Data Mining

  • Most Topular Stories

  • 10 essential performance tips for MySQL

    Computerworld BI and Analytics News
    14 May 2012 | 5:11 am
    From workload profiling to the three rules of indexing, these expert insights are sure to make your MySQL servers scream

  • Multiple Digital Channels: Oh Boy

    Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData
    Kevin
    15 May 2012 | 10:15 pm
    A few weeks back, the folks on Twitter took umbrage with my stance on the concept of "multi-channel". "77% of customers research online before buying in a store ... this is the very definition of multi-channel." "63% of e-commerce buyers touch at least four channels before buying merchandise." So what? "But this is proof that customers prefer a multi-channel experience.  You cannot deny it." Of course I can deny it! Customers don't prefer a multi-channel experience. Customers are forced into a multi-channel experience. You know why customers are forced into a multi-channel experience?

  • Google simplifies use of Analytics API

    Computerworld BI and Analytics News
    9 May 2012 | 1:27 pm
    Google has developed a tool to automate the creation of custom-reporting dashboards for its Analytics website-usage tracking service, the company said on Wednesday.

  • Yahoo launches big data analytics tool for online advertisers

    Computerworld BI and Analytics News
    14 May 2012 | 2:52 pm
    Yahoo today launched Genome, a new tool that allows online advertisers take advantage of the company's extensive experience with big data analytics.

  • How long before R overtakes SAS and SPSS?

    Revolutions
    David Smith
    15 May 2012 | 5:37 pm
    Based on an analysis of Google Scholar data on usage of statistical software, Bob Muenchen makes a forecast: R will overtake SAS and SPSS in 2015. Forecasting is extrapolation — always a tricky business — so Bob also provides these qualitative reasons why R will continue to grow at the expense of SAS and SPSS: The continued rapid growth in add-on packages (Figure 10) The attraction of R’s powerful language The near monopoly R has on the latest analytic methods Its free price The freedom to teach with real-world examples from outside organizations, which is forbidden to academics by SAS…
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    Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media

  • Zero Tolerance Search : 24 year old neuroscientist

    Matthew Hurst
    12 May 2012 | 4:44 pm
    [The idea behind 'zero tolerance search' posts is to illustrate real life search interactions that show how far we have to go in leveraging the explicit and implicit data in the web and elsewhere.] Yesterday, I heard part of an interview on NPR. The interview was around a new book on determinism and neuroscience. The only thing I remember about the author was his young age. I wanted to recover the name of the author and the title of his new book so that I could comment on his argument against determinism (which was, essentially, 'I'm afraid of determinism therefore it…

  • Excellent Visualization of Network Effect

    Matthew Hurst
    12 May 2012 | 4:28 pm
     

  • Graphing Twitter Attention

    Matthew Hurst
    30 Apr 2012 | 9:39 am
    track // microsoft (and games and movies) now includes a simple graph indicating the attention being given to each cluster of posts. This graph shows the total of tweets per hour for all posts in the cluster. Below is an example from the cluster around Steve Wozniak's positive comments for his Windows Phone.

  • Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 Problem - A Solution

    Matthew Hurst
    22 Apr 2012 | 10:08 am
    Briefly - there is plenty of chatter (see track // microsoft) about the possibility that Microsoft won't be upgrading existing handsets to Windows Phone 8. However, Hal makes a very interesting point in his post on the topic. The problem is not the upgrade, it is the users. Simply give them all a new Windows Phone 8 hand set for free - problem solved.

