P.Mean: Archive of old newsletters (created 2008-10-09)

P.Mean: Archive of the Monthly Mean newsletters (created 2008-10-09).

This page provides links to all the Monthly Mean newsletters. You can also peek at an early draft of the next newsletter as it is being developed.

2012

January 2012 (not yet released)

2011

2010

2009

2008

Individual articles/definitions

Are we statisticians gods? (December 2009)
Ban the bar! Pitch the pie! (September/October 2009)
A binary coding trick that you can learn from Car Talk (March/April 2011)
Can I ask you a question? (November 2008)
Can I stop this study early? (September/October 2009)
Can you believe the results of a subgroup analysis? (January/February 2011)
Combining measures on different scales (December 2008)
Comparing two rates--not quite the same as comparing two proportions (May/June 2011)
Conflict of interest disclosures (December 2010)
Crude versus adjusted comparisons. (January 2009)
The dark side of search engine optimization (July/August 2011)
The deadly sins of researchers: envy (April 2010)
The deadly sins of researchers: gluttony. (September/October 2009)
The deadly sins of researchers: lust (November 2009)
The deadly sins of researchers: pride (May/June 2009)
The deadly sins of researchers: sloth (July/August 2009)
The deadly sins of researchers: wrath (January 2010)
Discrepancies in the chisquare test (December 2011)
Do you want to help me with some research grants? (September-Novmeber 2011)
Even I get confused about p-values (April 2010)
Explaining CART models in simple terms (December 2008)
Elbow regression. (November 2008)
A false sense of frugality. (January 2009)
First things first--tell me your research hypothesis (September-Novmeber 2011)
The FTC calls me about small sample size issues (May/June 2010)
Generalized Estimating Equations (March/April 2009)
Help! My research study is behind schedule! (March/April 2009)
Help! My sample size is too small! (March/April 2009)
Heterogeneity in clinical trials--is it a bad thing or a good thing? (January 2010)
Hide that randomization list. (January 2009)
How come you have to wait for replication when secondary outcome is statistically significant? (May/June 2011)
I only got a 20% response rate, but at least my confidence interval was narrow (April 2010)
I want to calculate power, but I don't have a standard deviation for the formula (March/April 2011)
Internal pilot study (December 2010)
Is Evidence-Based Medicine too rigid? (August 2010)
Is it ethical to exclude non-English speaking patients from a clinical trial? (September/October 2010)
Is there a sample size too small to allow efficient randomization? (February 2009)
Is this a case control design? (May/June 2009)
My sample size is too small, but that's okay because it is a pilot study (July 2010)
Positive and negative predictive values (May/June 2010)
Power for a three arm study (November 2009)
Private conflicts of interest. (November 2008)
Quality checks for data entry (August 2010)
Reading SPSS output for a two-sample t-test (July 2010)
Relying on experts in an area where you have no particular expertise (February/March 2010)
Research scientists are truly are special people (March/April 2009)
Retracted articles don't die and they don't fade away (January/February 2011)
Risk adjustment using Analysis of Covariance (May/June 2009)
Risk adjustment using propensity scores (December 2009)
Risk adjustment using reweighting (July/August 2009)
Risk adjustment using the case mix index (November 2009)
Tests of equivalence and non-inferiority (December 2010)
The rule of three (July 2010)
Salvaging a negative confidence interval (July/August 2011)
Should I use a spreadsheet or a database to enter my data? (March/April 2011)
Should you compare a two-sided p-value to 0.025? (December 2008)
A simple example of overfitting (December 2008)
A simple improvement to the binomial confidence interval. (February 2009)
Specific advice about a sensitive topic (February/March 2010)
Two alternatives to the Bonferroni adjustment (January/February 2011)
Understanding multivariate regression models, Part 1 (December 2011)
Understanding the interaction of two continuous variables (May/June 2010)
Unequal sample sizes? Don't worry! (September/October 2010)
Unrealistic scenarios for sample size calculations (December 2011)
Using weights to correct for over and under sampling (February/March 2010)
We need more research about the research process (January 2010)
What are Type I and Type II errors? (August 2010)
What IRBs should look for in a data safety and monitoring plan. (February 2009)
What is the bootstrap? (May/June 2011)
What is a boxplot? (January 2009)
What is a calibration curve? (March/April 2011)
What is a control chart? (February/March 2010)
What is a fishbone diagram? (July 2010)
What is Fisher's Exact Test? (December 2011)
What is a forest plot? (April 2010)
What is a Kaplan-Meier survival curve? (November 2009)
What is a L'Abbe plot (December 2010)
What is a mosaic plot? (May/June 2009)
What is a normal probability plot? (September/October 2009)
What is the number needed to treat? (September/October 2010)
What is a percentile? (February 2009)
What is the Poisson distribution? (January/February 2011)
What is a purposive sample? (September-Novmeber 2011)
What is regression to the mean? (July/August 2011)
What is an ROC curve? (December 2009)
What is socioeconomic status (May/June 2010)
What is a stem-and-leaf diagram? (January 2010)
What is a weighted mean (July/August 2009)
What size difference should you use in your power calculation? (December 2009)
What statistical details belong in the methods section of your research paper? (August 2010)
What's the difference between ANOVA and ANCOVA? (July/August 2011)
What's the difference between regression and ANOVA? (November 2008)
When and why to log (September/October 2010)
Why is a 20% dropout rate bad? (September-Novmeber 2011)
Why McNemar? Why not Chi-square or Fisher's exact? (May/June 2011)
You, too, can understand Bayesian data analysis (July/August 2009)

