STA442/2101: Methods of Applied Statistics

University of Toronto, Fall 2012

http://www.utstat.toronto.edu/~brunner/appliedf12

Lecture: Friday 2:10-5:00 in SS 2117.

• Instructor: Jerry Brunner
• Office: SS6025
• Phone: 416-978-0673
• email: brunner[at]utstat.toronto.edu
• Office Hours: Wednesday 11-1 and Friday 11-12

Note: I do not read my email every day, and the problem tends to get worse as the term progresses. It is much more efficient to talk with me before or after class, or during office hours.

Textbook: Statistical models (2003) by A. C. Davison. It is available in pdf format free through the U of T library. Other background reading materials will be available on the course home page.

Topics: Large-sample tools, Simulation, Likelihood methods, Normal linear models, Factorial ANOVA, Multiple comparisons, Power and sample size, Random effects, Multivariate linear models, Within-cases designs, Logistic regression and other generalized linear models, Permutation tests, Bootstrapping. We will use R and SAS.

Prerequisite: For STA2101, a course in linear regression; for STA442, STA303 or equivalent.

Grading: There will be a quiz each week in lecture, starting Friday September 21st. There will also be a comprehensive final exam. The quizzes count for 70% of your mark, and the final exam will count 30%.

There will be eleven quizzes. The lowest quiz mark will be dropped. There will be an assignment for each quiz. The knowledge you need to do each quiz is a subset of the knowledge you need to do the corresponding assignment. Some (most) of the assignments include a computer part. You will bring printouts to the quiz and answer questions based on the printouts. Possibly, one of the quiz questions will be to hand in a printout. The non-computer parts of the assignments are just to prepare you for the quizzes; they will never be handed in.

Undergraduate and graduate students will take the same weekly quizzes, and the same criteria for marking will be employed. There will be a separate and more challenging final examination for the graduate students.

Policy for missed work: If you miss a quiz, the mark is zero. However, your lowest quiz mark will be dropped. If you miss a quiz with a valid excuse, your mark on the final exam will be substituted for the missing quiz mark.

Academic Honesty: It is an academic offense to present someone else's work as your own, or to allow your work to be copied for this purpose. To repeat: the person who allows her/his work to be copied is equally guilty, and subject to disciplinary action by the university.

It is fine to discuss the assignments and to learn from each other, but don't copy. You are expected to do the work yourself, and then perhaps compare answers after you have done so.

• For the non-computer parts of the homework: Never photocopy or photograph anyone's homework, or allow your homework to be photocopied or photographed. Copying by hand is also strongly discouraged. Your "friends" may ask you. You are expected to refuse.
  
• For the computer parts of the homework: Never look at anyone else's printouts or show anyone your printout before the quiz when they might be handed in. Above all, do not allow anyone in the class to see your program file before a computer assignment is due, and do not look at anyone else's.

  For some quizzes, you will be asked to bring your printouts to class; maybe you will hand them in, and maybe you will use them to answer some questions. Never, ever, bring a copy of somebody else's printout, or allow anyone to have a copy of yours. Again, your "friends" may ask you. You are expected to refuse.

You might be surprised to know how easy it is to detect copying on computer assignments. Here are some guidelines:

• It is permitted to copy from me. If your work is very similar to what is presented in lecture, office hours or suggested readings, that is okay.
• If two students have computer work that is excessively similar to each other, but not similar to what was presented in lecture or office hours, that is evidence of cheating. Of course it's easier to detect if the work is also wrong.
• Direct copying of computer code from the internet is prohibited. You are expected to do the work yourself. An exception is that you may download a publically available R function that does what you need to do.

It is acceptable to get help with your assignments from someone outside the class, but the help must be limited to general discussion and examples that are not the same as the assignment. As soon as you get an outside person to actually start working on one of your assignments, you have committed an academic offense. (Unless the person refuses to teell you the answer and just laughs at you because it was so easy.)

For more detail, the latest version of the student handout "How not to Plagiarize" is available at http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/using-sources/how-not-to-plagiarize The Academic Regulations of the University are outlined in the Code of Behaviour on Academic matters, which can be found in the Arts and Science Calendar or on the web at http://www.governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/policies/behaveac.htm.