Jeff Gill on "Circular Data in Political Science and How to Handle It" 

 Please join us this Wednesday when Jeff Gill--Department of Political Science and Director Center for Applied Statistics, Washington University St Louis-- will present "Circular Data in Political Science and How to Handle It", work that is joint with Dominik Hangartner.  Jeff and Dominik provided the following abstract 

 There has been no attention to circular (purely cyclical) data in political science research. We show that such data exists and is generally mishandled by models that do not take into account the inherently recycling nature of some phenomenon. Clock and calendar effects are the obvious cases, but directional data exists as well. We develop a modeling framework based on the von Mises distribution and apply it to two datasets: casualties in the second Iraq war and suicides in Switzerland. Results clearly demonstrate the importance of circular regression models to handle periodic data. 

 A preliminary draft of their paper is available  here  
The authors also provided an example of circular data analyzed in their paper: the figure below shows the time at which different kinds of violent attacks occur in Iraq.  

     

  

 The applied statistics workshop meets at 12 noon in room N-354 of CGIS-Knafel (1737 Cambridge St), with a light lunch served.  The presentations begin around 1215 and conclude at about 130 pm.  

 Please contact me with any questions