  • Finding New Story Links Through Blog Clustering

    Matthew Hurst
    20 Apr 2012 | 12:15 am
    The basic mechanism used in track // microsoft to cluster articles is similar to that used by Techmeme. A fixed set of blogs are crawled and clustered based on specific features such as link structure and content (and in the case of Techmeme, additional human input). However, what about blogs that aren't known to the system? I recently added a feature to track // microsoft which analyses clusters for popular urls and adds those to the bottom of the cluster. The title of the web page is used as a simple description of the popular page. In the recent story about Nuno Silva's mistaken…
 
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    Konocimiento | Published News

  • Free social bookmarking

    16 May 2012 | 2:07 am
    In any case you can promote your internet site via weblogs, forums and with a aid of article advertising and marketing. Typically people will develop a stunning internet site or web webpage and anticipate that website visitors will uncover it without having finding the term out. If you want to construct a fantastic volume of one way links to your internet site, then social bookmarking is something you have to shell out a special focus to

  • direct buy

    15 May 2012 | 11:31 pm
    Lighting is a vital part to your overall bathroom style. Locate the right lavatory lighting at DirectBuy at wholesale kind pricing.

  • red oak flooring

    15 May 2012 | 11:30 pm
    Red oak hardwood flooring include attractiveness to any house. Locate a lovely assortment of hardwood flooring possibilities at DirectBuy at wholesale type prices.

  • direct buy

    15 May 2012 | 11:28 pm
    Get the correct pet friendly carpet for your house for simpler routine maintenance. Locate carpet and other flooring at DirectBuy at wholesale sort pricing.

  • bedroom furniture

    15 May 2012 | 11:22 pm
    Realize some general guidelines prior to getting bed room furniture. Find household furniture and components at supplier prices when you shop DirectBuy.
 
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    The Numbers Guy

  • The Waiting Game

    Carl Bialik
    4 May 2012 | 9:34 pm
    Long lines at airport immigration halls are objects of frustration for travelers, and of study for queuing experts who offer ideas for easing the pain.

  • The Fire Countdown Clock

    Carl Bialik
    20 Apr 2012 | 9:01 pm
    How long does it take for fire departments to get on the scene at a fire emergency? The question is surprisingly difficult to answer, obscured by complexities in definitions and measurement.

  • Cruise Safety, a Century After Titanic

    Carl Bialik
    13 Apr 2012 | 7:09 pm
    Without comprehensive safety statistics for today's cruise ships, it is difficult to assess the industry's claim that its ships are safer than most other means of transportation.

  • Modern Thermometers

    Carl Bialik
    6 Apr 2012 | 8:39 pm
    Temperature alone can't say how warm people will feel outside. Scientists are taking on the challenge of formulating a new way to measure climate comfort.

  • Imagining a Census Survey Without a Mandate

    Carl Bialik
    30 Mar 2012 | 9:07 pm
    It is mandatory for recipients of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey to respond to it. A House Bill would change that. How would that affect the crucial data produced by the survey?
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    Data Mining and Predictive Analytics

  • Predictive Analytics World Had the Target Story First

    2 May 2012 | 3:12 pm
    The New York Times Magazine article "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" by Charles Duhigg with the key descriptions of Target, pregnancy, predictive analytics (blogged on here and here) certainly generated a lot of buzz; if you are unable to see the NYTimes Magazine article, the Forbes summary is a good summary. However, few know that Eric Siegel booked Andy Pole for the October 2010 Predictive Analytics World conference as a keynote speaker. The full video of that talk is here. In this talk, Mr. Pole discussed how Target was using Predictive Analytics including descriptions of using potential…

  • Another Wisdom of Crowds Prediction Win at eMetrics / Predictive Analytics World

    26 Apr 2012 | 6:07 pm
    This past week at Predictive Analytics World / Toronto (PAW) has been a great time for connecting with thought leaders and practitioners in the field. Sometimes there are unexpected pleasures as well, which is certainly the case this time. One of the exhibitors for the eMetrics conference, co-locating with PAW at the venue, was Unilytics, a web analytics company. At their booth there was a cylindrical container filled with crumpled dollar bills with a sign soliciting predictions of how many dollar bills were in the container (the winner getting all the dollars). After watching the…

  • Dilbert, Database marketing and spam

    9 Apr 2012 | 3:42 pm
    Ruben's comment that referred to spam reminded me of an old Dilbert comic which conveys the misconception about database marketing (e-marketing) and spam. I know Ruben well and know he was poking fun, though I still have to correct folks who after finding out I do "data mining" actually comment that I'm responsible for spam. Answer: "No, I'm the reason you don't get as much spam!"

