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January 30, 2009

ANES Announcement: Release of the ANES waves of the 2008-2009 Panel Study

An "Advance Release" of the 2008-2009 Panel Study dataset and documentation is now available for download from the ANES website. This release includes the data from the ANES waves completed in 2008.

To download the dataset, or to visit the study page and learn more about the survey, please visit our Data Center at:
http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/download/datacenter_all.htm.
The 2008-2009 Panel Study appears in the blue box to the left of the page, just under the ANES Cumulative Data File.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The dataset and all accompanying documentation currently available for the 2008-2009 Panel Study are an "Advance Release." The advance release data allow interested users to analyze political data collected so far, with the caveats that the advance release data are preliminary and are subject to revision and the documentation is not complete. Standard ANES data quality control procedures have not been completed with these data, so users should expect to find errors and inconsistencies in the data file.

If you identify any errors or inconsistencies, if you have questions, or if we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us by email to: anes@electionstudies.org

The ANES is a collaboration of the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS) at Stanford University, with funding by the National Science Foundation.

Posted by ronbo at 05:03 PM

January 28, 2009

MAPSS talk: Jowei Chen - Causality in GIS

The Methods of Analysis Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS) continues our exploration of Geographic Information Systems and Problems of Spatial Autocorrelation. Stanford Political Science PhD Student Jowei Chen will be discussing how GIS data can be used to make causal inferences.

Pizza
will be served outside Building 530 - Room 127 at 12:10PM, talk starts at 12:20PM. (RSVP for food at https://iriss.stanford.edu/mapss_colloquium_signup)

Thursday, January 29th
12:10 PM
Building 530 - Room 127

(Building 530 is between Memorial Church and Tresidder)

Manipulating GIS Data for Causal Inference

Many datasets studied by social scientists contain spatial information that often goes ignored or understudied. In this talk, I'll demonstrate some ways that we can manipulate Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data to develop an identification strategy for causal inference.

First, I'll present techniques for geocoding spatial points and integrating them with Census data or other environmental data. Second, I'll explain and demonstrate the manipulation and use of remote sensing data (ie, data collected systematically by non-human instruments, such as a satellite).

Finally, I will explain two identification strategies from my own research that exploit this sort of GIS data:

1) A "geographic discontinuity design," in which we exploit arbitrary spatial cutoffs for assignment to a treatment.
2) Geography as an instrumental variable, exploiting exogenous geographic determinants of an independent variable of interest.

All the examples in the talk will be based on my research studying the effect of FEMA hurricane disaster aid on recipients' vote choices. Some examples of this research are on my website: http://www.stanford.edu/~jowei

Jowei Chen is a graduate student in Political Science at Stanford. His research examines distributive politics and vote buying in the United States. He is a native of Appalachian Tennessee.

MAPSS is an interdisciplinary methodology program designed to expose researchers to diverse modes of data collection and analysis from across the social sciences. MAPSS offers a colloquium series, a workshop, a graduate certificate program, and various research resources. If you would like to learn more about the Methods of Analysis Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS), please check out our website at mapss.stanford.edu.

All members of the Stanford community are invited to attend and to RSVP in advance to reserve food.
https://iriss.stanford.edu/mapss_colloquium_signup.

Lunch will be served at 12:10 for those who have RSVP'd; the talks start at 12:20.
For more information, please contact mapss-info@lists.stanford.edu.

Posted by ronbo at 02:44 PM

January 26, 2009

Recent ICPSR updates and additions - New Releases through 2009-01-25

Below is a list of new data collection additions to the ICPSR data archive
along with a list of released data collections that have been updated:

New Additions

23445 CBS News Monthly Poll, June 2007
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR23445

Updates

3176 Vital Statistics: Divorce Detail [United States], 1986
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03176

3178 Vital Statistics: Divorce Detail [United States], 1987
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03178

6031 Revised Estimates of the Population of Counties by Age, Sex, and Race
[United States]: 1980-1989
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06031

6081 CBS News Monthly Poll #2, July 1992
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06081

6319 Multiple Cause of Death, 1990
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06319

6320 Multiple Cause of Death, 1991
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06320

6388 New York Times Israel Poll, March 1989
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06388

8600 National Hospital Discharge Survey: 1979, 1980, and 1981
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08600

9563 ABC News/Washington Post Iraq War Polls, January-February 1991
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09563

You can also view a list of all studies added and updated in the last ninety
days by visiting the ICPSR Web site at
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/access/recent.html.