Articles recommended (peer-reviewed and popular press)

The ADVANTAGE seeding trial: a review of internal documents (November 2008)
An AIDS Advance, Hiding in the Open (December 2010)
Bending the Rules of Clinical Trials (February/March 2010)
Can we rely on the best trial? A comparison of individual trials and systematic reviews (April 2010)
The challenges faced in the design, conduct and analysis of surgical RCTs. (February 2009)
Comparison of Registered and Published Primary Outcomes in Randomized Controlled Trials. (July/August 2009)
Convincing the Public to Accept New Medical Guidelines (April 2010)
Corporate Backing for Research? Get Over It (January 2010)
The Data-Driven Life (May/June 2010)
Data sharing: not as simple as it seems (December 2011)
Design, analysis, and presentation of crossover trials (May/June 2009)
Do Cellphones Cause Brain Cancer (March/April 2011)
Don’t Blame Flu Shots for All Ills, Officials Say (September/October 2009)
Eligibility Criteria of Randomized Controlled Trials Published in High-Impact General Medical Journals: A Systematic Sampling Review (December 2009)
Ethical issues posed by cluster randomized trials in health research (March/April 2011)
Extent of publication bias in different categories of research cohorts: a meta-analysis of empirical studies (November 2009)
Factory Efficiency Comes to the Hospital (August 2010)
For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics (July/August 2009)
From Evidence-based Medicine to Marketing-based Medicine: Evidence from Internal Industry Documents (January 2010)
How a New Hope in Cancer Fell Apart (July/August 2011)
How random is the toss of a coin? (September-Novmeber 2011)
If we're so different, why do we keep overlapping? When 1 plus 1 doesn't make 2. (January 2009)
Integrative medicine and the point of credulity (December 2010)
Lack of Study Volunteers Hobbles Cancer Fight (November 2009)
Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science (September/October 2010)
Making Health Care Better (December 2009)
Missing the forest (plot) for the trees? A critique of the systematic review in tobacco control (January/February 2011)
Multiple imputation for missing data in epidemiological and clinical research: potential and pitfalls (February/March 2010)
Numberplay: Your Money or Your Logic (July 2010)
Overdiagnosis in Cancer (May/June 2010)
Peers nip misconduct in the bud (August 2010)
The Placebo Debate: Is It Unethical to Prescribe Them to Patients? (December 2011)
Push for more trials may hurt patients (January/February 2011)
Questions asked and answered in pilot and feasibility randomized controlled trials (July/August 2011)
Relation of study quality, concordance, take home message, funding, and impact in studies of influenza vaccines: systematic review (March/April 2009)
Research During Fellowship: Ten Commandments (May/June 2011)
Statistics in Medicine -- Reporting of Subgroup Analyses in Clinical Trials (September/October 2009)
Twitter Study Tracks When We Are :) (September-Novmeber 2011)
What is a pilot or feasibility study? A review of current practice and editorial policy (September/October 2010)
What is meant by intention to treat analysis? Survey of published randomised controlled trials. (December 2008)
When Intuition And Math Probably Look Wrong (July 2010)
When Optimism is Unrealistic (May/June 2011)

Books recommended (please note that I accidentally recommended one book in two separate newsletters)

Biostatistics, The Bare Essentials, Geoffrey R. Norman and David L. Streiner. (December 2008)
Damned Lies and Statistics (April 2010)
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (September-Novmeber 2011)
Fourth Generation Management (February/March 2010)
Group Sequential Methods with Applications to Clinical Trials (December 2010)
Half the Sky. Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (January 2010)
Health measurement scales (July 2010)
How to Report Statistics in Medicine. (February 2009)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (September/October 2010)
Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge (March/April 2011)
Missing Data: A Gentle Introduction (March/April 2009)
Mistakes Were Made, But Not by Me: Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts (May/June 2011)
The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear (January/February 2011)
Regression Modeling Strategies, Frank Harrell (November 2008)
Risk Adjustment for Measuring Healthcare Outcomes (December 2011)
The Statistical Evaluation of Medical Tests for Classification and Prediction (December 2009)
The Statistical Evaluation of Medical Tests for Classification and Prediction (July/August 2011)
Statistical Issues in Drug Development (May/June 2009)
The Survey Research Handbook. Guidelines and Strategies for Conducting a Survey. (January 2009)
True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society (August 2010)
Understanding Variation (July/August 2009)
Voodoo Histories (May/June 2010)
Where's the Evidence: Debates in Modern Medicine (November 2009)

