http://mikebader.net/blog/entries/feed2017-01-24T11:34:17-04:00Mike Bader2017-01-24T11:34:17-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2017-01-24:/blog/2017/jan/24/custom-homework-class-latex/

<p>I have been using the <a href="http://www-math.mit.edu/~psh/exam/examdoc.pdf">exam class</a> by <a href="http://www-math.mit.edu/~psh/">Philip Hirschhorn</a> in LaTeX to write out homework and tests for my class, The Epidemiology of Everyday Life. It allows me to write out problems with the ease of mathematical notation in LaTeX, provide solutions that can be turned on and off with a single line of code, and to easily tally points on various pages. If you haven't used it and teach a stats-based course, I would definitely recommend checking it out.</p> <p>I ran into a problem, however, because I am a procrastinating perfectionist. I have had a desired to have all of my teaching handouts to have a similar look. I created a custom syllabus class to do that, and I really liked it. I wanted the homework to have the same look. And what better way to procrastinate than to try to figure out the arcane rules of LaTeX!?</p> <a href='/blog/2017/jan/24/custom-homework-class-latex/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2017/jan/24/custom-homework-class-latex/#comments'>1 comment</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2017-01-02T10:51:39-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2017-01-02:/blog/2017/jan/02/workflow-directory-structure-plays-nicely-latex/

<p>I really like using LaTeX for writing, both articles and for teaching. I find that it eliminates many of the hassles of using Word. I started trying to figure out how to write my own packages this past year and ran into many problems. One of those problems was figuring out a way to keep the <code>.sty</code> packages in a directory that I could easily access and that would be convenient for my workflow rather than what the LaTeX directory structure enforced. </p> <p>The LaTeX search path includes two environment variables: <code>TEXMFHOME</code> and <code>TEXMFLOCAL</code> that determine where you would store <code>.sty</code> files to be recognized by LaTeX. If you follow the excellent instructions [here][texmf], you can use the Linux program <code>kpsewhich</code> to find where those paths are. For me they were at <code>/Users/&lt;USERNAME&gt;/Library/texmf</code> and <code>/Users/&lt;USERNAME&gt;/Library/texmf-local</code>, respectively. </p> <a href='/blog/2017/jan/02/workflow-directory-structure-plays-nicely-latex/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2017/jan/02/workflow-directory-structure-plays-nicely-latex/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2016-05-16T12:53:05-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2016-05-16:/blog/2016/may/16/want-diverse-neighborhood-move-suburbs/

<p>I hope that you will forgive the shameless self-promotion, but I recently <a href="http://bit.ly/nhoodTrajPaper">published a paper</a> in [Sociological Science][socsci] (yay open access!) that examined neighborhood racial change in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston metropolitan neighborhoods with an amazingly talented colleague, Siri Warkentien. </p> <a href='/blog/2016/may/16/want-diverse-neighborhood-move-suburbs/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2016/may/16/want-diverse-neighborhood-move-suburbs/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2015-01-22T11:23:43-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2015-01-22:/blog/2015/jan/22/stay-message/

<p>Have a message. State it. Write nothing else.</p> <p>Those are the first instructions to <em><a href="http://demographic-research.org/info/general_information.htm">Demographic Research</a></em> authors on their submission pages. I've heard variations on this theme before, but nothing as clearly stated as this. You might say that the <em>Demographic Research</em> editors had a message, stated it clearly, and wrote nothing else. </p> <p>I started using this advice to reframe several papers that I have hanging around. What I have found in my first week using this advice is that the organization of papers has become easier. My writing becomes crisper. My papers are shorter. And I find them to be more compelling. </p> <a href='/blog/2015/jan/22/stay-message/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2015/jan/22/stay-message/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2015-01-06T14:35:59-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2015-01-06:/blog/2015/jan/06/beckieball-or-selecting-skill/

<p>Over the weekend, <a href="http://scatter.wordpress.com/author/jeremyfreese/">jeremy</a> <a href="http://scatter.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/beckieball-and-the-study-of-not-quite-elite-selected-groups/">posted about beckieball</a>, a "new sport sweeping the country." The purpose was to show how selection on characteristics affects the correlation between characteristics upon selection. This, as commenter <a href="http://twitter.com/StuartBuck1">Stuart Buck</a> pointed out, is an example of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox">Berkson's Paradox</a>, though it relates to <a href="http://scatter.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/selection/">jeremy's post about height and nba</a>.</p> <p>Although he left several other exercises to the reader, I thought I would do a simpler one: recreate the code that he used to make his example. I did this a) because it was a semi-useful way to shake the cobwebs from egg nog and yuletides, and b) because I think that it will come in handy teaching someday. </p> <a href='/blog/2015/jan/06/beckieball-or-selecting-skill/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2015/jan/06/beckieball-or-selecting-skill/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2014-11-26T10:47:57-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2014-11-26:/blog/2014/nov/26/importing-text-files-variable-names-r/

<p>I am attempting to learn <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">R</a>. This is either a great thing or a terrible, terrible mistake while on the tenure clock. But, all the cool kids are doing -- so even though they might also jump off a bridge, I'm going to jump into R. </p> <p>The hardest part so far is doing things that now come as second nature to me in Stata. Although R's tools are much better in the long-run, learning what types of objects different functions return and such ends up being a very high learning curve. </p> <p>A while back (all posts are a while back now), I wrote <a href="http://mikebader.net/blog/2010/jul/23/importing-text-files-variable-names-stata/">a post</a> describing how to import data with variable labels in Stata. The idea was that I could keep the variable labels with the data in an text file so that I could always figure out what the variables were. It doesn't require an extra codebook or additional files that could be lost. </p> <p>I have now replicated that script for R, and it is below: </p> <a href='/blog/2014/nov/26/importing-text-files-variable-names-r/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2014/nov/26/importing-text-files-variable-names-r/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2013-08-21T14:05:08-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2013-08-21:/blog/2013/aug/21/making-amazing-apportionment-machine/