  • What I'm Working On

    6 Apr 2012 | 8:10 pm
    Sometimes folks ask me what I'm doing, so I thought I'd share a few things on my plate right now:Courses and Conferences1. Reading several papers for the KDD 2012 Conference Industrial / Government Track2. Preparing for the Predictive Analytics World / Toronto "Advanced Methods Hands-on:Predictive Modeling Techniques" workshop on April 27. I'm using the Statsoft Statistica package.3. Starting preparation for a talk at the Salford Analytics and Data Mining Conference 2012, "A More Transparent Interpretation of Health Club Surveys" on May 24. It will highlight use of the CART software package…

  • Why Defining the Target Variable in Predictive Analytics is Critical

    5 Apr 2012 | 3:46 pm
    Every data mining project begins with defining what problem will be solved. I won't describe the CRISP-DM process here, but I use that general framework often when working with customers so they have an idea of the process.Part of the problem definition is defining the target variable. I argue that this is the most critical step in the process that relates to the data, and more important than data preparation, missing value imputation, and the algorithm that is used to build models, as important as they all are.The target variable carries with it allthe information that summarizes the outcome…
 
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    Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData

  • Multiple Digital Channels: Oh Boy

    Kevin
    15 May 2012 | 10:15 pm
    A few weeks back, the folks on Twitter took umbrage with my stance on the concept of "multi-channel". "77% of customers research online before buying in a store ... this is the very definition of multi-channel." "63% of e-commerce buyers touch at least four channels before buying merchandise." So what? "But this is proof that customers prefer a multi-channel experience.  You cannot deny it." Of course I can deny it! Customers don't prefer a multi-channel experience. Customers are forced into a multi-channel experience. You know why customers are forced into a multi-channel experience?

  • Employee Value

    Kevin
    14 May 2012 | 10:15 pm
    In sports, we look at statistics.  Statistics help us understand the value a player brings to the table.  For instance, last year, Price Fielder posted the following statistics for the Milwaukee Brewers: 162 Games Played. .299 Batting Average. 38 Home Runs. 120 Runs Batted In. .981 OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage, the metric is highly correlated with runs and wins, average is a bit over .700). We observe statistics like that, and we say, "wow". As a result, Prince Fielder signed a free agent contract with the Detroit Tigers, for more than $20,000,000 a year. The…

  • Little Black Bag

    Kevin
    14 May 2012 | 2:30 pm
    Twitter user Judah Phillips shares this little tidbit from Klout and Little Black Bag. Click here for the promotion from Klout. Use the comments section below to share your thoughts ... do you support the concept of customers and prospects with a bevy of "Digital Friends" being offered lower prices than folks who haven't mined their social media for gold?

  • Dear Catalog CEOs: Relevant Talent

    Kevin
    13 May 2012 | 10:15 pm
    Dear Catalog CEOs: Are you in the same place that so many other folks are these days?  In other words, are you struggling to find what one individual recently called "relevant talent"? The job market places value on specific job responsibilities.  And the job market has a way of moving various job responsibilities between clients and vendors. For a decade, we placed value on what we thought was important. Catalog Circulation:  Outsourced to the co-ops. Email Marketing:  Outsourced to a small number of vendors. Database:  Outsourced to a small number of vendors. Paid…

  • Time To Sell: Optimal Investment

    Kevin
    10 May 2012 | 10:15 pm
    We made a series of improvements to the business ... we improved Net Sales, we improved Gross Margin, and we improved Merchandise Productivity. The business is healthier, as a result. Now, businesses usually make one of two mistakes, when it comes to customer acquisition: Under Investment, in order to protect the short-term profitability of the business. Over Investment, in order to protect top-line sales. The business that we are analyzing is over-investing, in fact, it is over-investing badly. Look at what happens when we cut back on catalog customer acquisition activities by 60%, in this…
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    Latest articles from Direct Marketing News News

  • Next up for NetSuite: content management for e-commerce

    Direct Marketing News
    16 May 2012 | 2:15 pm
    NetSuite plans make content management a major priority for its developers and e-commerce customers, said Andy Lloyd, GM of e-commerce products.

