Does Facebook's "Is Facebook Good For the World" Poll Matter?

Facebook logo. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images)

From Forbes Does Facebook's "Is Facebook Good For the World" Poll Matter?:
"Given Facebook’s rich demographic data and historical purchasing of a huge cross section of available offline data about its users’ physical world activities, the company is in a unique position to assess an incredible array of questions about the state of human opinion from the global down to the local level. From climate change to Brexit to any imaginable major topic of interest at the moment, Facebook is in an incredibly powerful position to assess in realtime at the individual level how the world feels about major issues and the online nature of that polling may correct for many of the biases of traditional phone polling."

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11 questions journalists should ask about public opinion polls

(andibreit/Pixabay)

Journalist’s Resource:
"Regardless of beat, journalists often write about public opinion polls, which are designed to measure the public’s attitudes about an issue or idea. Some of the most high-profile polls center on elections and politics. Newsrooms tend to follow these polls closely to see which candidates are ahead, who’s most likely to win and what issues voters feel most strongly about."

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2018 AAPOR Award Lars Lyberg

Lars E Lyberg mottog i maj som förste icke-amerikan AAPORs utmärkelse ”Exceptionally Distinguished Acheivement”.

Lars är fil doktor i statistik och har många år bakom sig på SCB, Stockholm Universitet och är i dag verksam på Inizio. Hans specialområde är undersökningskvalitet. Under 25 år var han chefredaktör för den vetenskapliga tidskriften Journal of Official Statistics. Han har författat och varit redaktör för flera böcker på undersökningsområdet. Lars var Sveriges representant vid utvecklingen av ISO-standarden 20252 om Market, opinion and social research och han är nu rådgivare åt bokförlaget Wiley och European Social Survey. Han har undervisat i metodfrågor på undersökningsområdet i fler än tio länder.

Tidigare pristagare inkluderar George Gallup, Daniel Yankelovich, Kathleen Frankovic, Scott Keeter, Warren J. Mitofsky, Walter Lippman och Jon A. Kroscnick.

Frågor och svar om frågekonstruktion i enkät- och intervjuundersökningar

”Som man frågar får man svar” är ett talesätt som i högsta grad är relevant för statistiska undersökningar. Att ställa frågor där svaren syftar till att skapa underlag för statistik ställer höga krav på den som konstruerar frågorna. Under 1980-talet gav Statistiska centralbyrån ut boken ”Att fråga – Om frågekonstruktion vid intervjuundersökningar och postenkäter” (Wärneryd m.fl.). Den senaste versionen kom 1990.

Sedan dess har förutsättningarna för datainsamling förändrats och forskningen om frågekonstruktion gått framåt. ”Frågor och svar” tar till viss del avstamp i ”Att fråga” men är en fristående bok, anpassad till dagens förutsättningar. Boken ger både en introduktion till frågekonstruktion och en fördjupning i ämnet. Den ger praktiska tips men innehåller även teoretiska resonemang utifrån forskning och praktiska erfarenheter."

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Nu gör vi det lättare att tolka opinionsmätningar

I valtider behövs bättre resurser för att förstå opinionsmätningar. 
Foto: Nils Jakobsson/Bildbyrån//Colourbox/Lychy

Nu gör vi det lättare att tolka opinionsmätningar | Dagens Samhälle:
"I syfte att hjälpa såväl journalister som läsare att bättre förstå och tolka opinionsundersökningar har vi tagit fram en checklista för hur undersökningarnas resultat ska rapporteras. Målet är att göra det enklare att värdera undersökningar i valtider."

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Roslings blir hedersdoktorer

Foto: Pressbild

Roslings blir hedersdoktorer - Skaraborgs Läns Tidning:
"Microsoft-grundaren Bill Gates har kallat deras bok Factfulness för en av de viktigaste i vår samtid – och den toppar de svenska försäljningslistorna. Nu utses författarna, och grundarna till stiftelsen Gapminder, Ola Rosling och Anna Rosling Rönnlund till hedersdoktorer i informationsteknologi vid Högskolan i Skövde."