<p>I was born in Northern Colorado and now live just outside the District of Columbia. I can attest from personal experience that these two places do not share much. Except, that is, for their desire to become states.</p> <p style="text-align:center;"><iframe width="500" height="310" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RUCnb5_HZc0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p> <p><a href="">I was curious</a> what would happen if both became states as a modern-day [Missouri Compromise]. I wrote the following script to make the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCnb5_HZc0">Amazing Apportionment Machine</a> to reapportion seats and looked at two scenarios: the current distribution of congressional districts and the distribution if "Northern Colorado" and the "State of Columbia" were added as states.</p> <a href='/blog/2013/aug/21/making-amazing-apportionment-machine/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2013/aug/21/making-amazing-apportionment-machine/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-10-14T22:34:02-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-10-14:/blog/2011/oct/14/two-new-papers-residential-preferences-and-consequ/

<p>In the commotion of moving and starting my new job, I neglected to post about two articles that came out last month that I worked on for quite a while. The first, <a href="http://mikebader.net/cv/articles/reassessing-redevelopment" title="Reassessing Residential Preferences for Redevelopment (2011), mikebader.net">Reassessing Residential Preferences for Redevelopment</a>, was published in <em><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291540-6040" title="City &amp; Community - Wiley Online Library">City &amp; Community</a></em> last month in a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cico.2011.10.issue-3/issuetoc" title="City &amp; Community - Volume 10, Issue 3">special issue</a> on gentrification. My paper argues that much of our public policy and debate regarding changing residential preferences for gentrification occurs without actually measuring preferences in the population. Using the 2004-5 Chicago Area Study, I do just that to show that preferences break down along groups defined by home ownership. Home owners in the city of Chicago, regardless of race, are much more likely than their suburban counterparts to consider a redeveloped neighborhood. Meanwhile, race tends to unify preferences among renters in that blacks -- regardless of whether they live in Chicago or suburban Cook County -- would consider redeveloped neighborhood much more than their white renting counterparts, with Latino renters in between. I also find that traditional reasons middle-class people prefer redeveloped neighborhoods touted by gentrification and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_class">creative class proponents</a> only really apply among whites while black home owners prefer access to city services and Latinos prioritize access to employment.</p> <p>To the extent that cities hold developers accountable to mixed-income plans, these results suggest that redevelopment might help integrate communities economically <em>and racially</em>. Of course, this means actually holding developers accountable, which is sometimes difficult to do. Overall, the debate regarding who would <em>prefer</em> to live in redeveloped neighborhoods needs to be more nuanced and not based on where people do live. </p> <a href='/blog/2011/oct/14/two-new-papers-residential-preferences-and-consequ/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/oct/14/two-new-papers-residential-preferences-and-consequ/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-08-07T10:08:07-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-08-07:/blog/2011/aug/07/residentially-mobilizing-myself/

<img src='http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/AmericanUniversityLogoPrimary.jpg' alt='American University Logo' style='float:right; width:250px' /> <p>I am moving with my family this week so that I can start my new position at <a href="http://www.american.edu" title="American University, Washington, DC">American University</a> in the <a href="http://www.american.edu/cas/sociology" title="Sociology Degree Programs &amp; Department Information | American University, Washington, DC">Department of Sociology</a> and <a href="http://www.american.edu/cas/sociology/chrs/index.cfm" title="Center on Health, Risk and Society | American University, Washington, DC">Center on Health, Risk and Society</a>. I am very excited to be starting this new position being with great new colleagues, being in a wonderful academic and policy environment, and moving back to the area where my wife and I grew up. In addition to a much needed, if only possibly well deserved, vacation last week posts have necessarily been a little slow.<br /> </p> <p>As a scholar of residential mobility, it is very strange to be going through a move myself. Throughout the process, I attempted to remain as reflexive as possible to learn from my own experience and how that might help inform my work. Although nothing I did would constitute "real" research that could be written up and published in a journal, I felt that I was a true participant-observer in the process. The process certainly informed my understanding of the ways that the housing search is an intensely sociological as well as economic process given the bounded rationality of deciding what we could afford, the importance of social networks in overcoming information externalities, and the cultural component of purchasing a home that is often neglected. I have no doubt that these insights will inform my work on the topic, particularly as it highlights the need to understand the social and cultural context of the housing search in addition to traditional economic models.</p> <p><a href='/blog/2011/aug/07/residentially-mobilizing-myself/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-07-17T18:14:13-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-07-17:/blog/2011/jul/17/tips-statistical-software-scripts/

<p>While writing scripts is one of the most important skills for reproducible quantitative sociology, the typical convention is to pick up the skills through more experienced colleagues in graduate school or at the workplace. Below are a few tips that I have learned from others, picked up on my own, or otherwise accumulated in my arsenal of tricks that I thought that I would pass along. There are great resources out there, but I thought it would be helpful to pass along what I think are the most important and helpful tips.</p> <a href='/blog/2011/jul/17/tips-statistical-software-scripts/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/jul/17/tips-statistical-software-scripts/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-07-06T16:07:56-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-07-06:/blog/2011/jul/06/form-or-function/