Posted by ronbo at 11:47 AM

January 23, 2009

Roper Center Newsletter, January 2009

Newsworthy

ANSS: Anthropology and Sociology Section
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)
Sociology Discussion Group
2009 ALA Midwinter Meetings, Denver, CO.

Please join us for a presentation and discussion on: Social Sciences Data - Access and Impact on Scholarship: Reports and Evaluation from ICSPR (Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research) and Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

Panelists: Lois E. Timms-Ferrara, The Roper Center University of Connecticut Jared Lyle, ICPSR, University of Michigan

The presentations and discussion will focus on current issues as well as future trends, for e.g.

* What types of datasets are available and planned (open access/ paid subscriptions/Institutional Repositories);
* Who is/will be accessing them (users profile) and
* (to) What end - for policy, teaching, research, etc., (use profile).
* Expectations or Role of librarians or official representatives for data

Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009
Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Venue: Hyatt Regency Hotel (REG)
Room: Capitol Ballroom 3


The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) will present its 43rd annual student paper award at its Annual Conference at the Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa in Hollywood, Florida, May 14-7, 2009. The award is given in memory of Seymour Sudman and recognizes his many important contributions to AAPOR, as well as his teaching and mentoring of students in the survey research profession. AAPOR will consider papers in any field related to the study of public opinion, broadly defined, or to the theory and methods of survey research, including statistical techniques used in such research. The competition committee strongly encourages submissions that deal with this year’s conference theme, “Public Choices in Changing Times,” focusing on the unprecedented societal, political, and technological changes occurring globally and the opportunities and challenges they pose for survey theory and opinion measurement. Paper topics might also include methodological issues in surveys; public opinion or market research; theoretical issues in the formation, quality, or change in public opinion; or substantive findings about public opinion. The committee also encourages authors to review the Call for Student Papers, which can be found on the AAPOR website, www.aapor.org

Authors should submit the completed paper electronically using MS-Word or PDF format, by 5:00 pm (PST) on Friday, January 30, 2009, to the Associate Conference Chair. Please review the full Call for Student Papers for more details.

Read the full Call or Papers


ICPSR Undergraduate Internship Reminder: Application Deadline is February 2, 2009! The ICPSR Internship is a 10-week program designed to familiarize students with social science research, data preparation, and analysis. Interns work in the UNIX and Windows environments and gain experience using statistical programs such as SAS, SPSS, and Stata to check data. Data processing skills will be applied to prepare social science data for permanent archiving and distribution for secondary analysis; preserving respondent anonymity; and composing descriptions of data collections. These positions are supervised by an experienced Research Associate.

Interns attend courses in the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research. Interns will be required to attend a weekly Lunch and Lecture series that will expose them to various aspects and departments of ICPSR and Institute for Social Research (ISR). There may be additional social and work-related functions involving other ICPSR staff and interns from other ISR units and summer programs.

This is a paid internship.

Complete application information: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/careers/internship.html


Topics at a Glance!--Mood of America

How do you feel about your personal finances? What about terrorism and war? How are economic conditions, and the status of the country? Click here for responses to these questions and more public opinion data on this month's Topic at a Glance--Mood of America

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/cgi-bin/hsrun.exe/roperweb/pom/pom.htx;start=HS_special_topics?Topic=mood

Based on a new topic each month, TAG offers a generous free sampling of related polling data and details of survey datasets held by the Roper Center, along with articles previously published in Public Perspective magazine.

Experience the depth of information housed in the Roper Center archives - The complete list of "Topics at a Glance!"
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/cgi-bin/hsrun.exe/Roperweb/pom/pom.htx;start=HS_pom_list


Newly spotlighted datasets
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/cgi-bin/hsrun.exe/roperweb/Catalog40/Catalog40.htx;start=HS_surveyspot
Updated as of January 5, 2009

Special studies of interest recently added to iPOLL. The database now contains nearly a half million questions!
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html

Title: Auto Industry Survey [November, 2008]
Source: Survey by General Motors Corporation.
Methodology: Conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, November 11-November 12, 2008 and based on telephone interviews with a national adult sample of 804.