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Big Geospatial Data Helps Modernise the Statistical Field

GIS Professional:
Geospatial tools and information are going mainstream, as is evident following the recent opening of a new data science campus at the Office for National Statistics headquarters. Niall Conway explains how the fields of Statistics, Big Data and Geospatial are beginning to converge in order to deliver better insights to government.

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SCB:s partisympatiundersökning maj 2018 - metodbeskrivning

Partisympatiundersökningen maj 2018 - Definitioner och förklaringar:
"PSU i maj 2018 genomfördes med ett riksomfattande slumpmässigt urval omfattande 8 951 i riksdagsval röstberättigade personer utan övre åldersgräns. Svar från dessa personer samlas in genom såväl telefonintervjuer som webbenkät. Blandad insamling infördes första gången i undersökningen i maj 2015. Personerna i urvalet ges inledningsvis möjlighet att besvara frågorna via en webbenkät. Om de inte har besvarat webbenkäten har de senare under insamlingsperioden kontaktats via telefon. I likhet med tidigare undersökningar används alla tillgängliga telefonnummer, både till mobila och fasta telefoner, för att kontakta de utvalda personerna.

The most important skills of data scientists

This Ted Talk explains how data is changing the world and the skills needed to interpret it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrhRfPY4F4w

Det drar ihop sig

Politologerna: Det drar ihop sig:

De politiska seismologerna varnar för jordbävning i riksdagsvalet. Men än kan mycket hända! Eller?

Nja, skriver Anders Sundell, som visar att opinionsmätningarna vid den här tidpunkten ger rätt bra vägledning om hur det till slut går i valet.

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To Build Truly Intelligent Machines, Teach Them Cause and Effect

https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-build-truly-intelligent-machines-teach-them-cause-and-effect-20180515/

Jessica: Vitbok över vettlös folkräkning av främmande stam

DN.SE:

"Kåseri. Vad var verkligt vansinne enligt Statistiska Centralbyrån på 30-talet? Och vad är verkligt vettlöst att mäta då precis som nu? "

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Inom felmarginalen finns inga säkra förändringar

Foto: Pi Frisk / SvD / TT

Medierna | Sveriges Radio:

"Nyheter baserade på opinionsmätningar duggar tätt inför valet i höst. Nyheter om att ett parti backar, ett annat går framåt, eller att opinionen förändrats i en viss sakfråga. Men hur förhåller vi oss till felmarginalen?"

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Over 2000 years of economic history, in one chart

World Economic Forum:
"Long before the invention of modern day maps or gunpowder, the planet’s major powers were already duking it out for economic and geopolitical supremacy.

Today’s chart tells that story in the simplest terms possible. By showing the changing share of the global economy for each country from 1 AD until now, it compares economic productivity over a mind-boggling time period."

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Så görs en opinionsundersökning

Så görs en opinionsundersökning - DN.SE:

https://www.dn.se/webb-tv/klipp/nyheter/sa-gors-en-opinionsundersokning/

Två prestigefyllda priser till professor Lars Lyberg

Två prestigefyllda priser till professor Lars Lyberg - Statistiska Institutionen:

Professor Lars Lyberg har tilldelats två prestigefyllda priser 2013. Helen Dinerman Award "for career contributions to innovative research and to research methodology" och AAPOR Book Award.

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This Is America’s Hottest Job

Source:mac905/Stockphoto

This Is America’s Hottest Job - Bloomberg:
"Murray Webb had been a lackluster student more interested in sports than schoolwork while attending a small Virginia college. Then he transferred to Kennesaw State University in suburban Atlanta to pursue a master’s degree in applied statistics and landed four job offers upon graduation. Webb, 33, now earns $160,000 a year targeting health-care customers for hospitals and says he is approached weekly by companies and recruiters seeking data scientists."