<p><a href="http://aap.cornell.edu/crp/people/faculty-profile.cfm?customel_datapageid_7102=12043" title="Rolf Pendall">Rolf Pendall</a> posted a <a href="http://blog.metrotrends.org/2011/06/suburbanizing-poverty-fuzzy-concepts-fuzzy-policy/" title="Pendall: City or Suburb? The difficulty of ranking cities">short, interesting piece</a> on the suburbanization of poverty at the <a href="http://www.urban.org" title="Urban Institute">Urban Institute's</a> new <a href="http://blog.metrotrends.org/" title="Metro Trends Blog">Metro Trends Blog</a>. In it, he questions the basis of determining cities from suburbs in the service of understanding the "suburbanization of poverty." </p> <p>His criticism stems from the ambiguity of defining suburbs and cities based on their urban design and physical infrastructure. He demonstrates this ambiguity through examples of Houson, Texas (a city with extensive sprawl); Fremont, California (a suburb with its own employment base and denser development than Houston); and Silver Spring, Maryland (an inner-ring suburb with all of the accoutrements of urban living). </p> <p>His question is valid and one <a href="http://beh.columbia.edu" title="Built Environment and Health Project">we</a> face often in our work on New York: how relevant is work on New York City for the rest of the country. Just to provide an example of my own, the picture below that looks much like the Silver Spring neighborhood my family is preparing to move into is actually in New York City.</p> <iframe width="562" height="314" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=queens&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;gl=us&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=40.751255,-73.767138&amp;panoid=VLQzRg_ZzqnuwNt8n4n97w&amp;cbp=13,87.76,,0,-7.11&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Queens,+New+York&amp;ll=40.732982,-73.75843&amp;spn=0.040844,0.096474&amp;z=13&amp;source=embed&amp;output=svembed"></iframe> <p><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=queens&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;gl=us&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=40.751255,-73.767138&amp;panoid=VLQzRg_ZzqnuwNt8n4n97w&amp;cbp=13,87.76,,0,-7.11&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Queens,+New+York&amp;ll=40.732982,-73.75843&amp;spn=0.040844,0.096474&amp;z=13&amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small></p> <a href='/blog/2011/jul/06/form-or-function/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/jul/06/form-or-function/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-06-18T11:33:18-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-06-18:/blog/2011/jun/18/whole-foods-habitus/

<p>I believe firmly in the importance of research to inform policy based on observed facts. But, sometimes art expresses truth better than research ever could. I present the following as evidence of art capturing the essence of the Whole Foods habitus.</p> <div class='center'><object width="500" height="310"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2UFc1pr2yUU?hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2UFc1pr2yUU?hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x323299&color2=0xeeeeef&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div> <p>The video is of course meant to parody the cultural conventions of Whole Foods; but, I think that it really speaks to larger truths about culture, food, and inequality. While the video pokes fun at the Whole Foods consumer, I think that it accurately reflects how out of touch a vast swath of relatively privileged Americans are regarding the real struggles of poorer and many minority residents face when attempting to eat a healthy diet. Forget the fact that kombucha isn't on the shelves, many can't find produce or unspoiled meat as Dan Rose, my friend from graduate school documents in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1049732310387159" title="Rose, D.; Captive Audience?">this piece</a> Detroit neighborhoods where they are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.042150" title="Zenk, S., et al.; Neighborhood Racial Composition, Neighborhood Poverty, and the Spatial Accessibility of Supermarkets in Metropolitan Detroit">even lucky <em>if</em> they have grocery stores</a>.</p> <a href='/blog/2011/jun/18/whole-foods-habitus/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/jun/18/whole-foods-habitus/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-06-10T23:37:43-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-06-10:/blog/2011/jun/10/chicago-neighborhood-data-website-ccahs/

<p>After much hard work on the part of very talented people, the website for the <a href="http://isr.umich.edu/ccahs/" title="Chicago Community Adult Health Study">Chicago Community Adult Health Study</a> launched this week! For those who do not know about the project, it is an excellent dataset to examine influences of neighborhood environments on health outcomes among adults. The sample comes from all 343 Neighborhood Clusters in the city of Chicago, which allows a wide range of analyses across neighborhood environments. In addition to the survey of informants, there is also very rich data on the physical aspects of the neighborhood environment based on <a href="http://isr.umich.edu/ccahs/data.html" title="Data and Documentation -- Chicago Community Adult Health Study">systematic social observations</a> in all of the 343 Neighborhood Clusters.</p> <p><img alt="Estimated Levels of Physical Disorder" src="http://mikebader.net/media/images/DisorderKriging20110608scaled.png" title="Kriged Levels of Physical Disorder" /></p> <p>I took advantage of this in part of my dissertation to explore how small-scale predictors of neighborhood disorder could be constructed from the sample of systematic social observations. Combining the insights from <a href="http://sociology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/raudenbush.shtml" title="Stephen Raudenbush -- University of Chicago Department of Sociology">Steve Raudenbush</a> and <a href="http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/sampson/" title="Robert J. Sampson">Rob Sampson</a> regarding the benefit of using multiple items to rate characteristics of the neighborhood environment like disorder and the benefits of the geostatistical method of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriging" title="Kriging -- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia">kriging</a> to measure small-scale changes in the environment, I created a smooth surface of physical disorder across Chicago. Based on this method, one is not limited to pre-defined definitions of neighborhoods because block-level estimates can be reassembled into any configuration desired by the researcher. I then used this to show that observed physical disorder has a strong effect on residents' perceptions of neighborhood safety when we measure physical disorder at very small scales around a respondent, but almost no influence when we measure physical disorder at larger scales.</p> <p>Of course, this is only one of the ways that I have used (and continue to use) this data. If you are interested, feel free to contact me if you want to learn more about the data -- particularly the systematic social observation component.</p> <p><a href='/blog/2011/jun/10/chicago-neighborhood-data-website-ccahs/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-06-06T18:37:08-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-06-06:/blog/2011/jun/06/nesting-stata-macros-or-hacking-hash-map/

