October 24, 2016
Briefly
- From the “no way this could go wrong” file, via Richard Easther, “Biosensors to monitor US students’ attentiveness”
- I would never have guessed this was a problem, but “Data from three national surveys indicated that people are unaware that age is a risk factor for cancer. Moreover, those who were least aware perceived the highest risk of cancer regardless of age.” (free abstract but paywalled paper, via @RolfDegen)
- Useful graph of uncertainty in vote margin and winner from Nate Silver on Twitter.
- There’s a computer-personalised education system supported by Facebook that seems to be getting good results. On the other hand, the evidence for the effectiveness isn’t very good quality, and the handling of data privacy is weak. There’s going to be a lot of this sort of issue coming up in the data-based policy world. (Washington Post)
- Rhema Vaithianathan on the potential for big data in social policy. Eric Crampton on some of the risks. Changing who has access to information and who controls that access is a big deal, with both risks and benefits.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »