April

In This Issue

With winter officially in the rear view mirror, now we're all just hoping that these April showers will bring May flowers - preferably sooner if they can manage!

We have a very full issue for you this month, so continue reading for more about our April luncheon with Gabriel Gaster, Statistical Analysis & Visualizations of Divvy Bikes in Chicago, which will emphasize design and content aspects of an engaging Divvy visualization, and the May luncheon with Kris Hammond, Using AI to Make Sense of the Numbers: Generating Meaningful Narratives from Big Data, about natural language generation.

We've also included articles about a new, statistically-focused show on The National Geographic Channel, statisticians getting good representation on the 'Top 10 Best Jobs of 2015' list, Kris Hammond quoted in Wired, and information about how to advertise your job opening, academic program, or consulting services with the CCASA.

Statistical Analysis & Visualizations of Divvy Bicycles in Chicago

Gabriel Gaster

April 21st 2015

12pm-1:30pm

East Bank Club

500 N. Kingsbury

Chicago, IL 60610

Click here to register for the April luncheon

Abstract

Divvy bikes have changed the way we can get around Chicago. This talk will demonstrate the impact of Divvy with an interactive visualization. Rather than focus on the tools and languages used to build it, the talk will emphasize design and content aspects of the visualization (at divvy.datasco.pe) as well as some recent work to quantify the similarity of bike stations. The talk will feature a live-demo of the visualization and the opportunity for attendees to share their own thoughts and hypotheses about bike trip patterns.

The talk will also touch on the following other topics, as time allows:

Visualizing the interconnectedness of Chicago:

How are neighborhoods connected?

How transportation patterns vary throughout the city:

What does bike share tell us about land-use?

Predicting station-down time

Bio

Gabe Gaster is a data scientist at Datascope Analytics, a data science firm based out of Chicago. There, Gabe has worked on projects in the internet of things, market research for R&D, and visualizing bike transportation. Gabe also helped develop the recommender system for SimpleRelevance, and teaches math at the Chicago Math Circle.Click here for more information about Datascope Analytics.

Please note:

Unfortunately we are unable to refund registration fees. However, if you find you are unable to attend, you are welcome to extend your reservation to someone else.

Please emailAdam McElhinney (adam.m.mcelhinney@gmail.com)with the name of the person who will be attending in your place.

Using AI to Make Sense of the Numbers:

Generating Meaningful Narratives from

Big Data

Kris Hammond

May 19th 2015

12pm-1:30pm

East Bank Club

500 N. Kingsbury

Chicago, IL 60610

Click here to register for the May luncheon

Abstract

The promise of Big Data has been largely left unfulfilled because as of how quickly our data sets have grown.Our current processes assumes that trained professionals will analyze data, then articulate what they find. Unfortunately, this approach isn't sustainable in that people simply cannot scale at the same pace as the explosive growth and proliferation of data. One alternative is to replace the human in this equation with technology that can analyze data sets and use the results of that analysis to generate narratives that explain, not the data, but the state of the world that gave rise to it.

Kris Hammond will explain why natural language generation is the last mile in Big Data and provide use cases from Narrative Science customers who are using natural language generation in tandem with other business intelligence tools to achieve maximum success for their organizations.

Bio

In addition to being Narrative Science's Chief Scientist, Kris Hammond is a professor of Computer Science and Journalism at Northwestern University. Prior to joining the faculty at Northwestern, Kris founded the University of Chicago's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His research has been primarily focused on artificial intelligence, machine-generated content and context-driven information systems. Kris currently sits on a United Nations policy committee run by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). He received his PhD from Yale.Click here for more information about Narrative Science.

Please note:

Unfortunately we are unable to refund registration fees. However, if you find you are unable to attend, you are welcome to extend your reservation to someone else.

Please emailAdam McElhinney (adam.m.mcelhinney@gmail.com)with the name of the person who will be attending in your place.

Registration for the April workshop is full, and is now closed!

Modern Regression Strategies

Frank E. Harrell Jr.

Vanderbilt University

April 24th 2015

8:30am - 4:30pm

The Feinberg School of Medicine

Northwestern University

680 North Lake Shore Drive - Ste 1400

Chicago, IL 60611

Click here for additional details

The CCASA would like to introduce the nominations for next year's Board of Directors:

Joe DeCosmo - President

Steve Olson - President Elect

Ed Hirschland - Immediate Past-President

Richard Smiley- VP Secretary

Dan Hayes - VP Treasurer

Adam McElhinney- VP Luncheons

John Vanderploeg - VP Membership

Mary Kwasny - VP Communications

Jan Gollins - VP Workshops

Kwang-Youn A Kim - VP Conferences

Borko Jovanovic - VP Council of Chapters Rep.

Julie Schmidt - VP Publicity

At Large Directors:

Tony Babinec

John Watts

Larry Hedges

Gerry Funk

Kathy Morrissey

Kyle Cheek

Don Patchell

Joe Retzer

Did you know that ASA has a website dedicated to helping younger statistical professionals? Whether you're considering a double-major or want to use your statistics background to veer off the beaten path, check out STAT tr@ckfor everything from conference events, workshops, and professional development advice!

Artificial Intelligence startups naturally come with a lot of hype, but AI also has the potential to change the way we interact create media. Kris Hammond, the CCASA's May speaker, was quoted recently about the potential for this technology.

From Kris Hammond in Wired:

Like it or not, AI tech is "entering the era of the narrative," explains Kris Hammond, chief scientist at Narrative Science, one of several "natural language generation" startups emerging as vendors in this nascent field. "These are narratives generated by systems that understand data, that give us information to support the decisions we need to make about tomorrow."

It's truly a sign of the times when Kal Penn, who is normally known as Kumar (from the "Harold and Kumar" movies), sets aside the White Castle burgers to instead star as a 'statistics-wielding socio-scientific analyst' in The National Geographic Channel's new show, "The Big Picture with Kal Penn".

Is it perhaps a sign of the Big Data fervor affecting even TV and movies? Or is it a sign that statisticians are to become more popular than Hollywood movie stars? We'll have to wait and see!

For the second year in a row, CareerCast has ranked Statistician #4 on its list of the best jobs. Jobs are chosen according to their environment (such as how hazardous they are), income, unemployment, and stress level.Another sign of the times? Data Scientist comes in at #6.

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