Data Skeptic

This episode explores how going wine testing could teach us about using markov chain monte carlo (mcmc).

Direct download: MINI_mcmc.mp3
Category:miniepisode -- posted at: 11:24pm PDT

This episode introduces the idea of a Markov Chain. A Markov Chain has a set of states describing a particular system, and a probability of moving from one state to another along every valid connected state. Markov Chains are memoryless, meaning they don't rely on a long history of previous observations. The current state of a system depends only on the previous state and the results of a random outcome.

Markov Chains are a useful way method for describing non-deterministic systems. They are useful for destribing the state and transition model of a stochastic system.

As examples of Markov Chains, we discuss stop light signals, bowling, and text prediction systems in light of whether or not they can be described with Markov Chains.

Direct download: MINI_Markov_Chains.mp3
Category:miniepisode -- posted at: 12:00am PDT

Nicole Goebel joins us this week to share her experiences in oceanography studying phytoplankton and other aspects of the ocean and how data plays a role in that science.

 

We also discuss Thinkful where Nicole and I are both mentors for the Introduction to Data Science course.

Last but not least, check out Nicole's blog Data Science Girl and the videos Kyle mentioned on her Youtube channel featuring one on the diversity of phytoplankton and how that changes in time and space.

Direct download: Oceanography_and_Data_Science.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:06am PDT

This episode explores Ordinary Least Squares or OLS - a method for finding a good fit which describes a given dataset.

Direct download: MINI_Ordinary_Least_Squares_Regression.mp3
Category:miniepisode -- posted at: 12:43am PDT

New York State approved the use of automated speed cameras within a specific range of schools. Tim Schmeier did an analysis of publically available data related to these cameras as part of a project at the NYC Data Science Academy. Tim's work leverages several open data sets to ask the questions: are the speed cameras succeeding in their intended purpose of increasing public safety near schools? What he found using open data may surprise you.

You can read Tim's write up titled Speed Cameras: Revenue or Public Safety? on the NYC Data Science Academy blog. His original write up, reproducible analysis, and figures are a great compliment to this episode.

For his benevolent recommendation, Tim suggests listeners visit Maddie's Fund - a data driven charity devoted to helping achieve and sustain a no-kill pet nation. And for his self-serving recommendation, Tim Schmeier will very shortly be on the job market. If you, your employeer, or someone you know is looking for data science talent, you can reach time at his gmail account which is timothy.schmeier at gmail dot com.

Direct download: NYC_Speed_Camera_Analysis.mp3
Category:open data -- posted at: 10:16pm PDT

The k-means clustering algorithm is an algorithm that computes a deterministic label for a given "k" number of clusters from an n-dimensional datset.  This mini-episode explores how Yoshi, our lilac crowned amazon's biological processes might be a useful way of measuring where she sits when there are no humans around.  Listen to find out how!

Direct download: MINI_k-means_clustering.mp3
Category:miniepisode -- posted at: 11:38pm PDT

Emre Sarigol joins me this week to discuss his paper Online Privacy as a Collective Phenomenon. This paper studies data collected from social networks and how the sharing behaviors of individuals can unintentionally reveal private information about other people, including those that have not even joined the social network! For the specific test discussed, the researchers were able to accurately predict the sexual orientation of individuals, even when this information was withheld during the training of their algorithm.

The research produces a surprisingly accurate predictor of this private piece of information, and was constructed only with publically available data from myspace.com found on archive.org. As Emre points out, this is a small shadow of the potential information available to modern social networks. For example, users that install the Facebook app on their mobile phones are (perhaps unknowningly) sharing all their phone contacts. Should a social network like Facebook choose to do so, this information could be aggregated to assemble "shadow profiles" containing rich data on users who may not even have an account.

Direct download: Shadow_Profiles_on_Social_Networks.mp3
Category:privacy -- posted at: 6:26pm PDT

The Chi-Squared test is a methodology for hypothesis testing. When one has categorical data, in the form of frequency counts or observations (e.g. Vegetarian, Pescetarian, and Omnivore), split into two or more categories (e.g. Male, Female), a question may arise such as "Are women more likely than men to be vegetarian?" or put more accurately, "Is any observed difference in the frequency with which women report being vegetarian differ in a statistically significant way from the frequency men report that?"

Direct download: MINI_Chi-Squared_Test.mp3
Category:miniepisode -- posted at: 9:58pm PDT

My quest this week is noteworthy a.i. researcher Randy Olson who joins me to share his work creating the Reddit World Map - a visualization that illuminates clusters in the reddit community based on user behavior.

Randy's blog post on created the reddit world map is well complimented by a more detailed write up titled Navigating the massive world of reddit: using backbone networks to map user interests in social media. Last but not least, an interactive version of the results (which leverages Gephi) can be found here.

For a benevolent recommendation, Randy suggetss people check out Seaborn - a python library for statistical data visualization. For a self serving recommendation, Randy recommends listeners visit the Data is beautiful subreddit where he's a moderator.

Direct download: Mapping_Reddit_Topics.mp3
Category:data viz -- posted at: 1:00am PDT

When dealing with dynamic systems that are potentially undergoing constant change, its helpful to describe what "state" they are in.  In many applications the manner in which the state changes from one to another is not completely predictable, thus, there is uncertainty over how it transitions from state to state.  Further, in many applications, one cannot directly observe the true state, and thus we describe such situations as partially observable state spaces.  This episode explores what this means and why it is important in the context of chess, poker, and the mood of Yoshi the lilac crowned amazon parrot.

Direct download: MINI_Partially_Observable_State_Spaces.mp3
Category:miniepisode -- posted at: 11:41pm PDT