Harold Silverstone: A Perspective

This paper is a perspective on the scientific contributions of the politically controversial New Zealand-born statistician Harold Silverstone (1915-74). His scientific work — including a classic paper on minimum variance with A.C. Aitken — produced some key results in estimation theory. He also contributed significantly to the practical application of statistics, particularly the development of statistical consulting services in medicine.     

《统计研究》之统计研究——《统计研究》创刊三十周年回眸和展望

《统计研究》作为我国统计学界的权威学术刊物,自创刊之日起,一直不遗余力地促进着统计学科的发展,为统计科学的研究和交流提供了良好的平台,记录了经济统计和数理统计研究的发展轨迹,记载了统计学科成长、发展和壮大的历史,造就了一大批统计学术精英。30年来,《统计研究》共刊载文章4640篇,涉及统计学研究的各个领域,加快了与其他学科的融合,参与成果发表的作者单位遍布国内外,提升了《统计研究》的国际影响力;《统计研究》各项期刊科学指标发展态势良好,其质量和影响力在统计类刊物中一路领先,在经济类权威刊物中,也在起步较晚的情况下稳步发展,取得了长足的进步,在权威刊物中占据一席之地。《统计研究》应乘势而上,借助统计学成为一级学科之势,将其建成国家一级期刊。     

得失与启示：我国统计学博士学位论文选题统计分析

 统计学博士是统计科研的中坚力量之一,其博士论文在一定程度上反映了当时我国统计学科研的热点和前沿,代表着我国统计教育的先进水平。本文通过对1987-2009年509篇统计学博士学位论文的选题及其研究内容进行统计,分析其变动规律和特点,总结选题的得失与启示,为今后科学选题以及进一步深入开展统计学术研究提供参考依据。     

The Introduction of Matrix Algebra into Statistics

Primary credit for the introduction of matrix algebra into statistics is given to A. C. Aitken in the 1930s.     

Measuring density dependence in survival from mark-recapture data

We discuss the analysis of mark-recapture data when the aim is to quantify density dependence between survival rate and abundance. We describe an analysis for a random effects model that includes a linear relationship between abundance and survival using an errors-in-variables regression estimator with analytical adjustment for approximate bias. The analysis is illustrated using data from short-tailed shearwaters banded for 48 consecutive years at Fisher Island, Tasmania, and Hutton's shearwater banded at Kaikoura, New Zealand for nine consecutive years. The Fisher Island data provided no evidence of a density dependence relationship between abundance and survival, and confidence interval widths rule out anything but small density dependent effects. The Hutton's shearwater data were equivocal with the analysis unable to rule out anything but a very strong density dependent relationship between survival and abundance.     

Measuring density dependence in survival from mark-recapture data

We discuss the analysis of mark-recapture data when the aim is to quantify density dependence between survival rate and abundance. We describe an analysis for a random effects model that includes a linear relationship between abundance and survival using an errors-in-variables regression estimator with analytical adjustment for approximate bias. The analysis is illustrated using data from short-tailed shearwaters banded for 48 consecutive years at Fisher Island, Tasmania, and Hutton's shearwater banded at Kaikoura, New Zealand for nine consecutive years. The Fisher Island data provided no evidence of a density dependence relationship between abundance and survival, and confidence interval widths rule out anything but small density dependent effects. The Hutton's shearwater data were equivocal with the analysis unable to rule out anything but a very strong density dependent relationship between survival and abundance.     

成人院校非统计专业统计学教学改革的思考

成人高等教育作为我国高等教育的重要组成部分,其各门学科的教学改革除了应遵循高等教育改革的一般规律与要求外,还应有自身的特殊规律与要求。本文通过对其特殊性的理性分析,提出成人非统计专业统计学教学应加强统计观念教育、统计法律与道德教育,并加强统计基本理论与方法的教学与改革。     

THE CONTRIBUTION OF W. H. ARCHER TO VITAL STATISTICS IN THE COLONY OF VICTORIA

William Henry Archer, as Assistant Registrar General, was responsible for implementing the 1854 Registration Act in the colony of Victoria, and thereby helped establish the framework for official statistics in Australia. Eminently suitable for this role, having served his apprenticeship as an actuary and statistician in London prior to emigration in 1852, his career paralleled that of Dr. William Farr, the famous vital statistician. The greatest contribution Archer made to statistics in Australia was to put the lessons learnt by the statisticians of early Victorian England to advantage and place government statistical practices on a sound footing. Archer had a special interest in infant and childhood mortality, then accounting for one-half of all deaths in the new colony, and showed that a major factor was the extent of dysentery and diarrhoea during the warmer part of the year. Despite the high prevalence, Archer calculated the incidence of infant mortality to be less than in Europe at the time. Had he established links with the medical profession or with persons in the Social sciences who could have appreciated the valuable information being collected in the new government records, as in England where the sanitary reformers made great use of data collected by Farr for their own ends, Archer could have had a far greater impact on the intellectual and medical life of Victoria. Instead he was deflected into an administrative career which ended prematurely for political and religious reasons.     

