Posts from May 2012 (43)

An interesting report in the Herald yesterday on methamphetamine use.   A forthcoming Health Ministry survey apparently shows a decrease in the proportion who report using P over the past year, from 2.1% in 2007/2008 to 1% now (yes, that will be larger than the margin of error; it’s a big survey).

On the other hand, an ongoing Massey University study that interviews police detainees about drug and alcohol use finds that the street price and availability of P have not really changed.

This evidence of a decrease on the demand side is encouraging for two reasons.  First, it suggests a decrease in the number of people who are dumb enough to want to take methamphetamine, which has to be progress.  Second, it suggests that the pseudoephedrine ban wasn’t responsible, as that should have acted on the supply side by driving up street prices.  Can we have our Sudafed back?

Team Ratings for Round 13

Here are the team ratings prior to Round 13, along with the ratings at the start of the season. I have created a brief description of the method I use for predicting rugby games. Go to my Department home page to see this.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 91 matches played, 53 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 58.24%.

Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 13

Here are the predictions for Round 13

Team Ratings for Week 15

Here are the team ratings prior to Week 15, along with the ratings at the start of the season. I have created a brief description of the method I use for predicting rugby games. Go to my Department home page to see this.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 94 matches played, 66 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 70.2%.

Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Week 15

Here are the predictions for Week 15. The prediction is my estimated points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

The Herald has a story about curcumin, a component of turmeric (which, as you know, is what makes curry stains hard to get rid of).  Apparently it also has some interesting effects on  a component of the immune system. The story appears in quite a few newspapers around the world, and in Science Daily and Medical Daily, which collect this sort of story.

Often it’s hard to tell how much the stories depend just on the press release or whether someone at one of the specialised sites has actually taken a look at the paper.  It’s not hard in this example, though: the paper hasn’t appeared yet.  There seems to be some slipup at the journal. The university press release and all the sites say the paper came out Friday 25th May, but the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry hasn’t gotten to Friday yet: at the time of writing this they are still on Thursday 24 May.

The Herald had a  clicky poll on the proposed R-plate restricted-driving legislation, and has reported the results in an unobjectionable paragraph at the end of a good story getting input from experts.  I’m not sure that the poll actually adds to the story, but at least it doesn’t subtract from it.

You can report a self-selected sample responsibly: the Otago Daily Times shows how. Their lead:

Ninety percent of people who have made submissions on the Queenstown Lakes District Council representation review want to keep an Arrowtown ward and councillor.

The Herald has a headline “Wanna live longer? Look on the bright side”.  The story goes on to say

A study of 243 centenarians revealed that most were cheerful and sociable. The positive personality traits may be genetically based, the researchers believe.

If it’s really genetics that produces the positive personality traits, the advice isn’t going to do much good.  The research paper that produced the story is here, for comparison

The story also says

The study involved Ashkenazi Jews from eastern Europe.

Actually, from the US, though many of them were migrants from central and eastern Europe.  Then

They are good candidates for gene studies because they’re genetically similar to one another.

which is true.  But this wasn’t a gene study, and the relative genetic and environmental homogeneity of the Ashkenazim make them a particularly bad choice for a study that compares Ashkenazi centenarians with the US population of all ages.

In fact, the point of the research paper wasn’t to compare centenarians with others.  The main point of the research paper was really to describe the questionnaire that the researchers are using in their genetic study and compare it to other questionnaires measuring similar psychological traits.  We can see this from the concluding sentence in their abstract:

Findings suggest that the POPS is a psychometrically sound measure of personality in centenarians and capture personality aspects of extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, as well as dispositional optimism which may contribute to successful aging.  

That is, the researchers assume that these personality aspects will turn out to be important (in the genetic studies) and are looking at how well they are measuring these traits.  That’s all perfectly reasonable, it’s just strange to see how it morphs into the newspaper story.

Thanks for all those who nominated in last week’s Stat of the Week competition.

This week we’re awarding Jonathan Goodman’s nomination of some good reporting of migration statistics with explanations, figures for comparison and context in an article in the Dominion Post. We’ve talked about poor migration reporting in the past, so it is nice to see good reporting for a change!

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday June 1 2012.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of May 26 – June 1 2012 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.
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If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!