Data curation is a new term to many people, and many seasoned data scientists are new to it. Data curation involves making diagrams, tables, and other files that help you keep track of, document, and interpret data. Curation files are especially helpful for communicating about data on teams. Learn more about what you’ll learn when […]
14
Oct
Oct
I use the datasets from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) to demonstrate in a lot of my data science tutorials. The BRFSS are free and available to the public – but they are kind of buried on the web site. This blog post serves as a “map” to help you find them!
11
Oct
Oct
I love the Likert package in R, and use it often to visualize data. The problem is that sometimes, I have sparse data, and this can cause problems with the package. This blog post shows you a workaround, and also, a way to format the final plot that I think looks really great!
08
Oct
Oct
After being hit with the pandemic, I’m racing to catch up with my blog! Here are a few announcements of new courses, new scientific papers, and new ideas on data science!
Data Science
I Used the R Package EpiCurve to Make an Epidemiologic Curve. Here’s How It Turned Out.
14
Mar
Mar
With all this talk about “flattening the curve” of the coronavirus, I thought I would get into the weeds about what curve we are talking about when we say that. We are talking about what’s called an epidemiologic curve, or epicurve for short. And to demonstrate what an epicurve is and what it means, I […]
Reviews
Review of Boston University MPH Online Learning Modules for Teaching Graduate Level Public Health Online
10
Mar
Mar
Are you struggling to get through your public health degree? Maybe you need to finish a master’s thesis, but you are stuck on the statistics. Or, you let’s say you are a doctoral student, and your committee is not really helping you. You find yourself relying on online resources – like MPH online learning modules […]
Data Science
Here is the Statistical Reason why Calculating the Coronavirus Mortality Rate is so Difficult
07
Mar
Mar
Since the coronavirus (COVID-19) registered on our public health radar as a communicable infectious disease amongst humans, countries try to calculate their coronavirus mortality rate (otherwise known as case fatality rate). As a result, many different mortality rates have been reported, causing confusion. This article from Business Insider reports country-wide mortality rates that range from […]
04
Mar
Mar
Snowflake is a new big data cloud back-end solution, and the company has been holding “Data for Breakfast” meetings in many different cities to introduce data scientists to their product. I went to the meeting held on March 4, 2020 at the Marriott Long Wharf in Boston, and here is my review. Not My First […]
02
Mar
Mar
I encourage those of you into data science and AI to sign up to receive digests from Data Science Central. I happened upon this web site when looking for some references for a book I am writing, and found some amazing articles. Since I’m into data science in and AI in healthcare, I was intrigued […]
Career Development
Physical College Classrooms are so Yesterday. Why Are We Still Studying Deeper Learning in Face-to-Face Settings?
17
Feb
Feb
My colleague who is a professor at Fitchburg State University studies deeper learning in face-to-face and online approaches in higher education. The idea is that if educators use deeper learning approaches, the students will learn more efficiently. Others have talked to me about deeper learning, and when I looked into it, I found that the […]