Monthly Archives: January 2018

PMean: My work on a CTSA grant

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I’m on a Clincal and Translational Science Award (CTSA) research grant (5UL1TR000001-05, formerly 1U54RR031295-01A1), which is pretty cool. My name is even mentioned a few times in the grant. I thought that as I plan what I would do for this grant, I would see what the grant promised and write down what, exactly, that those promises mean. As I talk with various people (especially Russ Waitman, who is supervising my work on this grant), I will revise and update my plans. Still, I thought it would be valuable to put some thoughts down now, both to help me focus on what I should be doing and to offer an early draft of those ideas to the various people that I will end up interacting with. Continue reading

Recommended: Hi, I’m Mike Bostock.

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This is an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session with Mike Bostock, a former graphics editor for the New York Times and creator of the d3.js data visualization package. I’ll be writing a few things about d3.js once I figure things out. Mike is someone worth watching, because he is working on high visibility, high impact stuff. Continue reading

Recommended: How to be more effective in your professional life

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Doug Zahn has done a tremendous amount of work on what I like to call the human factors in statistical consulting. He summarizes some key ideas in this article. His humorous anecdote about his prized Mustang car illustrates the tendency of all of us to be poor listeners. Pay special atention to Table 1 where he outlines the five steps you should always follow in any consulting interaction. Continue reading

PMean: SAS University. It’s SAS and it’s free

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I am teaching a class, Introduction to SAS, that I helped design, but one where another faculty member did all the heavy lifting. I used to teach SAS classes, and I even helped organize a regional SAS conference, but stopped abruptly in 1998. So I’m relearning SAS and one thing that is helping a lot is a product called SAS University which allows you to use SAS for non-commercial purposes for free. Here’s how SAS University works. Continue reading

Recommended: Philosophy News Network: Postmodernism Special Report

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I generally shy away from Philosophical debates, but I did discuss a Postmodern critique of Evidence Based Medicine a while back. When one of my more intellectual friends posted a link to a commentary on Postmodernism on the Existential Comics web site, I had to take a look. I think I did a pretty good job of summarizing Postmodernism without stereotyping it, but maybe I’m setting my standards too low if I try to compete with a comic strip. You can judge for yourself. Continue reading