Statistics in Action

Jerald F. Lawless

• Canadians Studying Abroad and the Development of Statistics in Canada. Some of Statistics Canada’s Contributions to Survey Methodology. Watching Children Grow Taught Us All We Know. Modeling Dependence beyond Correlation. Lasso and Sparsity in Statistics. Optimizing and Adapting the Metropolis Algorithm. Design of Computer Experiments for Optimization, Estimation of Function Contours, and Related Objectives. Statistical Genetic Modeling and Analysis of Complex Traits. Bayesian Methods in Fisher’s Statistical Genetics World. Bayesian Statistical Methodology for Observational Health Sciences Data. Statistical Models for Disease Processes: Markers and Skeletal Complications in Cancer Metastasic to Bone. Analysis of Biased Survival Data: The Canadian Study of Health and Aging and Beyond. Assessing the Effect on Survival of Kidney Transplantation with Higher-Risk Donor Kidneys. Risk-Adjusted Monitoring of Outcomes in Health Care. Statistics in Financial Engineering. Making Personalized Recommendations in E-Commerce. What Do Salmon and Injection Drug Users Have in Common? Capture-Recapture Methods for Estimating the Size of a Population: Dealing with Variable Capture Probabilities. Challenges in Statistical Marine Ecology. Quantifying the Human and Natural Contributions to Observed Climate Change. Data Hungry Models in a Food Hungry World: An Interdisciplinary Challenge Bridged by Statistics. Index.

"Statistics in Action is a volume of interesting and highly accessible articles published by the Statistical Society of Canada to celebrate 2013, the International Year of Statistics. ... This book provides a glimpse into the past, present, and future uses of data; how data impact the lives of Canadians and others; and the role that Canadian statisticians have had and will continue to have in data analysis." -The American Statistician, August 2015 "A handful of nominations came in for this book, commissioned by the Statistical Society of Canada to mark the 2013 International Year of Statistics. Among the recommendations was this from Nema Dean: 'Written for a sophisticated general audience (students included), most chapters provide a peek into an area of statistics-including the methodology-motivated by a practical problem, such as estimating the population of an endangered species of shark or quantifying the human and natural contributions to observed climate change. Worth reading.'" -Significance Recommended Reading, December 2014 "The writing is excellent throughout. In summary, Canadians have made many important contributions to science through their use of statistical methods. This excellent book tells you what those contributions are and explains them in detail. It is an excellent presentation of knowledge gained with the help of statistics by Canadian researchers." -International Statistical Review, 82, 2014 "... it will give you a glimpse of the excitement, but also of the importance, of statistics at the beginning of the twenty-first century. ... this book is intended to help increase public awareness on the importance of statistics in all aspects of human life and society." -From the Foreword by Christian Leger, PhD, PStat, 2012-2013 President of the Statistical Society of Canada