Here are the data sets for the Case Studies in Data Analysis sessions at the 1999 Annual Meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada. Both Case Studies come from major long-term government studies of national - and international - importance.
Abdel El-Shaarawi of the National Water Research Institute, Canada Centre for Inland Waters, has provided a record of two pollutants, dieldrin and polychlorinated biphenyls, together with flow data, from stations at each end of the Niagara River. There are 965 observations taken more or less weekly at each station from April 1986 to March 1996. The objective is to see if the reduction in pollution targeted in the Declaration of Intent (1987) has been achieved. While this can be viewed as testing for trend in a multivariate time series, there are issues of calibration, upper and lower detection limits, missing data, changes in measurement techniques over time, seasonal fluctuations, point sources of pollution, and unevenly spaced observations.
Dena Schanzer of Health Canada has prepared this exercise as an opportunity to become familiar with statistical methods used in epidemiological research. The data set includes population, number of deaths attributed to breast cancer and the number of new cases of breast cancer by age group at the national level since 1969 and at the regional level since 1984. The data were collected and standardized by Statistics Canada. The objective is to study regional rates, regional trends, age-specific trends and age-period-cohort analyses.
The Case Studies in Data Analysis sessions will be held at the SSC Annual Meeting in Regina, 6-9 June, 1999. Each Case Study will be introduced by a subject-matter expert, so that the teams presenting analyses will not have to repeat the background information. It is expected that each team will have 15 minutes to present their results, but this will depend on the number of teams presenting. You could opt for a poster presentation if you prefer.
While anyone is welcome to present their analyses of the Case Studies, the sessions are aimed at teams of graduate and senior undergraduate students working either with or without faculty mentors. If you think you might want to participate, please let me know by 15 March 1999. I will contact registrants shortly after that date to confirm the list of names for your team and the title of your presentation, and your choice of a platform or poster presentation. I will also need to know if you are giving any other papers at the meeting, to avoid scheduling conflicts.
You will doubtless have questions once you start working on the data. You can ask us, you don't have to guess the answer! While you are free to contact the people who prepared the exercises, we would prefer you to direct your questions to me in the first instance and I will put answers to frequently-asked questions on the web pages. You are, of course, free to submit questions in either language, English or French.
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Dr P.D.M. Macdonald |
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(905) 525-9140 x 23423 |
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