Jokes/quotes

Actuaries are people who... (July/August 2011)
All who drink of this remedy... (September/October 2010)
As a USENET discussion grows longer... (January 2010)
An actuary, an underwriter, and an insurance salesperson... (February/March 2010)
A Bayesian statistician is... (May/June 2011)
The best thing about being a statistician... (March/April 2009)
Data is not... (September-Novmeber 2011)
Evidence, which we have means to strengthen for or against a proposition... (November 2008)
Excellence in statistical graphics... (January 2009)
Face it-I'm your... (February 2009)
A few years ago, while doing a research project... (November 2009)
The government is extremely fond... (July 2010)
How many IRB members... (December 2008)
How many research subjects... (March/April 2009)
How many statisticians... (July 2010)
I used to think correlation implied causation (January 2010)
If quotient rule you wish to know... (December 2010)
If your experiment needs statistics... (February 2009)
If you're a politician, admitting you're wrong is a weakness... (August 2010)
Jelly beans cause acne! Scientists! Investigate! (March/April 2011)
A lightbulb randomization joke (December 2009)
Not even the most subtle... (January/February 2011)
A physicist, chemist, and statistician... (November 2008)
Random selection is ... (December 2009)
A researcher is finishing up... (April 2010)
Rows and flows of lines and... (December 2011)
Sackettisation ... the artificial linkage... (May/June 2009)
The scientific enterprise is probably... (May/June 2011)
Sequential analysis: A means of stopping... (December 2010)
A SQL query goes into a bar... (September/October 2010)
Statistical thinking... (February/March 2010)
A statistician had twins... (September/October 2009)
A statistician is someone who... (July/August 2009)
The statistician who supposes... (April 2010)
"Statistics are no substitute..." (December 2011)
The statistics on sanity... (December 2008)
There are 10 types of programmers... (August 2010)
There are three types of statisticians... (November 2009)
They say that statisticians use... (January/February 2011)
Three people are brought in... (May/June 2010)
Two statisticians were traveling... (January 2009)
Two statistics are in a bar... (May/June 2009)
An undefined problem... (September/October 2009)
Wall Street indexes predicted ... (July/August 2009)
We must learn to count... (July/August 2011)
When I talk to people about statistics... (March/April 2011)
When we meet a fact... (May/June 2010)
When you're generating a pointless... (September-Novmeber 2011)
When you can measure what... (May/June 2009)

Unsung hero award

Michael R. Chernick (January 2010)
J. Laurie Snell (March/April 2011)
John Hall (September/October 2010)
Martin Holt (May/June 2010)
The R Foundation (August 2010)
Ed Rigdon (July 2010)
Statistics without Borders (February/March 2010)
Steven Strogatz (April 2010)

Videos recommended

Biostatistics vs. Lab Research. (December 2010)
Career Day (July/August 2011)
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats (January/February 2011)
How Juries Are Fooled by Statistics (September-Novmeber 2011)
The Strange Powers of the Placebo Effect (March/April 2011)
Yes Prime Minister Survey (May/June 2011)

Websites/blogs recommended

Advice on designing scientific posters (September/October 2010)
The Ask Edward Tufte Forum. (February 2009)
Centre for Multilevel Modelling (CMM) (May/June 2010)
Common Mistakes in Statistics (April 2010)
Devilish Dictionary for Statisticians (February/March 2010)
EDF 5481. Methods of Educational Research. Susan Carol Losh (December 2008)
Equator Network (September-Novmeber 2011)
The Facts in the Case of Dr. Andrew Wakefield (January/February 2011)
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right (May/June 2009)
Freakonomics blog (September/October 2009)
Health Care Renewal. (January 2009)
An Introduction to Wavelets (May/June 2011)
The Median Isn't the Message (November 2009)
Migrating to R for SAS / SPSS / Stata Users (March/April 2011)
Missing Data (January 2010)
Negative Consequences of Dichotomizing Continuous Predictor Variables (March/April 2009)
Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparisons correction (May/June 2009)
Open Epi (July/August 2011)
R-SAS-SPSS Add-on Module Comparison (December 2009)
Radford Neal's blog (March/April 2009)
Realizations in Biostatistics by Random John. (December 2008)
Regression with SAS Chapter 5: Additional coding systems for categorical variables in regression analysis. (January 2009)
Research Papers on Inter-Rater Reliability Estimation (July 2010)
Spreadsheet Addiction (July/August 2009)
Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, Andrew Gelman (November 2008)
Statistical Problems to Document and to Avoid (February 2009)
Statistical Rules of Thumb (September/October 2009)
The Statistics Teachers Network (December 2011)
Stopping stepwise: Why stepwise and similar selection methods are bad, and what you should use (August 2010)
Textbook examples, UCLA Academic Technology Services. (November 2008)
Wikipedia entry: Histogram. (November 2008)

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. This page was written by Steve Simon and was last modified on 2010-12-31. Need more information? I have a page with general help resources. You can also browse for pages similar to this one at Category: Website details.