The Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve is a measure of how well a statistical or machine learning model (or a medical diagnostic procedure) can distinguish between two classes, say 1’s and 0’s. For example, fraudulent insurance claims (1’s) and non-fraudulent ones (0’s). It plots two quantities:
Monthly Archives: November 2018
Triage and Artificial Intelligence
Predictim is a service that scans potential babysitters’ social media and other online activity and issues them a score that parents can use to select babysitters. Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, commented: There’s a mad rush to seize the power of AI to make all kinds of decisions withoutContinue reading “Triage and Artificial Intelligence”
Deming’s Funnel Problem
W. Edwards Deming’s funnel problem is one of statistics’ greatest hits. Deming was a noted statistician who took the statistical process control methods of Shewhart and expanded them into a holistic approach to manufacturing quality. Initially, his ideas were cooly received in the US and he ended up implementing them first in Japan. The successContinue reading “Deming’s Funnel Problem”
Industry Spotlight: the Auto Industry
The auto industry serves as a perfect exemplar of three key eras of statistics and data science in service of industry: Total Quality Management (TQM) First in Japan, and later in the U.S., the auto industry became an enthusiastic adherent to the Total Quality Management philosophy. Fundamentally, TQM is all about using data to improveContinue reading “Industry Spotlight: the Auto Industry”
Analytics Professionals – Must They Be Good Communicators?
Most job ads in the technical arena list communication among the sought-after skills; it consistently outranks many programming and analytical skills. Is it for real, or is it just thrown in there by the HR Department on general principle? The founder of a leading analytics services firm told me that good biostatisticians in the pharmaceuticalContinue reading “Analytics Professionals – Must They Be Good Communicators?”
Prospective vs. Retrospective
A prospective study is one that identifies a scientific (usually medical) problem to be studied, specifies a study design protocol (e.g. what you’re measuring, who you’re measuring, how many subjects, etc.), and then gathers data in the future in accordance with the design. The definition of the problem under study does not change once theContinue reading “Prospective vs. Retrospective”
The Evolution of Clinical Trials
Boiling oil versus egg yolks One early clinical trial was accidental. In the 16th century, a common treatment for wounded soldiers was to pour boiling oil on their wounds. In 1537, the surgeon Ambroise Pare, attending French soldiers, ran out of oil one evening. He tried a substitute: egg yolks, turpentine and oil of roses.Continue reading “The Evolution of Clinical Trials”
Random Selection for Harvard Admission?
An ethical algorithm… Ethics in algorithms is a popular topic now. Usually the conversation centers around the possible unintentional bias or harm that a statistical or machine learning algorithm could do when it is used to select, score, rate, or rank people. For example – a credit scoring algorithm may include a predictor that isContinue reading “Random Selection for Harvard Admission?”