more information check out the data expo website.

Latest newsletter now online!

2008-07-08T13:14:00.001-07:00

The new Volume 19, no 1 of the Statistical Computing and Graphics newsletter is online now!

It includes a feature article by Mark Fisher on Statistical Graphics in the Wind Industry and an article by Mu Zhu on the Trilinear Plot. The newsletter also contains a preview of the JSM program, the solution to last issue's puzzle, a new puzzle and other fun stuff...

The newsletter is available at: http://stat-computing.org/newsletter/v191.pdf

Talk to the Newsroom: Interview with Steve Duennes of the NY Times

2008-05-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

The graphics director of New York Times, Steve Duenes, was recently featured in the Talk to the Newsroom column of the paper - and you can read the interview online at nytimes.com to learn more about the process that the NY Times uses to produce their excellent graphics.

(Thanks to Deb Vance for the pointer. If you've seen something that would be interesting to the wider statistical graphics and computing community, please let us know!)

Chambers award winner announced

2008-05-01T20:11:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that the judges of the Chambers Award have selected the winner of the 2008 competition: Alejandro Jara Vallejos, from the Catholic University of Leuven. Alejandro received this year's award for his submission "DPpackage," an R package for Bayesian semiparametric and nonparametric models.

In addition to the US$1000 prize, the winner will have his JSM registration paid by the Computing Section and be reimbursed up to US$1000 for travel and housing at the meeting. As usual, the award will be presented at the Section's business meeting/mixer on Monday evening.

The judges for this year's competition were Simon Urbanek and David James, with support from Jan De Leeuw. There were thirteen submissions in total, which the judges said were of particulary high quality. Thanks to the judges for their hard work, dedication, and timeliness in making this year's competition a success.

J.R. Lockwood
The RAND Corporation
Awards Chair, ASA Statistical Computing and Graphics Sections

Winners of 2008 student paper competition announced

2008-01-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce the four winners of this year's Student Paper Competition. There were a total of 18 submissions and the four judges of this year's competition, Juana Sanchez, Linda Pickle, Jane Harvill and Peter Craigmile did an outstanding job of reviewing and ranking all papers in a very short period. Many thanks to them for their efforts and patience.

Latest newsletter now online

2007-12-21T03:42:00.000-08:00

The new volume 18, no 2 of the Statistical Computing and Graphics newsletter is online now! It includes some great content including a feature article by the AT&T KorBell team who were just announced as winners of the first part of the $1,000,000 Netflix competition to improve the Netflix Cinematch movie recommendation system. Read it at http://stat-computing.org/newsletter/

Final call for newsletter submissions

2007-11-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

The next statistical computing and graphics newsletter is due to be published before Christmas. If you have any news, events or short articles to contribute, please contact the editors, Michael O'Connell and Andreas Krause.

Welcome!

2007-03-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new ASA Statistical Graphics and Computing Sections website. The site is very much a blank slate at the moment, so if you have ideas for what to add, news or events you'd like to highlight, or another other suggestions please let us know!