<p>Programming in Stata is relatively straightforward and this is partly because the programming syntax is both powerful and relatively straightforward. There are, however, a few minor annoyances in Stata's language including using the backtick and apostrophe to indicate local macros (i.e.,<code>`localname'</code>). Among these shortcomings, I would argue that the lack of anything like a list in Stata's language is one of the largest.</p> <p>In most langauges, you can store a list of items and refer to the item in the list by some sort of index. This is particularly helpful for iterating over the same step multiple times. Lists generally come in two flavors: lists to which you can refer to an item by its position in the list or lists which you can refer to by a keyword (called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_table" title="Hash table - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia">hash maps</a> in computer science lingo). Stata's matrices can be used for the first, though doing so might become complicated if you want to do something besides storing basic numbers or strings.</p> <a href='/blog/2011/jun/06/nesting-stata-macros-or-hacking-hash-map/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/jun/06/nesting-stata-macros-or-hacking-hash-map/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-04-16T11:37:55-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-04-16:/blog/2011/apr/16/structuring-work-data-cleaning-and-construction/

<p>In <a href="http://mikebader.net/blog/2011/mar/14/structuring-work-data-foundation-work/">the last step</a>, we downloaded all of our data and deposited into directories that store this source data, backed it up, and write-protected the files. Now that we have done all of that, it is time to start working with the data! There is only one problem: almost inevitably, the data do not come neat, tidy, and ready to use. Often, the data contain major problems and need to be constructed in order to be usable. In this installment, I will write about managing files for cleaning, constructing and storing datasets.</p> <a href='/blog/2011/apr/16/structuring-work-data-cleaning-and-construction/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/apr/16/structuring-work-data-cleaning-and-construction/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-03-14T15:50:20-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-03-14:/blog/2011/mar/14/structuring-work-data-foundation-work/

<p>After <a href="http://mikebader.net/blog/2011/feb/11/structuring-work-root-where-it-all-begins/" title="Mike Bader&apos;s Blog -- Structuring Work: The Root, Where it all Begins">establishing where my root directory resides</a> resides, it is time to actually get to work. As with any endeavor, success begins by laying a solid foundation and with academic work that begins foundation is our data.</p> <p>The most fundamental skill to academic success is asking good questions and acquiring data to answer those questions. Yet, in quantitative research, that skill is useless without the ability to manipulate data into useful formats that are capable of answering the good questions. Data cleaning, construction, and manipulation constitute well over half of my work on major quantitative projects. </p> <a href='/blog/2011/mar/14/structuring-work-data-foundation-work/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/mar/14/structuring-work-data-foundation-work/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-02-11T13:02:21-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-02-11:/blog/2011/feb/11/structuring-work-root-where-it-all-begins/

<p>In my <a href="http://mikebader.net/blog/2011/feb/04/structuring-work/" title="Mike Bader&apos;s Blog -- Structuring Work">last post</a>, I explained the value of a directory structure: consistent file management structures a disciplined workflow that increases productivity. The magnitude of its importance was a revelation that occurred largely after graduate school as the result of starting a new job. </p> <p>When I moved to start my new job, I needed to move my files to my new computer. In transferring my files, I realized that my work that followed my well-defined workflow transfered easily, while the work that didn't follow the workflow did not. </p> <p>The contrast between the ease with which I started the well-structured work and difficulty getting up to speed on disorganized pieces threw in sharp relief the importance of maintaining a workflow structured by a consistent file management system. For those well-organized projects the only difference being on my new computer was that I began work from a different "root directory".</p> <a href='/blog/2011/feb/11/structuring-work-root-where-it-all-begins/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/feb/11/structuring-work-root-where-it-all-begins/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2011-02-04T10:04:13-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2011-02-04:/blog/2011/feb/04/structuring-work/

<p>When I say that one of the most important things that I did in graduate school was set up a directory structure and workflow for my files, I am not kidding. Reading theory, learning statistical methods, and writing literature reviews were all important. However, just as important -- though not nearly as sexy -- is setting up a file structure and working directory. </p> <p>Despite how trivial it sounds, maintaining a well-designed directory structure not only provides a framework for files, it structures productive work. </p> <p>Given how important it was for me, I will attempt to explain the directory structure that I developed. Let me begin by saying that I am not an expert at developing directory structures. There are experts in these matters. Though I had an interest in becoming an expert at file management, I was too busy trying to become an expert in what I was actually studying to have the time. I will lay out in an ongoing series of posts the basic intuition behind my posts, what has seemed to work (and not) with this system, and improvements I would like to make. I would, of course, be interested in feedback and or comparisons to what others do. </p> <a href='/blog/2011/feb/04/structuring-work/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2011/feb/04/structuring-work/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-10-18T18:31:54-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-10-18:/blog/2010/oct/18/calculating-simple-power-analyses/

<p>I am currently preparing a proposal for submission and one piece of information that the agency suggests is the power required to distinguish effects. This is obviously a perfectly reasonable piece of information to request; however, power calculations fall into that class of things that I know that I should know but I don't. It is one of those topics that every statistics book will tell you is important, but either a) glosses over the topic, or b) provides such a deep background that it is impossible to follow what the authors are talking about. Additionally, power calculations are complicated enormously by the fact that sample designs can become very complicated. </p> <p>In contrast to this traditional treatment, <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/">Andrew Gelman</a> and <a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Jennifer_Hill">Jennifer Hill's</a> book, <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/72-9780521686891-0">Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models</a>, provides a very clear description of simple power analyses, which -- thankfully -- is all that I really need for this project. To make sure that I don't forget, I record below how to find the required sample size, <em>n</em>, for varying levels of between-group effect differences, &#916;, at 80% power. The formula is relatively easy (see pp. 437-447 for more info): (5.6&#963;/&#916;)². Therefore, if I measure change in units of standard deviations, <code>sd</code>, then I can estimate the sample size <code>n</code> for each unit of change.</p> <pre><code>drop _all range sd 0 1 41 gen n = (5.6/sd)^2 </code></pre> <p>I can then make a graph of the expected sample size required for a standard unit change using the command <code>twoway line n sd</code>; or, alternatively, just print a table of numbers using <code>list</code>.<br /> </p> <p><a href='/blog/2010/oct/18/calculating-simple-power-analyses/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-09-25T18:42:16-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-09-25:/blog/2010/sep/25/two-presentations-neighborhood-change/

<p>This week I gave two presentations on my work exploring the consequences of neighborhood change for the evolution of contemporary metropolitan racial and ethnic segregation. The <a href="http://mikebader.net/cv/presentations/evolution-racial-and-ethnic-segregation">first</a> was at the <a href="http://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/sociology_colloquia">University of Pennsylvania Sociology Colloquium</a>, which focused slightly more on the substantive conclusions, and the <a href="http://mikebader.net/cv/presentations/evolution-racial-and-ethnic-segregation-qmss">second</a> was presented at the Quantitative Methods in the Social Science seminar series at Columbia University and focused more on the methodological components of the work.</p> <p>I did not publish the slides for these talks because I will likely be giving the talk again (no spoilers!); however, feel free to <a href="http://mikebader.net/contact/">contact me</a> if you would like more information about them.</p> <p><a href='/blog/2010/sep/25/two-presentations-neighborhood-change/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-09-10T10:56:45-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-09-10:/blog/2010/sep/10/mapping-moves/

<p>My friend and colleague, <a href="http://iserp.columbia.edu/people/daniel-sheehan">Danny Sheehan</a> was <a href="http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2010/sep/09/map-your-moves-data-visualization-challenge/">interviewed</a> on <a href="http://wnyc.org/">WNYC's</a> <a href="http://wnyc.org/shows/bl/">Brian Lehrer Show</a> this week talking a map he designed that tracked the flow of residential mobility among Brian Lehrer listeners. Among 1,600 entries, his was selected as one of the <a href="http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/bl/blogs/scrapbook/2010/aug/18/map-your-moves-data-visualization-challenge-submissions/">15 featured</a>, and one of two people interviewed about his design on-air live. You can see a video his map <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjcGtSMLodk">here</a>.</p> <p>Since my research is about where people move, this is obviously more than of just passing interest to me and Danny's visualization of moves is an incredibly helpful tool to detect patterns of neighborhood change. I know this because Danny helped us with a project that I <a href="http://mikebader.net/cv/presentations/where-did-they-go-where-are-they-now">presented at ASA</a> last month mapping where former residents of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_Homes">Robert Taylor Homes</a> in Chicago moved after demolition of the project (in fact, he gives us a shout out around the 7:45 mark in the interview). Thinking about how to incorporate movement and the increasing availability of tools to do so can add a whole new dimension to residential mobility research.<br /> </p> <p><a href='/blog/2010/sep/10/mapping-moves/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-07-23T13:17:42-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-07-23:/blog/2010/jul/23/importing-text-files-variable-names-stata/

<p>I have come across a problem several times that has been relatively frustrating to deal with. I have data that is downloaded from a site (specifically the <a href="http://www.census.gov" title="Census Bureau Home Page">Census</a> (which is why this comes up consistently) in which the first two lines of the data contain the variable name and variable description respectively. This is incredibly useful for documenting data. Rather than attempting to figure out what variable <code>pct001001</code> means, the description of the variable is right there. </p> <p>The problem with data in this format is that Stata imports variables as string variables with the first observation being the variable description. I could pull the first two lines of the data out of the original dataset, transpose the rows and columns, save them in a separate text file, and then import the variable names and descriptions. However, managing two files means that it is more likely that one gets lost or I forget to send one of the files to a colleague working on the paper, or any number of other problems that could be experienced by separating these two files. Having one single file would be far superior and that is what the code below is designed to accommodate. </p> <p><a href="http://factfinder.census.gov" title="American Fact Finder">Data available from the U.S. Census</a> comes in the following format (data is clipped): </p> <a href='/blog/2010/jul/23/importing-text-files-variable-names-stata/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/jul/23/importing-text-files-variable-names-stata/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-06-22T10:45:37-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-06-22:/blog/2010/jun/22/investing-education-long-term/

<p>It is rare when I find myself in agreement with <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/stanley-fish/">Stanley Fish</a>. But I think in his most <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/deep-in-the-heart-of-texas/">recent column</a>, I think that he finds such an unalienable truth among teachers that it is impossible, as someone interested in teaching, to disagree with. In his column, he discusses how disasterous a <a href="http://www.theeagle.com/am/A-amp-amp-M-regents-push-reforms">proposed Texas plan for higher education</a> would be, if enacted, for the education of students.<br /> </p> <p>No, it's not the Texas plan to teach elementary and high school students that Phyllis Schlafly is the second coming of George Washington. No, this plan involves the state's universities, particularly <a href="http://www.tamu.edu/">Texas A&amp;M</a>. Essentially, the plan wholeheartedly embraces the idea that students are, first and foremost, consumers and should be treated as such.<br /> </p> <p>Fish goes on at some length about why this is such a bad idea. The value of an education is not the same as that of a new car, a television, or -- as he notes -- a hamburger. These are things meant to be enjoyed in the moment for their immediate value. And, given the extraordinary rise of both consumer credit debt and obesity, we have been thinking of ourselves <em>too much</em> as consumers. </p> <a href='/blog/2010/jun/22/investing-education-long-term/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/jun/22/investing-education-long-term/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-06-10T18:56:55-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-06-10:/blog/2010/jun/10/obesity-badge-honor/

<p>Last night on the <em>Daily Show</em>, Jon Stewart interviewed <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/field/explorers/">National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence</a> <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/field/explorers/spencer-wells/">Spencer Wells</a> about his new book, <em>Pandora's Seed</em>. About half-way into the interview (3:55, to be exact), Stewart asks a great question: </p> <blockquote> <p>But isn't our obesity almost a medal, a badge of sorts, congratulating us on our...utter domination of the planet? </p> </blockquote> <p>I'm not sure how well obesity-as-badge-of-honor will get anyone, but to a large degree it is true and example of what demographers call the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition">demographic transition</a>. Rather than dying of infectious diseases that left the human population with relatively high death rates, we now find that disease in developed nations is largely due to chronic conditions. What is interesting about obesity, and why as a sociologist I find it so fascinating, is that it is not only a chronic condition that, as Stewart points out, is an exclusively modern condition (because having enough to eat is a thoroughly modern phenomenon) that has a large behavioral component to it as well. While ecologically obesity might symbolize our triumph, physiologically it might represent a significant step back. The complete list of reasons for my interests in obesity research is a topic for another day, but understanding how the social and cultural logic of that is linked to the physciological component is, in my opinion, an extremely intersting sociological question. </p> <table style='font:11px arial; color:#333; background-color:#f5f5f5; margin:1em auto;' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' width='360' > <tbody> <tr style='background-color:#e5e5e5' valign='middle'> <td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;'> <a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com'>The Daily Show With Jon Stewart</a> </td> <td style='padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align:right; font-weight:bold;'> Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c </td> </tr> <tr style='height:14px;' valign='middle'> <td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'> <a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-9-2010/spencer-wells'>Spencer Wells</a> </td> </tr> <tr style='height:14px; background-color:#353535' valign='middle'> <td colspan='2' style='padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; width:360px; overflow:hidden; text-align:right'> <a target='_blank' style='color:#96deff; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/'>www.thedailyshow.com</a> </td> </tr> <tr valign='middle'> <td style='padding:0px;' colspan='2'> <embed style='display:block' src='http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:311767' width='360' height='301' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='window' allowFullscreen='true' flashvars='autoPlay=false' allowscriptaccess='always' allownetworking='all' bgcolor='#000000'></embed> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <div class="footnote"> <hr /> <ol> <li id="fn:so-cool"> <p>I think that being a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence has to be the coolest job ever. I want to figure out how to become one of those.&#160;<a href="#fnref:so-cool" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">&#8617;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> <p><a href='/blog/2010/jun/10/obesity-badge-honor/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-05-19T16:06:13-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-05-19:/blog/2010/may/19/endings-beginnings/

<p>This weekend, one of my favorite academic-flavored blogs on the internet shuttered its doors. <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/">Effect Measure</a> was a blog about public health and public health policy. The authors, who collectively wrote under the pseudonym "revere" in recognition of Paul Revere's service on the first local Board of Health in the U.S., are expert epidemiologists that brought detailed technical expertise to issues of public health along with a broad knowledge of public health policy and its role on American health. Although I read their blog regularly, their daily -- indeed, sometimes hourly -- analysis of the <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/swine_flu/">swine flu</a> outbreak were indispensable and made it a daily read during and after the outbreak. Being flu epidemiologists they provided sorely-needed analysis of the technical aspects in common language that really helped explain the crisis. They were so skilled at doing this that their writing ended up being more science journalism than expert testimony. They brought the same level of attention to topics such as <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/01/forgotten_food_safety_recallin.php">food safety</a>, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/occupational_health/">occupational health</a>, and <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2010/05/open_science_openly_arrived_at.php">science policy</a>. They have handed off their role of the public health blog of record at <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/">Science Blogs</a> (a great collection of blogs about various topics relating to different disciplines of science and medicine) to <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/thepumphandle/">The Pump Handle</a>. Although I will miss the "reveres," if they recommend a blog as highly as they do The Pump Handle, I look forward to reading more.</p> <p>And, speaking of looking forward to reading more, also filling the absence will be a new blog -- <a href="http://www.improvingpopulationhealth.org/">Improving Population Health</a> -- founded and edited by <a href="http://uwphi.pophealth.wisc.edu/about/staff/kindigd.htm">David Kindig</a> at the <a href="http://uwphi.pophealth.wisc.edu/index.htm">University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute</a>.<sup id="fnref:2010-05-19-1"><a href="#fn:2010-05-19-1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup><br /> David is not only an expert in the field, he literally <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447747/">defined the field</a>. He writes that it is "intended to serve as a forum for discussion and a call for action as we consider what all of us -- across all sectors -- can do to improve the health of our communities." His work has already done that for many years, most recently with the publication of the <a href="http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/">County Health Rankings</a> earlier this year. The blog is already off to an auspicious start with a great lineup of guest contributors including my colleague, <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/sgollust/">Sarah Gollust</a>, in a few weeks.<br /> </p> <p>Godspeed, Reveres, thank you for your contribution to the world of public health and welcome to the blogosphere, Dr. Kindig!</p> <div class="footnote"> <hr /> <ol> <li id="fn:2010-05-19-1"> <p>The blog is supported by the <a href="http://www.rwjf.org/">Robert Wood Johnson Foundation</a> who funds the Health &amp; Society Scholars Program that pays my salary.&#160;<a href="#fnref:2010-05-19-1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">&#8617;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> <a href='/blog/2010/may/19/endings-beginnings/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/may/19/endings-beginnings/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-05-10T19:26:46-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-05-10:/blog/2010/may/10/seeing-obesity-over-time/

<p>The blog <a href="http://contexts.org/graphicsociology/">Graphic Sociology</a>, part of the <a href="http://contexts.org/">Contexts</a> <a href="http://contexts.org/blogs/">community of blogs</a>, provides an excellent forum for discussing the visual presentation of information. The blog's author, <a href="http://contexts.org/graphicsociology/about/">Flaneuse</a>(a.k.a., Laura Noren), provides examples of the <a href="http://contexts.org/graphicsociology/2009/02/19/megan-jaegerman-spotting-a-hidden-handgun/">good</a>, the <a href="http://contexts.org/graphicsociology/2010/04/21/drug-trade-in-mexico-when-a-graphic-cannot-measure-the-problem/">bad</a>, and the <a href="http://contexts.org/graphicsociology/2009/12/17/recidivism-rates-in-the-us-frivolous-color/">ugly</a> in data visualization with a narrative of "what works" and "what needs work" for each graphic.<br /> </p> <p>Yesterday, Flaneuse had a post on <a href="http://contexts.org/graphicsociology/2010/05/09/displaying-obesity-trends/">obesity trends</a> that originated at the blog <a href="http://flowingdata.com/2010/04/29/challenge-graphing-obesity-trends/">Flowing Data</a>. <a href="http://flowingdata.com/about-nathan">Nathan Yau</a>, the author of <em>Flowing Data</em> posted a challenge to his readers to make an image that answers the question <em>are people getting fatter faster?</em><sup id="fnref:2010-05-10-1"><a href="#fn:2010-05-10-1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> that improves on the following one:</p> <p><img alt="Flowing Data Obesity Trends" src="http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/yapb_cache/picture_21.1tiiz1b0sd0gkw8cogwcc0kwo.bxj7bs82axw0g448owg4gc8so.th.png" title="Flowing Data Heavier Younger" /></p> <p>Despite the solutions posted at <em>Flowing Data</em>, I actually think that the original graph is not a bad representation of the data; however, it suffers from a few technical problems that I think would be easy to solve. First, the graph does not indicate that the lines are birth cohorts (though Nathan's text does indicate that is what the lines represent). Second, given that they are successive birth cohorts in the study, I think that the colors could have been used more creatively to indicate that they are successive (i.e., the oldest cohort could have been rendered in light gray and the youngest in dark gray with appropriate scaling in between). There are two reasons that I like this graph better than many of the alternatives. First, it follows <em>people</em> over time, which makes a narrative easier to figure out from the image. Second, because what we are interested in is the change in <em>slope</em> of the percent obese across successive cohorts, the original image displays this very well.</p> <div class="footnote"> <hr /> <ol> <li id="fn:2010-05-10-1"> <p>I don't agree with the phrasing "getting fatter," but that's what he wrote.&#160;<a href="#fnref:2010-05-10-1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">&#8617;</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> <a href='/blog/2010/may/10/seeing-obesity-over-time/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/may/10/seeing-obesity-over-time/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-05-08T13:48:31-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-05-08:/blog/2010/may/08/learning-great-one/

<blockquote> <p><em>"You miss 100% of the shots you never take."</em> -- Attributed to <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anonymous#Y">Wayne Gretzky</a></p> </blockquote> <p>I was reminded of this quote this week after I had a grant submission rejected. Although it stung, the criticisms were legitimate and, as one of my advisors told me, "rejection is part of the process." It was this comment that reminded me of Gretzksy's quote and realizing that, although it doesn't feel good to be rejected, it does mean that I made an effort -- I can't make a shot that I don't take after all.</p> <p>This was a lesson that was hard to learn in grad school and I was fortunate that I had people around me -- advisors and more advanced grad students -- advise me that it is important to send things out. In fact, as I became an advanced grad student myself and subsequently took my post-doc, it is now something that I try to advise others about. As academics, we are perfectionists. As academics, it is <em>good</em> to be perfectionists, it is what gives us credibility and without that instinct we would not have gotten to where we are. At the same time, it is important to remember that things will be <em>more perfect</em> if we seek advice and help from others; this, too, is the essence of scientific inquiry.</p> <a href='/blog/2010/may/08/learning-great-one/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/may/08/learning-great-one/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-05-02T19:59:37-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-05-02:/blog/2010/may/02/matching-substrings-entirely-within-stata/

<p>At <a href="http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/" title="Orgtheory.net Blog">Orgtheory</a>, Fabio <a href="http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/stata-bleg-substring-search/" title="Orgtheory.net: stata bleg: substring search">asked</a> about how to identify substrings within text fields in <a href="http://statacorp.com" title="Stata Corporation website">Stata</a>. Although this is a seemingly simple proposal, there is one big problem, as Gabriel Rossman <a href="http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/stata-bleg-substring-search/#comment-87147" title="Orgtheory.net: stata bleg: substring search; comment">points out</a>: Stata string fields can only hold 244 characters of text. As Fabio desires to use this field to analyze scientific abstracts, then 244 characters is obviously insufficient.<br /> </p> <p>Gabriel Rossman has posted a solution he has called <a href="http://codeandculture.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/grepmerge/" title="Code &amp; Culture: Grepmerge"><code>grepmerge</code></a> that uses the Linux-based program <code>grep</code> to search for strings in files. This is a great solution, but it comes with one large caveat: it cannot be used in a native Windows environment. This is because the <code>grep</code> command is only native to Linux-based systems (which include Apple computers). Therefore, I set out to find a solution that was a) platform-independent and b) internal to Stata (if possible).</p> <p>Below is the solution that I developed. The solution, it turns out, is not to rely on Stata's string variables or string functions (both can only handle 244 characters), but instead to rely on Stata's local <a href="http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?macro" title="Stata help for macro">macros</a> ("macros" are what other programming languages call "variables;" however, this would be confusing given that Stata also has variables, thus Stata calls them "macros"). The second key comes from the <a href="http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?extended_fcn" title="Stata help for extended_fcn">extended functions</a> of Stata's macros. These are functions that build in much of the programming functions for Stata. There is no function defined to search for strings that are immediately like <a href="http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?regex" title="Stata help for regex">regex()</a> or <a href="http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?string" title="Stata help for string functions">strpos()</a>; however, there is an extended function to substitute within strings that will also provide a count of the number of substitutions made. Since all we really care about is the number of times a string would be substituted, then if we know that the count of substitutions is greater than we have the information that we need.<br /> </p> <a href='/blog/2010/may/02/matching-substrings-entirely-within-stata/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/may/02/matching-substrings-entirely-within-stata/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-04-25T17:12:31-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-04-25:/blog/2010/apr/25/peer-reviewing-peer-review/

<blockquote> <p><em>&#8220;Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.&#8221;</em> <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill#Post-war_years">Winston Churchill, 1947</a></p> </blockquote> <p>I just received an e-mail inviting me to participate in the <a href="http://www.iiis2010.org/wmsci/Website/default.asp?vc=27">Second Annual International Symposium on Peer Review</a> that seeks to examine the application -- and perceived failure -- of peer review in a scientific context. The aim of the conference is certainly a worthy goal, and I applaud the effort; however, it brings up the conundrum of how one goes about peer reviewing materials for a conference on peer-review that takes as its premise that the peer-review system is flawed. So flawed, in fact, that the letter opens with the quote "only 8% agreed that 'peer review works well as it is'." (Chubin and Hackett, 1990; p.192). </p> <a href='/blog/2010/apr/25/peer-reviewing-peer-review/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/apr/25/peer-reviewing-peer-review/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-04-19T01:49:12-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-04-19:/blog/2010/apr/19/my-favorite-conference/

<p>I got back from the <a href="http://paa2010.princeton.edu" title="Population Association of America Meeting">PAA</a> meetings in Dallas today. I really think that PAA is an incredible organization, even down to the way that they plan and execute the meetings. For example, I think that the submission process is incredibly smooth and the papers on the panels tend to speak very well to one another. Even down to the fact that the organization developed an <a href="http://paa2010.princeton.edu/iphone.aspx" title="PAA iPhone app">iPhone app</a> (and a <a href="http://paa2010.princeton.edu/kindle.aspx" title="PAA Kindle app">Kindle app</a>) that made navigating the meeting tremendously easy (I believe that <a href="http://data.princeton.edu" title="Germ&amp;aacute;n Rodr&amp;iacute;guez&apos;s website">Germ&aacute;n Rodr&iacute;guez</a> deserves the credit for the development of the submission website and the iPhone app -- kudos to him!). Beyond the execution, however, the actual meeting is always interesting in the papers that are presented and the people who come. It was great to catch up with old friends and make new ones while down there.<br /> </p> <a href='/blog/2010/apr/19/my-favorite-conference/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/apr/19/my-favorite-conference/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

http://mikebader.net/blog/about/2010-02-28T15:48:07-04:00Mike Baderhttp://mikebader.net/tag:mikebader.net,2010-02-28:/blog/2010/feb/28/architectural-diversity-or-hello-world/

<p>The <a href="http://www.prospect.org/" title="The American Prospect">American Prospect</a> has a very interesting article this week by <a href="http://www.courtneyemartin.com/" title="Courtney E. Martin&apos;s website">Courtney Martin</a> entitled "<a href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=architectures_diversity_problem" title="Architecture&apos;s Diversity Problem | The American Prospect">Architecture's Diversity Problem</a>" that describes a new building constructed by architect <a href="http://studiogang.net/" title="Studio Gang Architects">Jeanne Gang</a> in Chicago. The building is constructed to look like undulating waves that echo the waves in Lake Michigan just to the east but reach skyward for 80 stories. Architecturally, the building is very interesting and, though I have to admit I wasn't too keen when I saw the <em>The Prospect's</em> <a href="http://www.prospect.org/galleries/img_articles/100223_martin_lead.jpg" title="Photo of Jeanne Gang&apos;s Aqua building from The American Prospect">photo</a> photo, is very impressive when seen from a distance for how successfully it creates this illusion from both the form and the materials used. What is more amazing than the quality of Gang's architecture, as Smith points out, is the fact that such a large building was designed by a woman.</p> <p>The article, highlighting the lack of diversity, recalled my own journey to sociology so it particularly close to home.<br /> </p> <p><img alt="Jeanne Gang&apos;s new building, Aqua, in Chicago -- photo taken by wjcordier and obtained on Flickr" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2482/3685649461_73ac34feab_m.jpg" /></p> <a href='/blog/2010/feb/28/architectural-diversity-or-hello-world/'>Read entire post...</a> <p><a href='/blog/2010/feb/28/architectural-diversity-or-hello-world/#comments'>0 comments</a></p>

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