  • Sketchers settles with FTC for $40m

    Direct Marketing News
    16 May 2012 | 11:59 am
    Skechers USA Inc. has agreed to settle FTC charges that the company made unfounded and deceitful claims about the benefits of its Shape-Ups fitness shoes.

  • NetSuite announces SuiteCommerce at annual conference

    Direct Marketing News
    15 May 2012 | 1:27 pm
    NetSuite announced the SuiteCommerce platform at its SuiteWorld 2012 conference in San Francisco. The platform, which connects companies' CRM to ERP, is the first of its kind, said CEO Zach Nelson during his May 15 keynote address.

  • HP selects BBDO Worldwide as AOR for PC business

    Direct Marketing News
    15 May 2012 | 1:18 pm
    BBDO Worldwide has been appointed agency of record (AOR) for Hewlett-Packard Distribution Co.'s (HP's) personal computer and printing business, said Eric Keshin, SVP of marketing in HP's Printing and Personal Systems Group.

  • Silverpop launches Social Pull, an online form builder for Facebook

    Direct Marketing News
    15 May 2012 | 11:52 am
    Silverpop, the digital marketing technology provider, has released Social Pull, an app that helps marketers build online forms for Facebook Timeline pages, said Adam Steinberg, segment marketing director of social media for Silverpop.
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    Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (Online First™)

  • Dependence maps, a dimensionality reduction with dependence distance for high-dimensional data

    4 May 2012 | 12:34 pm
    Abstract  We introduce the dependence distance, a new notion of the intrinsic distance between points, derived as a pointwise extension of statistical dependence measures between variables. We then introduce a dimension reduction procedure for preserving this distance, which we call the dependence map. We explore its theoretical justification, connection to other methods, and empirical behavior on real data sets. Content Type Journal ArticlePages 1-21DOI 10.1007/s10618-012-0267-9Authors Kichun Lee, Industrial Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, 133-791 Republic of KoreaAlexander…

  • Projective clustering ensembles

    3 May 2012 | 8:58 am
    Abstract  A considerable amount of work has been done in data clustering research during the last four decades, and a myriad of methods has been proposed focusing on different data types, proximity functions, cluster representation models, and cluster presentation. However, clustering remains a challenging problem due to its ill-posed nature: it is well known that off-the-shelf clustering methods may discover different patterns in a given set of data, mainly because every clustering algorithm has its own bias resulting from the optimization of different criteria. This bias becomes…

  • Clustering daily patterns of human activities in the city

    23 Apr 2012 | 8:17 am
    Abstract  Data mining and statistical learning techniques are powerful analysis tools yet to be incorporated in the domain of urban studies and transportation research. In this work, we analyze an activity-based travel survey conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area over a demographic representative sample of its population. Detailed data on activities by time of day were collected from more than 30,000 individuals (and 10,552 households) who participated in a 1-day or 2-day survey implemented from January 2007 to February 2008. We examine this large-scale data in order to explore…

  • Solving non-negative matrix factorization by alternating least squares with a modified strategy

    18 Apr 2012 | 12:49 am
    Abstract  Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is a method to obtain a representation of data using non-negativity constraints. A popular approach is alternating non-negative least squares (ANLS). As is well known, if the sequence generated by ANLS has at least one limit point, then the limit point is a stationary point of NMF. However, no evdience has shown that the sequence generated by ANLS has at least one limit point. In order to overcome this shortcoming, we propose a modified strategy for ANLS in this paper. The modified strategy can ensure the sequence generated by ANLS…

  • Scalable influence maximization for independent cascade model in large-scale social networks