Title: VCU Life Sciences Survey [November, 2008]
Source: Survey by Virginia Commonwealth University Life Sciences.
Methodology: Conducted by Center for Public Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University, November 24-December 7, 2008 and based on telephone interviews with a national adult sample of 1,005. Interviews were conducted by Princeton Data Source.

Title: What Women Want Survey [October, 2008]
Source: Survey by YWCA.
Methodology: Conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, October 28-November 2, 2008 and based on telephone interviews with a national adult women ages 18-70 sample of 1,000. Interviews were conducted by Braun Research.

Title: Veteran's Health Care Funding Survey [August, 2008]
Source: Survey by Disabled American Veterans.
Methodology: Conducted by Belden Russonello & Stewart, August 20-August 24, 2008 and based on telephone interviews with a national adult sample of 827.

Title: AARP Retired Spouses Survey [November, 2007]
Source: Survey by AARP.
Methodology: Conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, November 1-November 26, 2007 and based on telephone interviews with a national adults ages 55-75 married or living as married and who are retired themselves and or have a spouse who is retired sample of 1,064.

Title: AARP Miracles, Divine Healings, and Angels: Beliefs Survey [July, 2008]
Source: Survey by AARP.
Methodology: Conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, July 17-July 21, 2008 and based on telephone interviews with a national adults age 45 and older sample of 995.


Additional resources - Web sites with special survey samples

Zogby International for Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA) Survey of Iranian Americans
http://www.zogby.com/news/Survey_of_Iranian_Americans_Final_Report_Dec_10%202008.pdf

Opinion Research Corporation for Junior Achivement Worldwide and Deloitte
Teen Ethics Survey
http://www.ja.org/about/releases/about_newsitem524.asp

Posted by ronbo at 05:55 PM

From Resource Shelf: Fast Facts: Pocket Guide to Transportation 2009

From the Web Site:

"The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), has published the Pocket Guide to Transportation 2009– a 50-page quick reference guide to informative transportation data."

Direct to Pocket Guide at BTS

Resource Shelf

Posted by ronbo at 05:38 PM

ICPSR Webinar: Get Set-Up! - Creating set-up files for SPSS

Join us for a Webinar on January 27

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/684102132

Does the idea of dealing with raw data give you a headache? This webinar is a step-by-step demonstration of how to create a set-up file for an ICPSR study. You will learn how to begin with an ASCII data file and transform it into a file that’s ready to use in SPSS.

We will create a simple set-up file for a dataset . We will consider important issues in creating a set-up file, make decisions about how to proceed when faced with challenges, and explore alternatives if appropriate. This webinar describes the necessary parts of a simple set-up file and where to find the needed information in the study’s codebook.

This webinar is open to the public. Please share this invitation with all those interested.

Title: ICPSR Webinar: Get Set-Up! - Creating set-up files for SPSS
Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Posted by ronbo at 05:32 PM

From Stata: StataCorp summer internship program

Application period for Summer 2009: January 15–February 15, 2009

StataCorp summer internships offer the opportunity for students to learn the inner workings of statistical software development and support by working closely with StataCorp technical staff. Statistical software development is a uniquely challenging and rewarding career, ideal for those with a graduate education in statistics (or related fields) and for those with a keen interest in using their problem-solving skills to produce commercial software for use by all types of scientists, from medical professionals to leaders in finance.

StataCorp, located near the Texas A&M campus in College Station, Texas, is a growing company that for over 20 years has been a leader in statistical software, primarily through our flagship product, Stata. Stata provides an integrated statistics, graphics, and data-management solution for anyone who analyzes data.

We develop, distribute, and support Stata software. Our technical staff also contribute to the Stata Journal and books published by Stata Press, teach online training courses, attend Stata user-group and professional meetings, and interact with our world-wide base of Stata users.

StataCorp offers exciting opportunities for summer interns. Job duties include

* learning how to use Stata and how to program in Stata
* answering technical questions from Stata users via email
* creating technical support materials, such as FAQs and NetCourses
* assisting in adding new statistical features to Stata, including programming, testing, and documenting these features
* collaborating on projects suitable for publication in the Stata Journal

The candidate must

* be currently or about-to-be enrolled in a graduate program in statistics, biostatistics, econometrics, computer science, or a related quantitative field
* have good technical writing skills and the ability to effectively communicate in English

The preferred candidate will have

* a strong mathematical background
* experience programming in statistical languages such as Stata
* experience programming in scientific languages such as C/C++/Java

Intern salary is commensurate with skills and experience. Internships are full-time positions, but work schedules can accommodate summer courses.