A Study of Student Reaction to the Use of Minitab in an Introductory Statistics Course

Traditionally, the introductory statistics course, Principles of Statistics (STAT 101), at Iowa State University has been taught without reference to a statistical analysis computing package. Although important for the implementation of statistical techniques, a computer component has been perceived by instructors to take time away from the coverage of statistical topics. To gauge students' reactions to the usefulness of a statistical computing package, an experiment was conducted during the fall term of 1986. Volunteers from a STAT 101 class were randomly assigned to either a control group or a computer use group. Both groups filled out questionnaires at the beginning and end of the semester. During the semester, the computer use group had access to and instruction in the use of Minitab. This instruction was tied to homework and laboratory assignments for the course. This article presents results of this experiment. On the basis of the responses to the questionnaires, the value of a statistical computing package as a pedagogical tool is examined. Recommendations for the use of a statistical computing package in a large introductory statistics course are made.     

Generalized Ising models and their applications

The Ising model has become more prominent in spatial statistics since its applications in image analysis, as pioneered by Besag. This paper describes three multilevel generalizations of the Ising model, including the general spin Ising model. We compare and contrast these three generalizations. In all three cases, the normalizing constant is intractable but, using the developments made by physicists, we give adequate approximations for the general spin model, together with complete expressions for the binary Ising model. We show that these approximations allow inference for the general spin model. An application to texture analysis is also given.     

《统计研究》的历史阶段性回顾与特征分析

本文基于各个时代背景下我国统计学科的重要事件,联系过去十四届中青年统计科学研讨会的会议主题,利用文本数据挖掘技术,对1984年至2014年第5期《统计研究》刊登的5192篇文章的篇名、关键词和摘要等做深入分析。探讨了我国30年来统计学科的发展历程,剖析了《统计研究》期刊的整体特征,进一步明确了《统计研究》杂志对中国统计学科建设发展的重要贡献。     

Some Remarks on Statistical Education

A definition of the subject of statistics is given, and the difference between the chalkboard world of the teacher of statistics and the real world of the experimenter is stressed. An overemphasis on significance testing, hypothesis testing, and decision procedures has led to a de-emphasis of statistical design. The teaching of statistical design theory, statistics teaching in a changing world, the importance of model building, and different approaches to teaching statistics are discussed. Some published materials developed to meet teaching needs and a new type of statistics course are described. Information about special issues in statistical education (teaching and consulting) is presented.     

A Class of Permutation Tests for the Equality of Two Marginal Survival Functions Using Paired Censored Data

We studied several test statistics for testing the equality of marginal survival functions of paired censored data. The null distribution of the test statistics was approximated by permutation. These tests do not require explicit modeling or estimation of the within-pair correlation, accommodate both paired data and singletons, and the computation is straightforward with most statistical software. Numerical studies showed that these tests have competitive size and power performance. One test statistic has higher power than previously published test statistics when the two survival functions under comparison cross. We illustrate use of these tests in a propensity score matched dataset.     

Reviews of Books and Teaching Materials

ActivStats 2.0.: Paul Velleman. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1998, CD-ROM, $44.25, ISBN: 0-201-31068-6.

The Active Practice of Statistics.: David S. Moore. New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1997, xv + 352 pp., $49.95, ISBN: ISBN 0-7167-3140-1. Reviewed by Jon Maatta

Introduction to Statistical Reasoning.: Gary Smith. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998, xviii + 654 pp., $46.00, ISBN: 0-07-059276-4. Reviewed by Robert W. Hayden

Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus (2nd ed.).: William N. Venables and Brian D. Ripley. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1997, xvii + 548 pp., $59.95, ISBN: 0-387-98214-0. Reviewed by Karen Kafadar James R. Koehler

A Course in Mathematical Statistics (2nd ed.): George C. Roussas. San Diego: Academic Press, 1997, xx + 572 pp., $59.95, ISBN: 0125993153. Reviewed by David W. Macky     

