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# Posts

### March 08, 2014

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Last week, we developed some formulas that could calculate the sine, cosine, and tangent of the sum and difference of two angles. This proves useful when trying to calculate the exact sines/cosines/tangents of angles that are not in special right triangles (45-45-90, 30-60-90, 18-72-90).What if we wanted to find the exact values for double a certain angle. Let's say we know the following:sin18 = (√(5) - 1)/4cos18 = (√(10 + 2√(5)))/4How could we calculate the sine of 36°? […]
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Solo per tranquillizzarvi, anche io come molte donne oggi, 8 marzo, sono andata dal parrucchiere. Il mio parrucchiere di fiducia abita con me e sa usare la macchinetta per capelli benissimo!Guardare per credere!
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I was going to post yet one more discussion of our discussion of the discussion of the discussion of some paper that I don’t really care about, but then I was like, aaaahh, what’s the point? So instead here’s a pointer to the first paper I ever published. It’s the very last one on this […]The post Disagreeing to disagree appeared first on Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.
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Aunt Pythia missed you very much last week and is ever so grateful to return today. And although she usually takes on four questions from readers, today she feels like switching it up and taking on three but making them extra delicious. She hopes you agree that this was the correct choice. Plus she’s running […]
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Filed under: Kids, Mountains, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life Tagged: 14w5125, Advances in Scalable Bayesian Computation, Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation, Bayesian computation, BIRS, Canada, MCMC, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, simulation
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Oggi, 8 marzo, giorno conosciuto soprattutto come 'festa' delle donne. In realtà si tratta della giornata internazionale della donna, che suona meglio a mio parere, perché non c'è proprio niente da festeggiare.Ora, non mi sono mai definita una femminista, perché peccando di qualunquismo da italiano medio (quale sono) non ho mai capito a fondo cosa vuol dire femminismo. Lo so, c'è la spiegazione su wikipedia, ma a me non basta. Vorrei vedere il femminismo […]
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Despite the lingering snow, March is here and Pi Day is only a week away! I love Pi Day because it combines three of my favorite things: math, puns, and dessert. Baking a pie is always a fun (and tasty!) way … Continue reading →

### March 07, 2014

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Filed under: Mountains, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life Tagged: Banff, Banff Centre, Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation, BIRS, Canada
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Nove storie, anzi dieci, le cui protagoniste sono donne di ogni età e di ogni ceto sociale. Nove donne che si ritrovano per la prima volta insieme, nella stessa stanza e che hanno in comune la loro psicoterapeuta. Fino a quel momento ognuna ha raccontato la sua storia solo davanti la psicoterapeuta, adesso si ritrovano le une di fronte le altre ad aprirsi e raccontarsi.Un libro tutto al femminile, dove ogni donna racconta la propria storia. Sono racconti che commuovono, rallegrano, fanno […]
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Last November I wrote to the Department of Education to make a FOIL request for the source code for the teacher value-added model (VAM). Motivation To explain why I’d want something like this, I think the VAM model sucks and I’d like to explore the actual source code directly. The white paper I got my […]
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I’ll reorder this week’s posts a bit in order to continue on a topic that came up yesterday. A couple days ago a reporter wrote to me asking what I thought of this paper on Money, Status, and the Ovulatory Cycle. I responded: Given the quality of the earlier paper by these researchers, I’m not […]The post Selection bias in the reporting of shaky research appeared first on Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.
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Links and articles from around the web for the week of March 3--7.
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Final day of our workshop Advances in Scalable Bayesian Computation already, since tomorrow morning is an open research time ½ day! Another “perfect day in paradise”, with the Banff Centre campus covered by a fine snow blanket, still falling…, and making work in an office of BIRS a dream-like moment. Still looking for a daily theme, […]
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Russ Roberts had this to say about the proposal to replacing the calculus requirement with statistics for students. Statistics is in many ways much more useful for most students than calculus. The problem is, to teach it well is extraordinarily…Read more ›
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This happy and cheerful period on my blog would not be complete without some mention of Anton Makarenko’s “Pedagogical poem,” aka “The Road to Life.” (Full text available here.) Makarenko, in case you don’t know, was one of the founders … Continue reading →

