Section announces first psychology open textbook hackathon

Ranald Macdonald PG Research Award - nominations open

BPS Mathematical, Statistical and Computing Section

2012 Ranald Macdonald Postgraduate Research Award

The Mathematical, Statistical and Computing Section is pleased to invite considerations for the 2012 Ranald Macdonald Postgraduate Research Award.

Deadline for applications: 30th March 2013.

This will be awarded to the best UK Postgraduate thesis/dissertation/project (MSc, MRes, MPhil, Professional Doctorate, DPhil or PhD) using mathematics, statistics or computing in an interesting and novel way to investigate an aspect of Psychology.

The work and qualification upon which the award is assessed must have been awarded between 1st January 2012 to 31st December 2012.

The award consists of £150 and expenses up to £200 to attend the section's Annual Scientific Meeting in the following year (2013 for the 2012 award). As a condition of accepting the award, the winner will be expected to present on their winning work at that meeting (scheduled for December 2013) and to join the section if they are not already a member.

Details about eligibility and the (simple) application process can be found below or by contacting the Section Secretary Dr Gerry Markopoulos. 
g.markopoulos _at_ bathspa.ac.uk 

Please note the deadline for submissions will be 30th March 2013 at 5pm.

How to apply:

Please send the following to the section secretary Dr Gerry Markopoulos via email to:
g.markopoulos _at_ bathspa.ac.uk

1. Your full contact details including Name, Institution, Degree Title and Date the qualification was awarded, Address, Email, Telephone number and the Name (s) of Supervisors
2. The extended abstract from your thesis, which outlines the findings of your work
3. A supporting statement from one of your supervisory team outlining the importance and contribution of your thesis and suitability for the award (no more than 300 words) and listing any peer-reviewed publications associated with the work.
Procedure: Your application will be considered by a panel of Mathematical, Statistical and Computing Section Committee members, and the panel’s decision will be final. One or more submissions will be short-listed and their authors may be invited to submit the complete thesis to the panel for final consideration via PDF. The panel reserves the right not to short-list any candidates if the panel does not deem the quality of submissions to be sufficiently high. From time to time the panel may also seek the views of expert reviewers on the quality of a submission prior to short-listing or to making an award. The panel may, in exceptional circumstances, make a split award between two equally deserving candidates.

Criteria for making the award: Emphasis will be placed on the following criteria:
- use of novel mathematics or statistics
- reference to substantive issues in psychology or related disciplines
- clarity of exposition of the mathematical or statistical concepts
- potential or actual contribution to the field, via peer-reviewed publication

Happy New Year to all our readers

It also just happens to be the International Year of Statistics too!  www.statistics2013.org

2012 Annual Scientific Meeting and AGM (BPS London offices)

Annual Scientific Meeting & AGM
BPS London Offices, 30 Tabernacle Street, London EC2A 4UE
Saturday 8th December 2012 at 10.30am
10.30am – 11.00am	Welcome
11.00am – 11.30am	Cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking in a representative sample of English school pupils: cross-sectional and longitudinal associations Gareth Hagger-Johnson University College London
11.30am – 11.45am	Morning Break
11.45am – 12.15am	Behaving badly online: establishing norms of unacceptable behaviours Emma Short, Mick Baldwin, Tyne Stanley & Graham Scott University of Bedfordshire
12.15pm – 1.45pm	Lunch Maybe at: The Windmill Pub, 27 Tabernacle Street, or Pizza by the Yard, 140 Tabernacle Street
1.45pm – 2.15pm	Is pedagogic convenience responsible for inappropriate & low power data analysis in psychology? Andrew Rutherford Keele University
2.15pm – 2.45pm	Order restricted inference in R Danny Kaye and Thom Baguley Nottingham Trent University
2.45pm-3.15pm	Afternoon Break
3.15pm	AGM

Annual Scientific Meeting and AGM 8 December 2012

Annual Scientific Meeting and AGM 8 December 2012

BPS Offices
30 Tabernacle Street
London
EC2A 4UE

Attendance free

Call for papers

The closing date for submissions is Wednesday 28th November 2012

Presentations on both theoretical and substantive applications are welcome in the area of Mathematics, Statistics or Computing in Psychology. We welcome submissions from postgraduate students.

Abstracts should be submitted (no more than 150 words) with your name, institution and contact details to:

Dr A Rutherford

a.rutherford _at_ keele.ac.uk

ASSESS: SPSS/R Training Day

ASSESS: SPSS/R training day

Friday 2nd November 2012

Alcuin Research Resource Centre

University of York, York

Beginning  with R: comparing groups (half-day) parallel workshop

An introduction to statistical modeling in R  (half-day) parallel workshop

Friday 2nd November 2012 10 am to 12-45 pm

Chi-square tests and logistic regressions in SPSS (half-day) parallel workshop

Survival analysis with healthcare applications using SPSS (half-day) parallel workshop

Friday 2nd November 2012 1-50pm to 4-30pm

Tutorial session: Health applications in SPSS

Friday 2nd November 2012 10am to 12-35pm

Tutorial session: First steps in data analysis using R

Friday 2nd November 2012 1-50pm to 4-10pm

ASSESS is an independent user led group for SPSS and R, computer packages for analysing and presenting data. Recent ASSESS workshop topics include SPSS/R syntax, SPSS macros, Logistic regression and Hospital Episode Statistics.

