Using Google RealTime, a small icon on the left margin, you can monitor the latest uprisings. Apparently you can still get shot in most of the world to ask for freedom. What a trillion dollars of industrial arms complex could not do in Iraq or Afghanistan, hackers at Wikileaks, Bloggers in Middle East and Media people at Al Jazzera are doing right now. I am probably too young in 1989 when communists fell, but watching dictators fall by people power than external arms is good, no.
Now if only a few more people could listen to some Chinese Democracy
R Authors get more choice and variety now-
http://www.mail-archive.com/r-help@r-project.org/msg122965.html
We are pleased to announce the launch of a new series of books on R.
Chapman & Hall/CRC: The R Series
Aims and Scope
This book series reflects the recent rapid growth in the development and
application of R, the programming language and software environment for
statistical computing and graphics. R is now widely used in academic research,
education, and industry. It is constantly growing, with new versions of the
core software released regularly and more than 2,600 packages available. It is
difficult for the documentation to keep pace with the expansion of the
software, and this vital book series provides a forum for the publication of
books covering many aspects of the development and application of R.
The scope of the series is wide, covering three main threads:
• Applications of R to specific disciplines such as biology, epidemiology,
genetics, engineering, finance, and the social sciences.
• Using R for the study of topics of statistical methodology, such as linear
and mixed modeling, time series, Bayesian methods, and missing data.
• The development of R, including programming, building packages, and graphics.
The books will appeal to programmers and developers of R software, as well as
applied statisticians and data analysts in many fields. The books will feature
detailed worked examples and R code fully integrated into the text, ensuring
their usefulness to researchers, practitioners and students.
Series Editors
John M. Chambers (Department of Statistics, Stanford University, USA;
j...@stat.stanford.edu)
Torsten Hothorn (Institut für Statistik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität,
München, Germany; torsten.hoth...@stat.uni-muenchen.de)
Duncan Temple Lang (Department of Statistics, University of California, Davis,
USA; dun...@wald.ucdavis.edu)
Hadley Wickham (Department of Statistics, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA;
had...@rice.edu)
Call for Proposals
We are interested in books covering all aspects of the development and
application of R software. If you have an idea for a book, please contact one
of the series editors above or one of the Chapman & Hall/CRC statistics
acquisitions editors below. Please provide brief details of topic, audience,
aims and scope, and include an outline if possible.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,Rob Calver (rob.cal...@informa.com)
David Grubbs (david.gru...@taylorandfrancis.com)
John Kimmel (john.kim...@taylorandfrancis.com)
As a test I decided to map out injuries due to fire arms , and compare firearm deaths of white people versus the whole population.(see firearm deaths file)
See white people are more likely than black people to own guns (also read http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9572612 ), but it seems statistically they are less likely to be injured by firearms- so it could affect support for gun control laws on a racial ground- that was my null hypothesis. No politics, just plain statistics. I dont know- why dont you look at the data and decide-
A fascinating article in New York Times details the fascinating details of the Stuxnet virus, apparently the most successful cyber weapon in recent times.
Given that Industrial Controllers are a part of a everything from factories to missile launch configurations, I believe this is a fascinating area of study for the world’s research scientists including creating variants and defenses for this.
While sitting in Delhi, India- I sometimes notice that there is one big new worthy gun related incident in the United States every six months (latest incident Gabrielle giffords incident) and the mythical NRA (which seems just as powerful as equally mythical Jewish American or Cuban American lobby ) . As someone who once trained to fire guns (.22 and SLR -rifles actually), comes from a gun friendly culture (namely Punjabi-North Indian), my dad carried a gun sometimes as a police officer during his 30 plus years of service, I dont really like guns (except when they are in a movie). My 3 yr old son likes guns a lot (for some peculiar genetic reason even though we are careful not to show him any violent TV or movie at all).
So to settle the whole guns are good- guns are bad thing I turned to the one resource -Internet
Here are some findings-
1) A lot of hard statistical data on guns is biased by the perspective of the writer- it reminds me of the old saying Lies, True lies and Statistics.
2) There is not a lot of hard data in terms of a universal research which can be quoted- unlike say lung cancer is caused by cigarettes- no broad research which can be definitive in this regards.
3) American , European and Asian attitudes on guns actually seem a function of historical availability , historic crime rates and cultural propensity for guns.
Switzerland and United States are two extreme outlier examples on gun causing violence causal statistics.
4) Lot of old and outdated data quoted selectively.
It seems you can fudge data about guns in the following ways-
1) Use relative per capita numbers vis a vis aggregate numbers
2) Compare and contrast gun numbers with crime numbers selectively
3) Remove drill down of type of firearm- like hand guns, rifles, automatic, semi automatic
Maybe I am being simplistic-but I found it easier to list credible data sources on guns than to summarize all assumptions on guns. Are guns good or bad- i dont know -it depends? Any research you can quote is welcome.
* As of 2009, the United States has a population of 307 million people.[5]
* Based on production data from firearm manufacturers,[6] there are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the United States as of 2010. Of these, about 100 million are handguns.[7]
* Based upon surveys, the following are estimates of private firearm ownership in the U.S. as of 2010:
DEFINITION: Total recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm. Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence.
SOURCE: The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention)
National or state offense totals are based on data from all reporting agencies and estimates for unreported areas.
* Rates are the number of reported offenses per 100,000 population
United States-Total –
The 168 murder and nonnegligent homicides that occurred as a result of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 are included in the national estimate.
The 2,823 murder and nonnegligent homicides that occurred as a result of the events of September 11, 2001, are not included in the national estimates.
Sources:
FBI, Uniform Crime Reports as prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
The Statistical Abstract of the United States, published since 1878, is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.
Use the Abstract as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a guide to sources of more information both in print and on the Web.
Sources of data include the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private organizations.
From the last table you can see , while the number of officers killed or feloniously killed decreased by 20% in past five years, the number of officers assaulted by firearms grew by 20% in the same period.
DECISION STATS 