### March 06, 2014

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A Le Monde mathematical puzzle that reminds me of an earlier one: Given ten tokens with different unknown weights, and a scale that can rank three tokens at a time, starting with ranking three tokens, what is the minimum number of actions necessary to rank the ten of them if (a) one token at a […]
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Filed under: Kids, Mountains, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life Tagged: 14w5125, Advances in Scalable Bayesian Computation, Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation, Bayesian computation, BIRS, Canada, MCMC, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, simulation
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(da Eta Beta e la cometa al fenantrone)
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The inverted calculus class is on a sound theoretical footing and we know how to create learning objectives and pre-class activities for it. But how to get students along for the ride?
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As in the previous post, all computations here are at the formal level only. In the previous blog post, the Euler equations for inviscid incompressible fluid flow were interpreted in a Lagrangian fashion, and then Noether’s theorem invoked to derive the known conservation laws for this equation. In a bit more detail: starting with Lagrangian […]
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I had a brief email exchange with Jeff Leek regarding our recent discussions of replication, criticism, and the self-correcting process of science. Jeff writes: (1) I can see the problem with serious, evidence-based criticisms not being published in the same journal (and linked to) studies that are shown to be incorrect. I have been mostly […]The post How much time (if any) should we spend criticizing research that’s fraudulent, crappy, or just plain pointless? appeared first on […]
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Today the University of Edinburgh was privileged to welcome award-winning photographer James Glossop to the School of Mathematics. His task was to photograph Sir Michael Atiyah for an article in The Times (to appear next week) and he asked for a blackboard to be decorated with mathematical equations to form the backdrop to this photo. […]
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Tonight I’ll be giving a talk at the NYC Open Data Meetup, organized by Vivian Zhang. I’ll be discussing my essay from last year entitled On Being a Data Skeptic, as well as my Doing Data Science book. I believe there are still spots left if you’d like to attend. The details are as follows: […]
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We have now gone over the midpoint of our workshop Advances in Scalable Bayesian Computation with three talks in the morning and an open research or open air afternoon. (Maybe surprisingly I chose to stay indoors and work on a new research topic rather than trying cross-country skiing!) If I must give a theme for […]
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I’ve put up a web page for How Not To Be Wrong; the reason it looks good is that I was smart enough to hire Will Amato instead of trying to do it myself.  It goes THWOCK!  But if you look at it on a phone you won’t get to hear it go thwock because thwock is […]
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I have an awkward relationship with mathematical oncology, mostly because oncology has an awkward relationship with math. Although I was vaguely familiar that evolutionary game theory (EGT) could be used in cancer research, mostly through Axelrod et al. (2006), I never planned to work on cancer. I wasn’t eager to enter the field because I […]

Michor, F., Hughes, T., Iwasa, Y., Branford, S., Shah, N., Sawyers, C. & Nowak, M.A. (2005). Dynamics of chronic myeloid leukaemia, Nature, 435 (7046) 1267-1270. DOI:

Citation

### March 05, 2014

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Filed under: Mountains, Travel, Wines Tagged: ale, Banff, Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation, beer, BIRS, Canadian Rockies, Canmore, Oberwolfach
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(da Topolino e la pista delle pistole)
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Source Transcript Folgerung: Ann. $1_S$ ex., $X = 2^S$. Prop. $C\subseteq x = \chi_C \in X$: $C$ zentral <=ex $y \in X: y$ prox. $x$, unif. rek, $y(1_S) = q$ ["=" wie Satz/Beweis; "<=" Setze \$U = { …
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A clear and measurable set of learning objectives is a key component of any class. How does this work with a flipped class? Here's a process for setting and splitting up a list of learning objectives to support students' pre-class work and engagement with self-regulated learning behaviors.