Volume 23, No. 2 of CHANCE magazine includes an article by Jana Asher on collecting data in challenging settings. This issue also includes articles on women in politics, electricity consumption and dog food. Here are the highlights.
Several mathematical societies were on hand to celebrate the second annual African–American History Program Free Family Day at the Marian Koshland Science Museum in Washington, DC. Using a large bowl filled with Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers the group demonstrated a capture-recapture study to simulate a lake populated with fish.
Statistics Without Borders (SWB) volunteers spent a week in Haiti in late March collecting data, which will be used to assess the impact of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake of January 12.
Beginning with the September 2010 issue, the ASA and the Royal Statistical Society will collaborate on the publication of the statistical outreach magazine Significance. Each ASA member will receive the quarterly as a benefit of membership. Here, Julian Champkin, editor of Significance, offers a brief introduction to the magazine.
How does a flock of a million starlings or more manage to keep itself together as it wheels about the sky? How can you fairly handicap a yacht race? Do big firms or small firms create more jobs? Is organic milk really better for your health than nonorganic? And where exactly are the certainties—and, as important, the uncertainties—in climate change? Statistics holds the answer to all of these questions. Significance is a magazine about statistics.
In the 1980s and 1990s, there was concern within the mathematical sciences community that postsecondary education in the mathematical sciences was in trouble. The National Science Foundation (NSF) launched a program of Grants for Vertical Integration of Research and Education in the Mathematical Sciences (VIGRE). These grants were designed for institutions with PhD-granting departments in the mathematical sciences, to develop quality education programs, that are vertically integrated with the research activities of these departments. Here, members of the Committee to Evaluate the program share their findings.