The application period for Summer 2009 is January 15–February 15, 2009. StataCorp will not accept applications for summer internships outside this period. Be sure to indicate job code RA-1 on your application. Submit a letter of inquiry and resume by email or fax to

Roberto G. Gutierrez
hrd@stata.com
fax: 979-696-4601

Posted by ronbo at 03:26 PM

From Census Product Update (1/23/09): Hot Tip - Health Insurance

Health insurance statistics are always a hot topic! See our health insurance web page which has definitions, reports, links to related sites, frequently asked questions, working papers, and more! Take some time to browse this important site today, or bookmark it for future use!

Posted by ronbo at 01:32 PM

From Census Product Update (1/23/09): Fact of the Day - Health Care and Social Assistance

Overall, health care and social assistance revenue increased 6.8 percent in 2007 to $1.66 trillion, up from $1.56 trillion in 2006. Revenue for continuing care retirement communities grew 10.1 percent to $20 billion. Revenue for hospitals grew 6.5 percent in 2007 to $687 billion. Revenue for physicians’ offices increased 5.6 percent to $346 billion and revenue for dentists’ offices increased 6.5 percent to $94 billion.

These tabulations, and more, come from the 2007 Service Annual Survey: Health Care and Social Assistance, which focuses on health care and social assistance providers for individuals, and gives estimates and sources of revenue for businesses with paid employees.

Posted by ronbo at 01:30 PM

January 21, 2009

From IES Newsflash: Announcement of Upcoming ECLS/NHES Data Training Seminar

The National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences will be conducting a 1-day training seminar on its early childhood studies at the 2009 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research and Child Development (SRCD). This seminar provides information on three NCES large-scale data collections: the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K), the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort of 2001 (ECLS-B), and the National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES). The seminar will present overviews of the study designs and technical issues associated with using and analyzing the data, highlights about the data collected in 1991 through 2007 pertaining to children from birth through 8th grade, information on how the surveys compliment each other, and computer demonstrations of software that assists users in preparing data for analyses. The seminar is for graduate students, faculty, and researchers who have
a solid understanding of statistics and limited familiarity with the ECLS and NHES data. Researchers who have previously attended an overview seminar on these studies, or have attended an in-depth training on one of the studies and are not interested in the other NCES studies, will probably not benefit from this seminar.

The free seminar, which will be held in Denver at the SRCD meeting site, is scheduled for Wednesday, April 1, 2009 from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. For more information or to register for this free seminar, please send an e-mail to ecls@air.org.

For more information about the 2009 SRCD Biennial Meeting, please visit: http://nces.ed.gov/ecls/news.asp

Posted by ronbo at 02:17 PM

January 20, 2009

MAPSS - GIS - Jeffrey Heer on Visualization

The Methods of Analysis Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS) continues our exploration of Geographic Information Systems and Problems of Spatial Autocorrelation with a look at data visualization. Stanford Computer Scientist Jeffrey Heer will be presenting a talk entitled: Voyagers and Voyeurs: Supporting Collaborative Information Visualization.

Pizza will be served outside Building 530 - Room 127 at 12:10PM, talk starts at 12:20PM. (RSVP for food at https://iriss.stanford.edu/mapss_colloquium_signup)

Thursday, January 22nd
12:10 PM
Building 530 - Room 127

(Building 530 is between Memorial Church and Tresidder)

Voyagers and Voyeurs: Supporting Collaborative Information Visualization

Interactive visualizations leverage human visual processing and cognition to increase the scale of information with which we can effectively work. However, most visualization research to date focuses on a single-user model, overlooking the social nature of visual media. Visualizations are used not only to explore and analyze, but to communicate findings. People may disagree on how to interpret data and contribute contextual knowledge that deepens understanding. Furthermore, some data sets are so large that thorough exploration by a single person is unlikely. Such scenarios arise regularly in scientific collaboration, business intelligence, and public data consumption.

