Come and join us for Christmas nibbles and drinks from 4:30pm before SSAI Queensland Branch presents a selection of entries from the “Funny Stats Competition”. If you missed the competition announcement, the details are given below. Last minute entries are welcome at the event. Finger food and drinks will also be provided following the presentation. Non-members are welcome.

Please RSVP by Friday 19 November for catering purposes to the Branch Secretary: helen.thompson@qut.edu.au.

Excerpt from Funny Stats Competition Announcement

What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you during your statistical career? Or the funniest thing that a student or colleague has said to you? The Queensland Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia is gathering funny statistical stories for their Christmas party. The best story, as voted by our members on the night of the party, will win a 200 dollar (AUD) Amazon voucher. We will post the funniest entries on this web site.

There’s no geographical limit, so please write in from anywhere. Anonymous entries are welcome, but contact details must at least be provided to be awarded the prize. Any format is acceptable, so it could be a picture, a recording of you regaling your story, anything at all. Send your stories/pictures/recordings to Adrian: a.barnett@qut.edu.au. Entries close 20 November, or present live on the night.

Here are some examples:

* POSTGRADUATE STATS STUDENT: “I’ve opened the dataset for the first assignment, but it’s just numbers.”
* REVIEW FROM THE AJE: “I’m no expert in Baynesian statistics.”
* At a Valencia meeting a friend stuck a sticker on David Spiegelhalter’s back that read: “I’M A FREQUENTIST”

OESR offices, city, details soon

Speakers:

* Harvey Goldstein. Professor of Social Statistics, Centre for Multilevel Modelling at the University of Bristol. Speaking on the UK Literacy Report.
* Australian Bureau of Statistics. Upcoming Census.
* Helen MacGillivray. Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Queensland University of Technology. IASE.

Click here for the Power Point slides.

• Jenny Doust (slides) (audio, 39.2 minutes, 36.8MB)
• Henry Zheng (slides) (audio,30.2 minutes, 28.5MB)
• Suhail Doi (slides) (audio,30.2 minutes, 28.4MB)
• Adrian Barnett (slides) (audio,25.2 minutes, 23.8MB)

Many thanks to Peter Baker for his help with the audio files.

Speakers:

* Prof. Jenny Doust (Bond) “How to do a Cochrane review”
* A/Prof. Suhail Doi (UQ) “Combining heterogeneous studies using the random-effects model is a mistake and leads to inconclusive meta-anlayses”
* Dr. Adrian Barnett (QUT) “Incorporating study quality into meta-analyses”
* Dr. Henry Zheng (QUT) “The effect size and dose-response of walking interventions to prevent CHD: Meta-analysis”

This meeting is free and all researchers conducting a systematic review or meta-analysis (not just statisticians) are welcome to attend. Please register with Adrian for catering purposes (a.barnett@qut.edu.au). After the four speakers we hope to have a lively question and answer session. If you have any questions about systematic reviews or meta-analyses that you’d like to be answered by our four experts then either e-mail Adrian in advance or bring your question on the day.

All career young statisticians are invited to the Gardens Point Guild Bar for a young statisticians networking event. There will be some pizza and drinks provided free of charge. You need not be a current member of the Statistical Society of Australia to attend.If you’re a student (undergraduate or postgraduate) studying some statistics, work in areas related to statistics or have an interest in statistics and are within 5 years (or so) of commencing your career then please come along and meet your fellow career young statisticians.

The Qld Branch AGM will be held at 5pm, ABS, Training Room 1 (3R 159), Level 3, 639 Wickham St, Fortitude Valley (1).

ORDINARY BRANCH MEETING: Tuesday 9 March, 2010

Following the AGM there will be a Branch meeting addressed by Dr Martin Wolkewitz.

SPEAKER: Dr Martin Wolkewitz, University of Freiburg

TITLE: Understanding and avoiding survival bias: An application of multistate models in a cohort of Oscar nominees.

TIME: 4.30pm – 6pm

VENUE: ABS, Training Room 1 (3R 159), Level 3, 639 Wickham St, Fortitude Valley1.

DINNER: Members and guests are invited to join the speaker at a nearby restaurant.

ABSTRACT:

Survival bias is a common concern in applications of survival analysis. The reason is often related to sampling schemes or time-dependent intermediate events. In many situations the bias can be avoided by a proper statistical analysis. Multistate models provide a relevant framework to display and circumvent certain types of survival bias. In this talk I recall techniques which are available and implemented in statistical softwares to avoid these types of bias. Using Lexis diagrams I illustrate length bias as well as time-dependent bias which occurred jointly in a study of Academy Award-winning actors and actresses. Several historical as well very recent applications in epidemiological fields are discussed.

BIOGRAPHY:

Dr Wolkewitz has a Diploma in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology. He is currently a senior statistician with a specific expertise in the application of event-history analysis and multistate modelling methodology to data arising in the field of health care epidemiology. Dr Wolkewitz joinrf the Research Unit FOR 534 “Statistical modeling and data analysis in clinical epidemiology” which is funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

1. Parking is limited outside the complex and undercover parking in the Home Maker Centre may be locked off before the end of the meeting.

Christmas Event

Frequentist vs. Bayesian Debate

Speaker: Frequentists vs. Bayesians

Date: Tuesday 24th November, 2009

Time: 5:00pm – 7:00pm

Location: Owen J Wordsworth Room, Level 12, S Block
Gardens Point Campus, Queensland University of Technology

http://www.qut.edu.au/about/location/

Details:

Come and join us for Christmas nibbles and drinks from 5:00pm before getting your ringside seats
to the statistical event of the year. First round commences at 5:30pm. Post-match celebrations
follow, including finger-food and drinks.

Adjudicator
Referee Robert Reeves

Frequentist Corner
Roundhouse Rodney Wolff
Adrian Boom Boom Barnett

vs.

Bayesian Corner
Tony the Tornado Pettitt
Kerrie Lean Machine Mengersen

Download flier: Flier-Christmas 2009

The Other Measurement Error Problem

Aurore Delaigle

Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

In many real life applications, observations can not be measured precisely and the only data available are contaminated by measurement errors (for example, due to the inaccuracy of the measurement device used). When applied to such data, standard regression estimators are not consistent. A lot of attention in the literature has been devoted to the development of techniques for regression estimation which are valid in the error case, and we will discuss a recent nonparametric solution to this problem. Another important problem which has been much less studied in the measurement error literature is the estimation of the “variance curve” in regression. We will show that the two problems are strongly related, and present some techniques for estimating the variance curve. Aurore is a Principal Research Fellow/QEII Fellow in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne. She completed her PhD at the Institute of Statistics, Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. She is currently on leave from her position as Associate Professor at the University of Bristol. She is an associate editor for the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, Statistica Sinica and the Journal of the Korean Statistical Society. Aurore’s research interests include nonparametric curve estimation, measurement error, bandwidth selection and functional data analysis.

For information about the speaker, see http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~aurored/

The seminar will be followed by refreshments in the Mathematics tea room (67-704).