Next Meeting in 2 weeks

[Madelaine Gogol]

Hi,

Our next meeting is scheduled for two weeks from today, Wednesday,
October 10th, 6:30-8 pm at the plaza library (large meeting room).
Let's see how an evening meeting goes, I know a few people have
expressed interest.

Let's try to get a few different people presenting shorter things for
this meeting. I can talk about making my first map with R and show
some radial plots. Anyone have anything else they'd like to show?

You can RSVP here if you plan on coming:

http://groupspaces.com/KCRUsersGroup/item/317239

Madelaine

[Earl F. Glynn]

Normally Wed. evenings would be fine (almost any time is fine for me), but I
can't make it this month.

I had planned to briefly talk about two coursera classes that are in
progress now (about to start the 3rd week), both of which use R:

Computing for Data Analysis (4 wks)
https://class.coursera.org/compdata-2012-001/class/index

This class has been a useful review for me, and I've picked up a few R
tricks. I (re)discovered split followed by lapply/sapply -- and tapply can
also be quite useful. I didn't get much out of the first programming
assignment, but some new to R are struggling with it.

Mathematical Biostatistics Boot Camp (7 wks)
https://class.coursera.org/biostats-2012-001/class/index

This is a good refresher class for me, but some may be a bit overwhelmed by
the math. Calculus is regularly used in class lectures and is needed for
the quizes. R is occasionally mentioned. I'm not sure if there will be an
R programming assignment or not.

I thought this might be good class to recommmend to Stowers' scientists but
I think the math level may scare away many biologists.

There is a Data Analysis class that starts in Jan 2013 that might be useful
and will focus on the use of R. I plan to sign up for that.
https://www.coursera.org/#course/dataanalysis

I audited a few weeks of the Machine Learning class early this year and it
appeared to be an excellent class (but used Octave/Matlab instead of R):
https://class.coursera.org/ml/class/index

The one R trick I learned this month was that rownames/colnames should only
be applied to matrices and just happen to work for data.frames. For
data.frames one should use names for the columns and row.names for the rows.


I had a data.frame with 17 million rows and wanted to change one of the
column names. This took forever using colnames but only a few seconds with
names. I found this explanation online:
https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2006-September/042876.html. But I
rarely have 17 million rows <g>.

efg

Earl F Glynn
Overland Park

[Madelaine Gogol]

Funny you should mention coursera... I was also following the mathematical biostatistics boot camp class until last week when I got busier. I also felt pretty rusty on the calculus, which made it a little tricky to keep up.

I also went back and looked at some of the "statistics one" course. I'm also signed up for the data analysis class in January. It's pretty awesome that these things are available out there for free.

Madelaine

[Ariel Paulson]

I won't be able to make it either, I just realized I had already booked this Wednesday evening (and the next 2 as well)

Ariel

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Earl F. Glynn <efg...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Madelaine Gogol]

Hmm. Well, I've still got two other folks who've RSVP'd on the groupspaces page... Are you guys planning on coming, Scott or Ikuyasu? Anybody else thinking about coming or have anything to share?

I'll come if other people are coming, but I don't mind canceling it. Weeknights are more of a hassle for me, personally.

I've already scheduled the next meeting for the plaza library small meeting room at 2pm Saturday, December 8th.

Madelaine

[Scott Smerchek]

I'm pretty new to R. I used it a little bit in my college statistics course. Mostly, I just wanted to meet some other people that use R and start learning it again. I have a computer science background and I'm looking to get into Data Science type stuff. At any rate, I wouldn't have anything to share. I am planning on looking into those coursera courses though.

- Scott

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Ikuyasu Usui <iku...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, Madelaine. Well, it gives me so much pressure! Well, if there aren't many interests in the meeting this week, I guess you may cancel it. I don't want to feel like I HAVE TO come.

I am thinking about starting up a Lawrence-KS local R usergroup, and I really want to observe how you guys do. But I live in Lawrence, and it is not as easy as just

driving by the Plaza. But thank you for leading it.

Ikuyasu

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[Franklin M. Siler]

On Oct 8, 2012, at 14:24 , Ikuyasu Usui wrote:

> Hi, Madelaine. Well, it gives me so much pressure! Well, if there aren't many interests in the meeting this week, I guess you may cancel it. I don't want to feel like I HAVE TO come.
> I am thinking about starting up a Lawrence-KS local R usergroup, and I really want to observe how you guys do. But I live in Lawrence, and it is not as easy as just
> driving by the Plaza. But thank you for leading it.

A Lawrence users group would be awesome. I would probably actually make those meetings!

Frank
Lawrence, KS

[Madelaine Gogol]

Alright, well, I'll still come and we'll see how it goes! I'm fine with small meetings, just not less than 2 people meetings...

A Lawrence group would be great -- we used to get people from as far as Topeka, so I think you'd have an interested audience. Maybe we could have a joint meeting once a year or something.

Madelaine

[Madelaine Gogol]

Tonight I'll plan on talking about all of the following, so come if you're curious! Bring anything you've been working on, something neat you just found out, or any questions you want to pose to the group.

Radial plots

Maps with R

Fitbit data

A personal progress bar

I'll bring t-shirts and R swag for anyone who wants it. I also have a few copies of a new book "R for Dummies" that the publisher sent. I'll be giving them away during the meeting.

Madelaine