In this talk, I will discuss our work recasting interactive visualizations as not just analytic tools, but social spaces supporting collective data analysis. I'll discuss the design and implementation of sense.us, a web site supporting asynchronous collaboration across a variety of visualization types. The site supports view sharing, discussion, graphical annotation, and social navigation and includes novel interaction elements. User studies of the system reveal emergent patterns of social data analysis, cycles of observation and hypothesis, and the complementary roles of social navigation and data-driven exploration. I will also describe our continuing work on web-based collaborative visualization, including visual navigation cues to enhance collective information foraging and new techniques for generalized selection and collaborative annotation.

Jeffrey Heer is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where his research focuses on human-computer interaction, interactive visualization, and social computing. His work has produced novel visualization techniques for exploring data, software tools that simplify visualization creation and customization, and collaborative analysis systems that leverage the insights of multiple analysts. He is the author of the prefuse and flare open-source visualization toolkits, currently in use by the visualization research community and numerous corporations. Over the years, he has also worked at Xerox PARC, IBM Research, Microsoft Research, and Tableau Software. He holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

MAPSS is an interdisciplinary methodology program designed to expose researchers to diverse modes of data collection and analysis from across the social sciences. MAPSS offers a colloquium series, a workshop, a graduate certificate program, and various research resources. If you would like to learn more about the Methods of Analysis Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS), please check out our website at mapss.stanford.edu.

All members of the Stanford community are invited to attend and to RSVP in advance to reserve food.
https://iriss.stanford.edu/mapss_colloquium_signup.

Lunch will be served at 12:10 for those who have RSVP'd; the talks start at 12:20.
For more information, please contact mapss-info@lists.stanford.edu.

Posted by ronbo at 06:05 PM

Reminder: ICPSR Undergraduate Internship Application Deadline is Approaching!

Application Deadline is February 2, 2009!

The ICPSR Internship is a 10-week program designed to familiarize students with social science research, data preparation, and analysis. Interns work in the UNIX and Windows environments and gain experience using statistical programs such as SAS, SPSS, and Stata to check data. Data processing skills will be applied to prepare social science data for permanent archiving and distribution for secondary analysis; preserving respondent anonymity; and composing descriptions of data collections. These positions are supervised by an experienced Research Associate.

Interns attend courses in the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research. Interns will be required to attend a weekly Lunch and Lecture series that will expose them to various aspects and departments of ICPSR and Institute for Social Research (ISR). There may be additional social and work-related functions involving other ICPSR staff and interns from other ISR units and summer programs.

This is a paid internship.

Posted by ronbo at 06:00 PM

Recent ICPSR updates and additions - New Releases through 2009-01-19

Below is a list of new data collection additions to the ICPSR data archive
along with a list of released data collections that have been updated:

New Additions

20080 National Crime Victimization Survey: Stalking Victimization
Supplement, 2006
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20080

23862 Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 2005 [United States]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR23862

24387 Survey and Assessment of Vietnamese Youth (SAVY), 2003
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24387

24421 National Electronic Injury Surveillance System All Injury Program,
2006
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24421

24542 Changing the Rules: State Mortgage Foreclosure Moratoria During the
Great Depression
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24542

Updates

2987 New York Times Race Poll, June 2000
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02987

You can also view a list of all studies added and updated in the last ninety
days by visiting the ICPSR Web site at
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/access/recent.html.

Posted by ronbo at 05:59 PM

January 19, 2009

See it in SPSS: free seminar exclusively for SPSS customers (Feb. 11, San Francisco)

San Francisco, CA
Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Le Meridien San Francisco
333 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
Phone: (415) 269-2930

For seminar agenda: http://www.spss.com/seeit/seminar.htm

Posted by yan at 02:37 PM

January 14, 2009

Census Product Update (12/23/2008): Hot Tip - On The Map - New Version!

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released a new version of its Local Employment Dynamics mapping tool, OnTheMap, with five years of employment and industry data for local areas in 46 partner states accessible free online.

OnTheMap Version 3 application allows users to:

* Perform Area Profile and Shed Analyses for work and home areas in both local and regional geographies;
* Define custom areas for detailed analyses
* Illustrate flows of workers across state borders
* Produce and export reports and maps
* View time-series animation over the five available years of data; and
* Perform highly specialized analyses using OnTheMap microdata available by download from the Cornell Virtual Research Data Center.

