[Pols-announce] FW: Upcoming CRMDA events; Call for participants

Thu Aug 18 16:22:32 CDT 2016

FYI...excuse any duplication

-----Original Message-----
From: Johnson, Paul E. 
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 4:21 PM
Subject: Upcoming CRMDA events; Call for participants

Dear Chairs:

I apologize for cross postings. If you are not a chair any more, but know someone who might be, please let me know and I'll update the  list.

The CRMDA is kicking off the semester with some exciting research presentations and new set of study groups.  I sincerely hope you will let everybody--students and faculty alike--know that these groups are forming.

*_Study Workgroups and Events: Fall 2016_*

*Study workgroups* are forming for the 2016-2017 academic season. This year we are planning 3 groups.

An organizational session will be held on *August 26 at 12:00PM*.  We will meet for 1 hour to try to sort out the interests of the participants, and to develop a schedule for the Fall, assuming that there is sufficient interest in these workgroups. Please think about what times fit well with your calendar and then attend the meeting. 
These groups have usually held meetings on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. 
Quite often, we have used the time between 11AM and 2PM on Fridays for these groups, but in some cases the groups have chosen other times. The CRMDA has weekly presentations at 3PM on Fridays, and therefore, that time is unavailable.

*The Python Workgroup*
*Group Leader: Jacob Fowles (School of Public Affairs, CRMDA Faculty
Fellow)*

Python is a general-purpose programming language that is increasingly viewed as an essential tool. It is frequently mentioned in job advertisements in "big data" analysis.  Python can be used for data collection, cleaning, analysis and visualization.

This is the second year of the CRMDA Python Workshop.  We welcome experienced Python users and beginners alike.  For the novices, we will have a 6 week "crash course" of guided self-study, harnessing the experience of the more experienced users and CRMDA staff. After that, the group will proceed to explore how Python can be leveraged in carrying out research projects, as decided upon by the group.
Researchers who want to use Python for "real" data projects are especially welcome to join and share their progress.

*Project Evaluation Workgroup*
*Group Leaders: Paul Johnson (Director, CRMDA) and Jacob Fowles (School of Public Affairs, CRMDA Faculty Fellow)*

In CRMDA, we are often called upon to help with analysis of experiments that alter the treatment of students, patients, inmates, and the like.  
It appears that many researchers on campus have similar concerns.  This workgroup will consider research examples and discuss the state of the art in program evaluation.  We expect to concentrate primarily on experimental designs at the outset.  After that, we move on to non-experimental designs and assessment of "causal impacts" (propensity score matching).

*Dynamic Latent Variable Models for Time Series and Cross Sectional Time Series Data* *Group Leader: Clay Webb, (Political Science)*

Social scientists often encounter data organized over time that contain incomplete information. This information pertains to latent variables that describe heterogeneous regimes over time or heterogeneous data generating processes within samples. This workshop will consider the use of latent class regression models that can be used to simultaneously diagnose the existence of these latent variables, determine the number of classes, and estimate the effects of independent variables across classes. We expect to begin with change point and regime switching models for individual time series at the outset and move to finite mixture models for panel/cross-sectional time series/longitudinal data in the latter half of the workshop. Specific applications will include the use of these models for data collected from news outlets, social media, and stock markets. Additional topics and applications can be accommodated based on the interests of the group.

*_Upcoming Colloquia:_*

*Estimating and Testing Panel Quantile Regression Models*

Dr. Carlos Lamarche, UK
Friday, September 16, 2016 - 10:00am to 11:00am *crmda.ku.edu/lamarche-20160916-am
<https://crmda.ku.edu/Lamarche-20160916-am>*

*Sparsity-Based Estimation of a Panel Quantile Count Data Model with 
Applications to Big Data*

Dr. Carlos Lamarche, UK
Friday, September 16, 2016 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm
*crmda.ku.edu/lamarche-20160916-PM 
<https://crmda.ku.edu/Lamarche-20160916-PM>*

*Distinguishing Outcomes from Indicators via Bayesian Modeling*

*Dr. Roy Levy, ASU*
Friday, September 23, 2016 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm
*crmda.ku.edu/levy-20160924 <https://crmda.ku.edu/levy-20160924>*

**

*_Saturday Workshops:_*

*Mplus *with Ben Kite - Saturday, October 15^th **
*crmda.ku.edu/mplus-20161015*

*LaTeX *with Dr. Paul Johnson & Brent Kaplan - Saturday, October 29^th **
*crmda.ku.edu/latex-20161029*

*Please watch the website for addition information about these events.*

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*crmda.ku.edu/events*

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*-- Paul E. Johnson University of Kansas Professor Director, Center for 
Research Political Science Methods & Data Analysis 
http://pj.freefaculty.org http://crmda.ku.edu pauljohn at ku.edu 1541 Lilac 
Lane 1425 Jayhawk Blvd. Blake Hall, Rm. 504 Watson Library, Rm. 470 
Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence, Kansas 66045-3129 66045-0001 Ph: (785) 864-3353 *

**