The American Statistician Highlights
Overhauling Online Ratings Systems
Leads November TAS
Peter Westfall, TAS Editor
Books Reviewed in TAS
T
he November issue of The American Statistician (TAS) leads
with a paper in the Interdisciplinary section (subcategory:
Information Sciences) about improving product rating sys-
Bayesian Methods: A Social and Behavioral Sciences
tems used by Amazon, Epinions, and YouTube, among others.
Approach (2nd ed.), Jeff Gill
Using Bayesian hierarchical modeling, Daniel Ho and Kevin
Quinn propose replacing the current “one to five stars” system
Data Preparation for Analytics Using SAS, Gerhard Svolba
with one that automatically incorporates sample sizes, thereby
Elementary Statistics: Picturing the World (4th ed.),
avoiding spuriously ‘good’ or spuriously ‘bad’ ratings. The follow-
Ron Larson and Elizabeth Farber
ing paper in the Interdisciplinary section (subcategory: Political
Science), “Regression to the Mean, Murder Rates, and Shall-Issue
Modern Mathematical Statistics with Applications,
Laws” by Patricia Grambsch, is bound to stir controversy, as strong
Jay L. Devore and Kenneth N. Berk
feelings exist on both sides of the gun control issue.
SAS Graphics for Java: Examples Using SAS AppDev Studio Ronald Christensen, Timothy Hanson, and Alejandro Jara
and the Output Delivery System, Wendy Bohnenkamp ask, “When stranded in the wilds of Paraguay, who should you
and Jackie Iverson make friends with? When stuck in the wilds of Belgium, how do
Statistical Development of Quality in Medicine, Per Winkel
you get rid of your toenail fungus?” The General section contains
and Nien Fan Zhang
their tutorial paper, “Parametric Nonparametric Statistics: An
Introduction to Mixtures of Finite Polya Trees,” which answers
Statistical and Probabilistic Methods in Actuarial Science,
these and other questions.
Philip J. Boland
In the Statistical Practice section, Richard Potthoff, Susan
Statistical Thinking in Sports, Jim Albert and
Halabi, Joellen Schildkraut, and Beth Newman discuss “Flexible
Ruud H. Koning (eds.)
Frames and Control Sampling in Case-Control Studies: Weighters
(Survey Statisticians) versus Anti-Weighters (Epidemiologists).”
Statistics for Real-Life Sample Surveys: Non-Simple-
Andrew Vickers follows with a discussion about the practical
Random Samples and Weighted Data, Sergey Dorofeev
use of decision theory for diagnostic tests in “Decision Analysis
and Peter Grant
for the Evaluation of Diagnostic Tests, Prediction Models, and
Analyzing Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves with
Molecular Models.”
SAS, Mithat Gönen
Would you like to integrate or share distance education pro-
grams with other universities? Leading the Teacher’s Corner sec-
Introduction to Design of Experiments with JMP Examples
tion is a paper by Gillian Heller, Andrew Forbes, Keith Dear,
(3rd ed.), Jacques Goupy and Lee Creighton
and Erica Jobling, who share their experiences in “Biostatistics @
Medical Statistics: A Textbook for the Health Sciences (4th
Distance: A Model for Successful Multi-Institutional Delivery.”
ed.), Michael J. Campbell, David Machin, and
Following is a paper about applying instructional design theories
Stephen J. Walters
when developing statistics teaching materials; the paper is titled
“Design and Development of Digital Learning Material for Applied
SAS Programming for Enterprise Guide Users,
Data Analysis,” and it is by Maria Busstra, Anouk Geelen, Edith
Neil Constable
Feskens, Rob Hartog, and Pieter van’t Veer.
Statistics (11th ed.), James T. McClave and Terry Sincich Can you combine the simplicity of fixed percentage confidence
Unlocking the Census With GIS, Alan Peters and
intervals with the more information-rich distribution summaries?
Heather McDonald
The answer is yes, and the lead article of the Statistical Computing
and Graphics section shows how. The paper is titled “Displaying
Workshop Statistics: Discovery With Data (3rd ed.),
Uncertainty with Shading,” and it is by Christopher Jackson.
Allan J. Rossman and Beth L. Chance
Following, in the same section, is “Visualizing Peak and Tails to
Introduce Kurtosis,” by Edith Seier and Samuel Kotz. n
12 AMSTAT NEWS NOVEMBER 2008
AMSTAT November 08.indd 12 10/24/08 2:27:46 PM
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