Statistics 200 , Fall 1996 [Not current-- see Spring 1997]
Statistical Computing Laboratory
Instructor: David Pollard
Email: pollard@stat.yale.edu
Class hours: Friday 2.30-5.00
Stat Lab, 140 Prospect
This class provides an introduction to the S-Plus statistical
language. S-Plus (marketed by
MathSoft) is based on the S language developed at Bell Labs by
John Chambers and Richard Becker. It has become the accepted
language for advanced statistical computing. New advances in
statistical methodology are routinely made available as S-routines.
Unlike statistical packages such as SAS, Systat, SPSS or BMDP, S is a
language
for expressing statistical models and statistical procedures. There are many
functions available in S for performing the routine statistical procedures such
as regression, analysis of variance, survival analysis, plotting, tables;
however, the
essence of S is that you can modify the available functions, and write your own
functions, to get what you want.
-
Students from other Statistics courses that assume knowledge of S-Plus are
encouraged to audit the first four weeks of Stat200.
- Special MathSoft offer: Students (with a valid Yale student-id) may purchase a copy of S-Plus
(version 3.3 for Windows) from the Statistics department for only $53 (list
price is $495, with $295 as the usual student rate). Enquiries to:
Mrs. Kennedy.
Requirements of the course
Classroom exercises to be handed in each week.
You should be able to work through the material during the
class time.
Please bring a floppy disk to each session to save your
work |
Topics to be covered
Click on the class number to view the corresponding handout for the lab session.
The first four weeks will provide a crash-course in S-Plus.
Getting into and out of S-Plus. Help! Saving your work. Incorporating S-Plus
output in reports. Introduction to lists, vectors, matrices, functions, and
graphics.
Reading data from other sources; data from WWW sites (such as
StatLib at Carnegie-Mellon University, and the
U.S. Census Bureau). Data frames. Evaluation frames.
Libraries. Search lists.
Fancier graphics: beyond the defaults. Multiple plots per page,
split screens, "graphics frames", maps.
More about functions. Default arguments, variable numbers of
arguments, return values. Idiot-proofing. Looping and conditional computations.
End of crash course in S-plus
Manipulation of matrices and arrays.
Manipulation of data objects. Data structures. Regression and model fitting.
Low-level graphics. Construction of customized plots.
Trellis graphics.
Time series. (Including a little bit about classes and methods:
object-oriented programming.)
Some specialized statistical techniques.
Special projects.
References:
-
Richard A. Becker, John M. Chambers, and Allan R. Wilks (1988)
The New S Language: A programming environment for data analysis and
graphics. Wadsworth. [Slighly dated. Just for reference.]
-
W. N. Venables and B. D. Ripley (1995)
Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus.
Springer-Verlag. [Recommended text] See also the Complements on the WWW.
- Phil Spector (1994)
An Introduction to S and S-Plus. Duxbury. [Much gentler
introduction than Venables&Ripley. No coverage of more recent
developments. Very little material specific to Windows version.]
URL:
"http://www.stat.yale.edu/Courses/200fall.html"