Two sets of two half-day parallel workshops and two tutorial sessions are provisionally planned to be held at the Alcuin Research Resource Centre, University of York, on Friday 2nd November 2012. The R workshops and a tutorial session on ‘Health Applications in SPSS’ will run in parallel from 10am to (approx) 12-45pm and two SPSS workshops and tutorials on ‘First steps in data analysis using R’, from 1-50pm to (approx) 4-30pm. Each delegate may, therefore, attend a morning workshop or tutorial session and/or an afternoon workshop or tutorial session.

Workshop topics and other details including booking forms are at http://www.spssusers.co.uk/Events/2012/confprog.html

The workshops and tutorials will be taught in an interactive hands-on workshop-style format, with frequent examples. A full set of notes and example files will be given to all workshop attenders. There will also be handouts at the tutorial sessions.

Simon White of the MRC Biostatistics Unit in Cambridge, who will lead the ‘Beginning with R:Comparing Groups’ workshop, looks at applications of statistics to public health issues and teaches R to non-statisticians.

Thom Baguley of Nottingham Trent University will lead ‘An Introduction to Statistical Modeling in R’. Thom has twenty years of teaching and research experience and is the author of ‘Serious Statistics’.

Angie Wade is a senior lecturer in biostatistics at University College London and will lead the ‘Chi-squares and logistic regressions in SPSS’ workshop.

David Culliford, who will lead the ‘Survival Analysis with Healthcare Applications using SPSS’ workshop, teaches on statistical issues surrounding research design and researches osteoarthritis at the University of Southampton.

The ‘Beginning with R:Comparing Groups’ workshop assumes no previous experience using R and will introduce basic concepts and structures used in R together with simple plotting and group comparison procedures. ‘An Introduction to Statistical Modeling in R'  is a workshop building on a basic knowledge of R showing how to perform a range of statistical analyses in R including AN(C)OVA,  regression, meta-analysis and bootstrapping. The SPSS workshops assume a working knowledge of SPSS and an awareness of basic statistical concepts. The ‘Chi-square tests and logistic regressions in SPSS’ workshop will introduce analyses of categoric data. The ‘Survival analysis with Healthcare Applications using SPSS’ workshop introduces commonly used elementary techniques analysing time-to-event data. 

The booking fee includes a coffee break mid-workshop but not overnight accommodation.  A buffet lunch is available and is included for those attending both a morning  AND an afternoon event. Further details will be sent to delegates upon receipt of booking forms.

Come along to:

* obtain training in using SPSS and R from experienced tutors who are fellow users

* learn about statistical methods used for data analysis in R and SPSS

* exchange ideas with other SPSS users

* plan for an even better user group and suggest events for 2013

The venue for both the workshops and users' meeting is the Alcuin Research Resource

Centre (ARRC) on York University campus located in Heslington, 2 miles to the south-east

of the city centre. It takes 10-15 minutes in a taxi from the railway station.

The Number 4 bus runs regularly to the University from York railway station (see

http://www.yorkshiretravel.net/). Parking at the University is very difficult.

Location details are at http://www.york.ac.uk/np/maps/. Accommodation is

bookable via tourist information on (01904) 621756 or (01904) 554455.

PROVISIONAL PROGRAMMES FOR THE TUTORIAL SESSIONS**

Tutorials: Health Applications in SPSS (10am to 12-45pm)

* Practical tips in using SPSS syntax with Health Applications by Vikki O’Neill, MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge

* Comparing linked maternity data sets to check data quality in SPSS by Preeti Datta-Nemdharry, City University, London

* Analysing 3-D Spatial ECGs in SPSS by Gilbert MacKenzie, University of Limerick

* Driving evidence-based decision-making in Healthcare with predictive analytics. A webinar specially recorded by a representative of SPSS

Tutorials: First steps in data analysis using R (1-50pm to 4-10pm)

* Getting your data into R by Simon White, University of Cambridge

* Graphics with R by Simon White, University of Cambridge

* Correlation and Regression in R by Gilbert MacKenzie, University of Limerick

* Repeated measures in 'R' using multi-level models by Tom Dunn, Nottingham Trent University

*Planning for 2013 events

Registration and coffee begins at 9-30am for the ‘Health applications in SPSS’ tutorials’. Registration begins at 1-30pm for the ‘First steps in data analysis using R’ tutorials. Morning coffee and afternoon tea are included in the registration fee. Lunch is included if attending BOTH a morning and afternoon event otherwise is available on request. A timetable will be e-mailed to delegates in advance.

Workshop on Testing Theories of Choice Behavior

Workshop on Testing Theories of Choice Behavior

18-20 July 2012, Berlin

The goal of this workshop is to bring together scholars interested in intertemporal choice, risky choice, game theory, and methods for theory testing in the decision sciences. Junior scientists are especially encouraged to attend and can register for free.

Invited Speakers include Daniel Cavagnaro, Andreas Gloeckner, John Hey, Konstantinos Katsikopoulos, Jonathan Leland, Graham Loomes, Daniel Read, Joerg Rieskamp, Ariel Rubinstein, and E.J. Wagenmakers.

Please register before 30 June 2012 at http://www.choiceworkshop.org/ and indicate whether you would like to present a poster.

This workshop is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, with additional support from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Max Planck Society. The meeting will be hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin.

Organizers:

Michel Regenwetter, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (regenwet@illinois.edu)

Jeffrey R. Stevens, University of Nebraska and Max Planck Institute for Human Development (jeffrey.r.stevens@googlemail.com)