Version 3.2 adds New York as the 46th State to the mapping tool for the first time, with additional geographic rollups for Shed Analyses. OnTheMap is supported by the Employment and Training Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor and the state partners in the Local Employment Dynamics partnership with the Census Bureau. You can access OnTheMap by selecting "Local Employment Dynamics" at http://www.census.gov and then OnTheMap under Quick Links, or directly at http://lehd.did.census.gov. Comments should be sent to CES.Local.Employment.Dynamics@census.gov.

Posted by ronbo at 05:37 PM

January 13, 2009

NVivo Workshops in San Francisco, Feburary 2-3, 2009

San Francisco CA                      Monday 2 February 2009 - NVivo 8 Fundamentals
San Francisco CA                      Tuesday 3 February 2009 - Moving On In NVivo 8

9:00 am - 4:00 pm

Executrain
101 Spear Street, One Rincon Center
San Francisco, CA

These workshops are ideal for those using research software for the first time, or for users of earlier versions of QSR software.  Workshop costs include morning and afternoon refreshments.  Desktop computers are provided and you’ll receive your own comprehensive workbooks. 

For course outlines and registration forms, visit

http://www.qsrinternational.com/training-and-events_calendar_detail.aspx?view=757

Posted by yan at 06:48 PM

From the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank: St. Louis Fed Announces Creation of Financial Crisis Timeline Web Site

Dec. 22 — The St. Louis Fed has created a new web site with information about the financial crisis. The site—The Financial Crisis: A Timeline of Events and Policy Actions—outlines events in financial markets from February 2007 to the present. The timeline includes brief descriptions of market events and actions by the Fed and other government agencies, along with links to press releases, SEC filings, congressional testimony and related St. Louis Fed articles.

Posted by ronbo at 06:35 PM

From ESRI: Regression Analysis Tools For GIS Modeling

Modeling complex spatial relationships has become easier with ArcGIS 9.3 tools.

The ability to model complex spatial relationships and to predict spatial trends are important for planning and decision making. Regression analysis, new with ESRI’s ArcGIS 9.3, provides effective tools for exploring, examining, and measuring spatial relationships, identifying key factors contributing to particular spatial outcomes, such as urban growth, predicting future scenarios, and illustrating, through cartographic visualization, the impacts of policy and proposed urban planning projects. (Read more...)

Posted by ronbo at 06:12 PM

From Stanford Events: Creating a GIS for China's History without Maps

Peter Bol, Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University

Thursday, January 22, 2009
4:15 PM
Building 200, room 107

A fundamental geographic information system should provide a platform for diverse disciplines to analyze the spatial relationships in the kinds of information relevant to the discipline. But what kinds of spatial information are fundamental? For the last two hundred years paper maps, based on scientific cartography , provides a kind of a solution. But if we aim to spatially enable the analysis of data from before the era of mathematical cartography, how should we proceed? What is the relationship between our representations in the present of historical space and place and the conceptualization of space and place in the past? The China Historical GIS, which aims to represent administrative space and place from 221 BCE to 1911 CE, has taken an approach that works for many but makes assumptions that historians may well want to challenge.

CEAS Winter 2008-09 Colloquium on Maps and Gazetteers as Sources for East Asian History sponsored by the Stanford Society of Fellows in Japanese Studies and the Center for East Asian Studies

Posted by ronbo at 06:07 PM

January 12, 2009

MAPSS - Intro to GIS this Thursday

The Methods of Analysis Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS) expects a lineup of exceptional speakers for the Winter quarter. We will be
focusing on *Geographic Information Systems and Problems of Spatial Autocorrelation*. Introducing us to the topic will be Stanford Anthropology Lecturer Claudia Engel and Branner Earth Sciences Head Librarian Julie Sweetkind-Singer.

Pizza will be served outside Building 530 - Room 127 at 12:10PM, talk starts at 12:20PM. (RSVP for food at
https://iriss.stanford.edu/mapss_colloquium_signup)


Thursday, January 15th
12:10 PM
Building 530 - Room 127

(This is NOT the same room as last quarter)


Claudia Engel

Claudia Engel is an Academic Technolgy Specialist and Lecturer at the
Department of Anthropology. She also serves as a Manager of the Academic
Technology Specialist Program.

Claudia holds a doctorate degree in Anthropology. Her work centers
around the academic uses of technology. She has been involved in
projects that explore and apply collaborative technologies for over 15
years and has recently shifted her focus towards spatial analysis and
GIS. Claudia is the co-organizer of the Stanford interest group in GIS
and is one of the core contributors in the development of the Stanford
Technology Commons. She blogs regularly about her work.

