"Comparing distributions" as a big statistical idea was used to design professional development experiences for high school mathematics teachers. Randomization testing and dynamic technological tools were instrumental in the design and implementation of the professional learning experience. In this talk, I'll will introduce randomization testing as enacted in this learning environment and describe the ways in which it was determined that randomization testing was a productive statistical and teaching device.
This talk will discuss various aspects of randomness, including how it can help, how it can hurt and some elegant mathematical properties that it exhibits.
Ever wonder how many times you should shuffle a deck of cards? Or what really happens if you don't shuffle enough? In this talk, we'll give a simple mathematical model for card shuffling (the Gilbert-Shannon-Reeds model) and show how Bayer and Diaconis used this model to prove that, for a standard deck of 52 cards, you should shuffle about 7 times. We'll also present recent joint work with Diaconis and Soundararajan that shows how the number of times you should shuffle depends on what game you're playing. This talk will involve four decks of cards, three volunteers, two magic tricks and lots of great combinatorics.
Many time series data sets exhibit structural breaks in a variety of ways, the most obvious being a mean level shift. In this case, the mean level of the process is constant over periods of time, jumping to different levels at times called "change-points". These jumps may be due to outside influences such as changes in government policy or manufacturing regulations. Structural breaks may also be a result of changes in variability or changes in the spectrum of the process. The goal is to estimate where these structural breaks occur
and to provide a model for the data within each stationary segment.
One application of change-point analysis is detecting changes in sound waves. In particular, the National Park Service is interested in estimating the proportion of manmade sound in the National Parks. In this talk, we will start with an overview of time series models, then consider the change-point problem applied to sound waves.
Thanks to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and the Center for Women in Mathematics for support of the series.
Applied Statistics Lecture series (2009-2010)
Other 5 college seminars of interest:
University of Massachusetts Statistics and
Probability Seminar Series
University of Massachusetts Biostatistics and Epidemiology Seminar Series
Organized by Nicholas Horton.
Last updated August 16, 2011