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.

2010

2009

2008

Individual articles/definitions

Are we statisticians gods? (December 2009)
Ban the bar! Pitch the pie! (September/October 2009)
Can I ask you a question? (November 2008)
Can I stop this study early? (September/October 2009)
Combining measures on different scales (December 2008)
Crude versus adjusted comparisons. (January 2009)
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)
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)
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)
I only got a 20% response rate, but at least my confidence interval was narrow (April 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)
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)
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)
The rule of three (July 2010)
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)
Understanding the interaction of two continuous variables (May/June 2010)
Using weights to correct for over and under sampling (February/March 2010)
We need more research about the research process (January 2010)
What IRBs should look for in a data safety and monitoring plan. (February 2009)
What is a boxplot? (January 2009)
What is a control chart? (February/March 2010)
What is a fishbone diagram? (July 2010)
What is a forest plot? (April 2010)
What is a Kaplan-Meier survival curve? (November 2009)
What is a mosaic plot? (May/June 2009)
What is a normal probability plot? (September/October 2009)
What is a percentile? (February 2009)
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's the difference between regression and ANOVA? (November 2008)
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)
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)
Design, analysis, and presentation of crossover trials (May/June 2009)
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)
Extent of publication bias in different categories of research cohorts: a meta-analysis of empirical studies (November 2009)
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)
If we're so different, why do we keep overlapping? When 1 plus 1 doesn't make 2. (January 2009)
Lack of Study Volunteers Hobbles Cancer Fight (November 2009)
Making Health Care Better (December 2009)
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)
Relation of study quality, concordance, take home message, funding, and impact in studies of influenza vaccines: systematic review (March/April 2009)
Statistics in Medicine -- Reporting of Subgroup Analyses in Clinical Trials (September/October 2009)
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)

Books recommended

Biostatistics, The Bare Essentials, Geoffrey R. Norman and David L. Streiner. (December 2008)
Damned Lies and Statistics (April 2010)
Fourth Generation Management (February/March 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)
Missing Data: A Gentle Introduction (March/April 2009)
Regression Modeling Strategies, Frank Harrell (November 2008)
The Statistical Evaluation of Medical Tests for Classification and Prediction (December 2009)
Statistical Issues in Drug Development (May/June 2009)
The Survey Research Handbook. Guidelines and Strategies for Conducting a Survey. (January 2009)
Understanding Variation (July/August 2009)
Voodoo Histories (May/June 2010)
Where's the Evidence: Debates in Modern Medicine (November 2009)

Definitions

Jokes/quotes

As a USENET discussion grows longer... (January 2010)
An actuary, an underwriter, and an insurance salesperson... (February/March 2010)
The best thing about being a statistician... (March/April 2009)
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 your experiment needs statistics... (February 2009)
A lightbulb randomization joke (December 2009)
A physicist, chemist, and statistician... (November 2008)
Random selection is ... (December 2009)
A researcher is finishing up... (April 2010)
Sackettisation ... the artificial linkage... (May/June 2009)
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)
The statistics on sanity... (December 2008)
There are three types of statisticians... (November 2009)
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)
When we meet a fact... (May/June 2010)
When you can measure what... (May/June 2009)

Unsung hero award

Michael R. Chernick (January 2010)
Martin Holt (May/June 2010)
Ed Rigdon (July 2010)
Statistics without Borders (February/March 2010)
Steven Strogatz (April 2010)

Websites/blogs recommended

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)
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right (May/June 2009)
Freakonomics blog (September/October 2009)
Health Care Renewal. (January 2009)
The Median Isn't the Message (November 2009)
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)
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)
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 2010-07-09. 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.