Before coming to Stanford Claudia worked and lived in Europe and South
America. Outside her work Claudia serves as principal oboe in the
Silicon Valley Symphony and sings with the San Francisco Bach Choir.

Julie Sweetkind-Singer

Julie Sweetkind-Singer is the head librarian at the Branner Earth
Sciences Library & Map Collections at Stanford University. Her subject
specialization is maps and GIS. She is currently Stanford's project lead
on a Library of Congress NDIIPP grant whose purpose is to archive
digital geospatial data. She has worked at Stanford since May 2000.

Previously, she was the map librarian for two private local map
collectors. In 1999, she worked jointly with David Rumsey on the Rumsey
Map Collection Web site, which displays over 12,000 maps from the 18th
and 19th century. She was the assistant editor of the book, "California
49: forty-nine maps of California from the sixteenth century to the
present," which was published by the California Map Society. She was the
President of the Western Association of Map Libraries from June 2004 -
July 2005. She was the Vice-President of the California Map Society,
Northern Chapter in 2001 and 2002.

RSVP for Free Pizza (available at 12:10 PM)


MAPSS is an interdisciplinary methodology
program designed to expose researchers to diverse modes of data
collection and analysis from across the social sciences. MAPSS offers a
colloquium series, a workshop, a graduate certificate program, and
various research resources. If you would like to learn more about the
Methods of Analysis Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS), please check
out our website at mapss.stanford.edu.


All members of the Stanford community are invited to attend and to RSVP
in advance to reserve food.
https://iriss.stanford.edu/mapss_colloquium_signup.

Lunch will be served at 12:10 for those who have RSVP'd; the talks start
at 12:20. For more information, please contact mapss-info@lists.stanford.edu
.

Posted by ronbo at 02:26 PM

Summer 2009 Workshops in Advanced Spatial Analysis -- call for applications

Dear Colleague,

The Population Research Institute at Pennsylvania State University and the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS) at UCSB invite applications from Ph.D. students, postdocs, and young faculty in demography and related fields to participate in

NIH-supported Workshops on Advanced Spatial Analysis

This program features two 5-day-long workshops in summer 2009 that are intended for scholars who already make use of GIS and spatial statistics in their research.

Spatial & Multilevel Modeling
June 21-June 26, 2009, University Park, PA
Instructors: Kelvyn Jones and S.V. (Subu) Subramanian

Spatial Regression Modeling
July 12-July 17, 2009, Santa Barbara, CA
Instructors: Paul R. Voss and Katherine Curtis

Full details on the workshops and the online application form are available at

http://www.csiss.org/GISPopSci/workshops/

Participation in these workshops is by invitation only. We will review and select approximately 20-25 invitees per workshop based on the complete application forms received by the deadline (March 31, 2009). Scholarship support will be available to some qualifying applicants that can help defray some of the costs for travel and lodging.

Please share this call for applications and the attached flier with interested colleagues via email, association newsletters, and related listserves.

Sincerely,

Stephen Matthews, Principal Investigator

Associate Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Demography
(courtesy appointment, Geography)
Senior Research Associate and Director,
Geographic Information Analysis Core Population Research Associate
Social Science Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University

Donald G. Janelle, Research Professor and Program Director
Center for Spatial Studies (spatial@ucsb), University of California, Santa Barbara

Michael F. Goodchild, Professor
Department of Geography, and Director, Center for Spatial Studies (spatial@ucsb)
University of California, Santa Barbara

Posted by ronbo at 01:57 PM

Recent ICPSR updates and additions - New Releases through 2009-01-11

Below is a list of new data collection additions to the ICPSR data archive
along with a list of released data collections that have been updated:

New Additions

23640 Child Care and Development Fund Administrative Data, Federal Fiscal
Year 2006
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR23640

24302 United States Presidential Televised Debates of the 20th Century
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24302

24420 Firearm Injury Surveillance Study, 1993-2006 [United States]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24420

Updates

2392 Multiple Cause of Death, 1995
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02392

6960 National Survey of Family Growth, Cycle V, 1995
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06960

8678 American National Election Study, 1986
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08678

20681 National Health Interview Survey, 2006
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20681

You can also view a list of all studies added and updated in the last ninety
days by visiting the ICPSR Web site at
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/access/recent.html.

