The February 2019 issue of The American Statistician (TAS) features 13 articles.

The General section begins with an article that delves into why p-values are controversial. The discussion centers on a connection between p-value and formal decision rules. The second article discusses marginal least squares estimators, which are important for the analysis of high-dimensional data. Asymptotic properties of these estimators are investigated under a correlated errors assumption. A third article revisits how to construct a confidence interval for a normal mean with just one observation when the variance is unknown. The article is dedicated to the memory of Charles Stein. The final article in this section discusses statistical characterizations through the use of equal-in-distribution identities.

That Statistical Practice section includes three articles. The first discusses desirable properties for Bayes factors, and then provides a detailed examination of different Bayes factors that have been proposed for a two-sample comparison context. The second article discusses the impact and wisdom of adjusting comparative analyses for observed covariate imbalance. The final article in this section compares the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test with modifications of that test motivated from interest in H0: P(X>Y)=1/2.

There are three articles in the Teacher’s Corner. The first details an interactive classroom exercise that can help teach the meaning of statistical confidence intervals. A second article provides naturally arising contexts where random sums of random variables arise and extends formulas for the mean and variance of these sums by relaxing independence assumptions. The third article is an experience report of a two-semester course set up to specifically teach statistical collaboration skills.

The issue has single articles in the Data Science and Statistical Computing and Graphics sections. The data science article is about clustering and shows how silhouette indices can be extended to provide probability-like measures of cluster membership. The computing article discusses replication challenges when software package implementations of multiple imputation procedures are used.

The issue concludes with an article in the History Corner that traces the origin of stem-and-leaf displays.