    31 Mar 2012 | 10:50 am
    Abstract  Influence maximization, defined by Kempe et al. (SIGKDD 2003), is the problem of finding a small set of seed nodes in a social network that maximizes the spread of influence under certain influence cascade models. The scalability of influence maximization is a key factor for enabling prevalent viral marketing in large-scale online social networks. Prior solutions, such as the greedy algorithm of Kempe et al. (SIGKDD 2003) and its improvements are slow and not scalable, while other heuristic algorithms do not provide consistently good performance on influence spreads. In…
 
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    Neoformix

  • Movement in Manhattan Video

    8 May 2012 | 2:20 am
    In my last post about visualizing Movement in Manhattan I mentioned that it would be interesting to explore a more direct view of the data by using an animation. I have created such a video based on a fresh collection of tweets from Monday, April 30th. I gathered new data because I realized that my previous data set was collected over the weekend and I suspected that a weekday might provide more obvious patterns. It compresses 24 hours of data into 1 minute of video. Here it is: I was influenced by the 'Fireflies' video showing iPhone traces done by Michael Kreil. In particular, I like the…

  • Movement in Manhattan

    18 Apr 2012 | 6:35 am
    Inspired by the beautiful and elegant Interactive Wind Map created by Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg I have begun to explore the flow of people within a city. An ideal dataset to do this would include the GPS traces from thousands of people wearing trackers for weeks as they go about their daily lives. Organizations such as crowdflow.net and OpenPaths collect voluntarily donated data of this type and might be fruitful to explore. I decided, instead, to use geolocated tweets to try and see how the movement of people is affected by the urban landscape. The image below shows an area of…

  • Datavis Subgroup Word Analysis

    5 Mar 2012 | 1:30 am
    This is Part 4 of a set of posts related to the analysis of the Data Visualization Field on Twitter. For context or more information you may want to read those other posts first. They are: The Data Visualization Field on Twitter Data Visualization Field Subgroups Datavis Blue-Red Connections In the previous posts we have seen that there are two fairly cohesive subgroups of twitter accounts that emerged from our analysis of the original 1000 accounts. I've been calling them the 'blue' and the 'red'. They were determined by looking exclusively at the references to twitter IDs within the tweets…

  • Datavis Blue-Red Connections

    2 Mar 2012 | 9:30 am
    The recent post on Data Visualization Field Subgroups had an interesting reaction on Twitter that I didn't expect. Many people that were placed in the 'red group' by the community detection algorithm in Gephi joked about being part of the 'team' and being happy to represent it and be grouped together with the others. Jen Lowe lightheartedly suggested a scrimmage at #eyeo between the red and blue. There was much less reaction from the 'blue group', likely because I'm embedded within the reds myself and so they likely paid more attention to my posts and the subsequent reaction on twitter. There…

  • Data Visualization Field Subgroups

    28 Feb 2012 | 9:30 am
    There was some interesting discussion yesterday on Twitter about my post on the Data Visualization Field on Twitter. Moritz Stefaner pointed out that he didn't see a big improvement over his VIZoSPHERE and a quite similar topology. Furthermore, he noted that if you rotate my version 90 degrees counter-clockwise many of the primary nodes line up fairly closely with his. He's right, and it's something I missed noticing completely. It's not really surprising that an analysis of most of the same twitter accounts using a different connectedness metric would yield similar results. I do still feel…
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    Trends and Outliers

  • Using Cell Phone Data for Social Good

    Spotfire Blogging Team
    16 May 2012 | 7:55 am
    When is cell phone data not just cell phone data? When it’s being mined to solve some of the world’s biggest social problems – that’s when. Which is exactly what Nathan Eagle is doing. Eagle, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health and the MIT Media Lab, and his team are collecting and analyzing millions of phone records generated each day by mobile phone subscribers around the world. Although the data is typically collected for billing purposes, it can also be used to do a lot of social good, according to the article. Eagle is using this big data to help development…

  • Is Big Data Causing a Big Brother System in Healthcare?