Posted by ronbo at 01:55 PM

January 09, 2009

Census Product Update - January 9, 2009: Hot Tip - Take Advantage of the Estimates Web Page!

Take advantage of the rich source of information found through our Estimates web page! From the Census Bureau home page, click “Estimates.” Note the drop-down options as you roll your mouse over each of the menu items on the orange bar at the top of the page. Each menu item provides a range of options including analyses of the estimates, graphics, geographic topics, archives, and more! Become familiar with this important and informative web page!

Posted by ronbo at 01:40 PM

January 08, 2009

From IES Newsflash: First-Ever Adult Literacy Data for States and Counties Released Today

Today, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released the "National Assessment of Adult Literacy: Indirect County and State Estimates of the Percentage of Adults at the Lowest Literacy Level for 1992 and 2003", which provides estimates on the percentage of adults - for all states and counties in the U.S. - who lack basic prose literacy skills. The study provides data for 2003 and 1992. This new data is currently the only available snapshot of adult literacy rates for individual states and counties.

To produce this study, NCES gathered data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), a nationally representative sample of more than 19,000 Americans age 16 and older, and the 2000 Census, which provided "predictor variables" such as education and income.

NAAL data were correlated with the predictor variables to see if there was a pattern among them. From this information, a model was established. Using the model, estimates were predicted for areas where there were not sufficient assessment data. The same approach was also applied to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), so changes from 1992 to 2003 can be examined.

The report is accompanied by an interactive web tool, which shows the percentage of adults lacking Basic Prose Literacy Skills for all states and counties. In addition to allowing users to view adult literacy percentages for any given state, the web tool also allows for comparisons to be made between two states, two counties in the same state, two counties in different states, across years for a state, and across years for a county.

The report can be found at:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009482

The Interactive Web Tool can be accessed at:
http://nces.ed.gov/naal/estimates/index.aspx

Posted by ronbo at 01:44 PM

January 05, 2009

Recent ICPSR updates and additions - New Releases through 2009-01-04

Below is a list of new data collection additions to the ICPSR data archive
along with a list of released data collections that have been updated:

New Additions

4457 Role of Law Enforcement in Public School Safety in the United States,
2002
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04457

20460 Comparison of Older Volunteers and Older Nonvolunteers in the
Philadelphia Area, 1993-1998
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20460

22101 American Community Survey (ACS): Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS),
2006
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR22101

22413 Third-Wave 1994 Survey of a Representative Sample of Men Employed in
Civilian Occupations in the United States in 1964 and Re-Interviewed in
1974, and Second-Wave Survey of Their Wives First Interviewed in 1974
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR22413

22460 Exploring Factors Influencing Family Members Connections to
Incarcerated Individuals in New Jersey, 2005-2006
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR22460

23082 Federal Court Cases: Integrated Data Base Bankruptcy Petitions, 2007
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR23082

23443 CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll, April 2007
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR23443

23900 Executions in the United States, 1608-1940: The ESPY File -- Summary
Data of Executions Collected by M. Watt Espy Between 1986 and 1996
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR23900

23940 Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Hate Crime Data,
1995 [Record-Type Files]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR23940

23960 Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Hate Crime Data,
1994 [Record-Type Files]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR23960

24240 Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Hate Crime Data,
1993 [Record-Type Files]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24240

24282 Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Hate Crime Data,
1992 [Record-Type Files]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24282

24301 United States Presidential State of the Union Addresses, 1913-2008
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24301

24340 Women in Parliament, 1945-2003: Cross-National Dataset
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24340

Updates

2347 Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area Drug Study (DC*MADS), 1992: Drug Use
Among DC Women Delivering Live Births in DC Hospitals
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02347

4690 Americans' Changing Lives: Waves I, II, III, and IV, 1986, 1989, 1994,
and 2002
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04690

4699 National Crime Victimization Survey, 1992-2005: Concatenated
Incident-Level Files
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04699

9071 ABC News Republican Convention Poll, August 1988
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09071

22560 National Crime Victimization Survey, 2006 [Record-Type Files]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR22560

22746 National Crime Victimization Survey, 2005 [Record-Type Files]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR22746

You can also view a list of all studies added and updated in the last ninety
days by visiting the ICPSR Web site at
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/access/recent.html.

Posted by ronbo at 01:38 PM