官方统计数据修订的国际经验

随着社会各界对统计数据越来越关注,官方统计数据的修订问题越来越重要。科学修订统计数据对于确保统计数据质量,维护统计数据信誉十分重要。本文深入分析了国外官方统计数据修订的主要原因,阐述了有关国际组织和国家统计数据修订的种类、范围、条件和程序,详细介绍了美国和澳大利亚官方统计数据修订的具体做法和经验,并得出了几点有益的启示,以期对研究制定我国统计数据修订制度提供借鉴。     

国际统计：新中国官方统计不可或缺的组成部分

总结官方统计事业的发展 ,特别是总结近代官方统计事业的发展 ,不包括国际统计事业的发展是不完整的。英国经济学家威廉 .配第 (ＷｉｌｌｉａｍＰｅｔｔｙ)16 76年在其《政治算术》(ＰｏｌｉｔｉｃａｌＡｒｉｔｈｍｅｔｉｃ)中对英、法、荷三国经济实力的比较研究 ;19世纪 50年代 ,由比利时著名统计学家凯特勒 (Ｌ .Ａ .Ｊ.Ｑｕｅｔｅｌｅｔ)发起成立的第一个国际统计组织———国际统计大会及相应的活动 ;1885年成立的国际统计学会及其出版物和相应的活动等均属于见诸于文字、形成规模的国际统计开拓性工作。特别是第二次世界大战之后 ,随…     

Imputation of MĀori Descent for Electoral Calculations in New Zealand

The New Zealand Government Statistician decided that, for electoral purposes, Statistics New Zealand should impute Māori–descent status for individuals not responding Yes or No to theMāori–descent question in the 1996 Census of Population and Dwellings. Imputation provides a sounder basis for calculating electoral populations than the approach used in 1994, when all who had not answered clearly Yes or No in the 1991 Census were effectively allocated to non–Māori descent. For the purposes of imputation, the key variables related to the Māori–descent variable were identified using a statistical technique called CHAID (Chisquared Automatic Interaction Detector). Subgroups were created by cross–classification across five variables—island, iwi, Māori ethnic group, Māori–descent composition of the rest of the household, and age group. Within each subgroup, the proportion who responded Yes or No for Māori descent was used to allocate the remainder to Yes or No. The imputation increased the proportion allocated to Māori descent from 16.0% to 17.4% of the total population. However, the proportion of the population imputed to Māori descent was smaller than the proportion who specified Māori descent originally.     

Major League Baseball Player Salaries: Bringing Realism into Introductory Statistics Courses

A dataset consisting of salaries of major league baseball players is published at the start of each season in USA Today, and is also made available on the Internet. It is argued that such an easily available dataset and those similar to it can be successfully used by students in a first statistics course for an interesting introduction to data analysis through summary measures and graphical displays. Such an approach is most natural for many students because of a strong interest in sports and economics. Other statistical ideas can be explored as a natural consequence of the discussions that ensue from such an analysis.     

Win statistics (win ratio,win odds,and net benefit) can complement one another to show the strength of the treatment effect on time-to-event outcomes

Conventional analyses of a composite of multiple time-to-event outcomes use the time to the first event. However, the first event may not be the most important outcome. To address this limitation, generalized pairwise comparisons and win statistics (win ratio, win odds, and net benefit) have become popular and have been applied to clinical trial practice. However, win ratio, win odds, and net benefit have typically been used separately. In this article, we examine the use of these three win statistics jointly for time-to-event outcomes. First, we explain the relation of point estimates and variances among the three win statistics, and the relation between the net benefit and the Mann–Whitney U statistic. Then we explain that the three win statistics are based on the same win proportions, and they test the same null hypothesis of equal win probabilities in two groups. We show theoretically that the Z-values of the corresponding statistical tests are approximately equal; therefore, the three win statistics provide very similar p-values and statistical powers. Finally, using simulation studies and data from a clinical trial, we demonstrate that, when there is no (or little) censoring, the three win statistics can complement one another to show the strength of the treatment effect. However, when the amount of censoring is not small, and without adjustment for censoring, the win odds and the net benefit may have an advantage for interpreting the treatment effect; with adjustment (e.g., IPCW adjustment) for censoring, the three win statistics can complement one another to show the strength of the treatment effect. For calculations we use the R package WINS, available on the CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network).     

Statistical Computing Packages: Some Words of Caution

Three situations are cited when caution is needed in using statistical computing packages: (a) when analyzing data and having insufficient statistical knowledge to completely understand the output; (b) when teaching the use of packages in a statistics course, to the exclusion of teaching statistics; and (c) when using packages in subject-matter teaching, without teaching the statistical methods underlying the packages.