    Spotfire Blogging Team
    15 May 2012 | 7:55 am
    As we approach the landmark Supreme Court decision next month of whether Obamacare’s individual mandate for health insurance is constitutional or not, we’re seeing a move from health insurance companies, hospitals and pharmacy plan providers to cut costs with data analytics. But there’s a looming question in all of this – is big data causing a big brother system in healthcare? Let’s explore. What’s with All the Data? Healthcare companies including insurers, hospitals and pharmacy plan providers have access to loads of data on their customers and patients, and…

  • How Business Analytics Can Lead to That ‘Aha’ Moment

    Spotfire Blogging Team
    14 May 2012 | 7:55 am
    Does your company know why it does what it does? Does it have a clear sense of the products and services that can help it blast past its competitors? Many companies don’t, argues Adam Richardson in this Harvard Business Review blog post. And when they try to innovate they’re hobbled without the “core insights” to successfully differentiate themselves from their competitors. The data that drives those core insights – the type of forward thinking that has allowed Toyota to blow past competitors like Honda in the hybrid car market with its Prius – are often locked deep in…

  • Meet Your Company’s New Virtual Assistant – Big Data

    Spotfire Blogging Team
    11 May 2012 | 8:59 am
    While it’s true that big data can help your business gain insight into your customers, be more competitive and build new products, did you know it can also revolutionize the way your company looks at itself? Well, that’s the idea behind AutoPilot, a sort of virtual assistant from Frankfurt-based IT automation and managed services company Arago. AutoPilot combines data and artificial intelligence to take over the most boring and repetitive tasks of managing a large IT infrastructure – effectively becoming a new “hire” on your sysadmin team. AutoPilot is given access to the data…

  • Big Data Requires an Extreme Information Management Makeover

    Spotfire Blogging Team
    8 May 2012 | 7:55 am
    Many companies have been struggling for years to stay afloat amidst the deluge of data created by internal systems. But now, big data or extreme data is pouring into organizations in higher volumes, faster, from a wider variety of data sources, and in more formats than ever before. Big data dangles a large expanse of promise, but it requires business analytics as the foundation of an extreme information makeover for organizations to exploit the potential it offers. For example, companies that use predictive analytics achieve higher returns by tapping into big data, according to Nucleus…
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    PolicyMap

  • PolicyMap Primer

    Phil Vu
    16 May 2012 | 7:08 am
    From data layers to reports to Analytics to the Data Loader, PolicyMap offers many ways to interact with data. To help you become familiar with the system, we have created the PolicyMap Primer. This is a complete overview of all features and functions.

  • It is all for a Good Cause: Mapping Nonprofit Locations

    Megan Knowles
    15 May 2012 | 2:48 pm
    Ever wonder how many nonprofit organizations are in your area? Well thanks to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), you can view nonprofit locations on PolicyMap. The NCCS helps to track data regarding the nonprofit sector. You can search for non-profits based on the organization’s primary cause (arts, education, religion, etc.), the reason for 501(c)(3) status, and an array of financial indicators such as net assets, fund balance, total revenue, total expenses, public support (i.e. donations), and the fiscal year that these financial indicators come from. One new searchable…

  • HUD Launches PolicyMap Widget on NSP Resource Exchange!

    Maggie McCullough
    14 May 2012 | 12:28 pm
    The Reinvestment Fund and PolicyMap have been engaged with HUD in the geospatial analysis of clustered Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) investment across the country. The engagement is designed to study how markets treated with a concentration of NSP investment have changed over time compared to similar markets that have only minimally or not been touched by NSP. These findings are then displayed in a series of interactive, online maps and reports, powered by PolicyMap, at the cluster level and at the grantee level. These tools, which will be updated on a quarterly basis, are designed…

  • LIHTC Update Now on PolicyMap!

    Kristin Crandall
    10 May 2012 | 2:34 pm
    The PolicyMap team is excited to announce that the most recent Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) data is now available for all PolicyMap users! Located under the Federal Guidelines tab, users can now access the most up-to-date data for nearly 33,000 LIHTC projects across the nation! Created by Congress in 1986 to increase the supply of affordable housing in the U.S., LITHC has become the largest federal funding source for the production of low-income housing in the country. By reducing the federal tax liability for developers who either construct or rehabilitate affordable rental housing,…

  • 147 Months of Unemployment Data Up-to-Date

    Bernie Langer
    8 May 2012 | 8:08 am
    One of PolicyMap’s most popular datasets is our unemployment rate data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Every month, the BLS releases employment and unemployment data for every county, CBSA, and state, plus most metropolitan divisions and cities. PolicyMap adds these updates as soon as they’re available. The BLS is also constantly modifying their historical data to account for new information they’ve obtained, and so every year, in addition to our normal monthly updates, we refresh all the unemployment data we have, including every month of every year since 2000, to account…
 
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    Revolutions

  • Revolution Newsletter: May 2012

    David Smith
    16 May 2012 | 11:38 am
    The most recent edition of the Revolution Newsletter is out. The news section is below, and you can read the full May edition (with highlights from this blog and community events) online. You can subscribe to the Revolution Newsletter to get it monthly via email. New R Training Courses Announced. Three new R courses from leading R experts are now available for registration: An Introduction to R for SAS, SPSS, and Stata Users will be presented by Bob Muenchen (author of R for SAS and SPSS users) June 26-29. This is an on-line workshop with live instruction that you can attend from…

  • How long before R overtakes SAS and SPSS?

    David Smith
    15 May 2012 | 5:37 pm
    Based on an analysis of Google Scholar data on usage of statistical software, Bob Muenchen makes a forecast: R will overtake SAS and SPSS in 2015. Forecasting is extrapolation — always a tricky business — so Bob also provides these qualitative reasons why R will continue to grow at the expense of SAS and SPSS: The continued rapid growth in add-on packages (Figure 10) The attraction of R’s powerful language The near monopoly R has on the latest analytic methods Its free price The freedom to teach with real-world examples from outside organizations, which is forbidden to academics by SAS…

  • Multiple Sclerosis Tweet-Chat: Review

    David Smith
    14 May 2012 | 5:55 pm
    We had a great Twitter conversation last Thursday on the use of big-data analytics, Revolution R Enterprise, and IBM Netezza in the search for a cure for MS. Many thanks to the other panelists: Murali Ramanathan (SUNY Buffalo), Tim Coetzee (National MS Society) and moderator Shawn Dolley (IBM) for fielding and answering questions from interested parties following #IBMDataChat. As you can see from this twitteR analysis, it was a lively discussion, with more than 300 tweets during the designated hour: IBM's James Kobielus has a summary of the chat, highlighting some of the key nuggets…

  • New courses from R gurus

    David Smith
    14 May 2012 | 5:27 pm
    Looking to learn R, or to expand your R skills for data visualization or package development? Here are some R courses presented by the experts you may be interested in: June 19-20: Visualization in R with ggplot2. This course presented by Garrett Grolemund & Dr. Winston Chang of Rice University is also a web-based course with live presentation. This course provides instruction on data visualization with R, including data transformation, visualization of Big Data and polishing graphics for presentation.   June 21-22 (in New York City) and June 28-29 (in Redwood City, CA): R Development…

  • Because it's Friday: Australian PSAs from the 80s

    David Smith
    11 May 2012 | 3:03 pm
    When I was a kid growing up in Australia, it seemed like every commercial break during the Saturday morning cartoon's or after-school shows was punctuated by some PSA encouraging us to lead a healthier life. These "community service announcements" were government-sponsored, and often paired a low-budget animations with a catchy jingle. Strangely enough, lots of Australians (me included) remember them fondly, and can still recite the songs on demand. Here are a few of my favourites: "Slip Slop Slap" made avoiding skin cancer fun (an important lesson in the Sunburnt…
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