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Easily prepare data for analysis with Google Cloud

(61) Easily prepare data for analysis with Google Cloud (Google Cloud Next '17) - YouTube:



80% of data analysts and scientists time is spent in data preparation, including finding, cleaning and organizing data, and this is also the least favorite part of their job (according to Forbes). Accelerating the data preparation process will help you to gain insights from the data faster. Watch this video to understand the best practices and explore tools for preparing data quickly and easily.

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)

Amstat News: Born on this day in 1820: #statistician Florence Nightingale, #dataviz pioneer.
"In 1840, Florence Nightingale begged her parents “to let her study mathematics instead of doing worsted work and practicing quadrilles.” Her mother “did not approve, home duties were not to be neglected for mathematics.” She assumed that her daughter’s destiny was marriage, “and what use were mathematics to a married woman?” Her father, who loved math and had communicated that love to his daughter, nevertheless urged her to study more appropriate subjects (for a woman), “history or philosophy, natural or moral.” Florence expressed her preference for mathematics by saying, “I don’t think I shall succeed so well in anything that requires quickness as in what requires only work.” [1] Her parents finally granted permission. Years later, her mathematical approach saved the British army at Scutari during the Crimean war and provided the data that led to hospital reforms. [2]"

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Leveraging AI in the public sector with open data

Europeiska Data Portalen:

"Using AI in the public sector is possible, but how?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) software has been called the most disruptive force in technology and it offers an unprecedented opportunity to transform both the private- and public services sector. It is a priority for the European Union and the European Commission recently presented a series of measure to boost Europe’s competitiveness in this field. In the public sector, AI applications are still only used to a small extent though. A key question is: how can the potential of AI applications in the public sector be unleashed? Open Data can play an important role in realizing this.

 What can AI do for society?

AI techniques can unravel deeper insights from sets of data than traditional statistical techniques. Examples of AI are: speech recognition, natural language processing, chatbots or voice bots. In most cases, AI applications have at least one of the following seven functions: monitoring, discovering, predicting, interpreting, interacting with the physical environment, interacting with humans and interacting with machines."

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3 things you can’t do with math

Image Credit: Zapp2Photo/Shutterstock

3 things you can’t do with math | VentureBeat:
"I’ve been doing analytics, data science and statistics for a long time, and I remember when analytics was just called “math.” I walked around the RSA Conference show floor this year, and I would like to apologize on behalf of the entire analytics industry for all the noise out there on the subject. There’s no doubt that AI and analytics are revolutionizing many industries — especially the cybersecurity industry. But it’s not a silver bullet, because there are limitations to what math can actually accomplish. Let’s look at three, in the hopes that it will help you navigate the noise."

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New Decimal Systems - Great Sandbox for Data Scientists and Mathematicians

Data Science Central:
"We illustrate pattern recognition techniques applied to an interesting mathematical problem: The representation of a number in non-conventional systems, generalizing the familiar base-2 or base-10 systems. The emphasis is on data science rather than mathematical theory, and the style is that of a tutorial, requiring minimum knowledge in mathematics or statistics. However, some off-the-beaten-path, state-of-the-art number theory research is discussed here, in a way that is accessible to college students after a first course in statistics. This article is also peppered with mathematical and statistical oddities, for instance the fact that there are units of information smaller than the bit.

You will also learn how the discovery process works, as I have included research that I thought would lead me to interesting results, but did not. In all scientific research, only final, successful results are presented, while actually most of the research leads to dead-ends, and is not made available to the reader. Here is your chance to discover these hidden steps, and my thought process!"

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Statistics and Big Data: A fast track to success

Statistics and Big Data: A fast track to success - Study International:

“Statistics is the grammar of science.” – Karl Pearson

"The global explosion of computerised statistics has given life to the Big Data Revolution. With the amount of data produced in the past few years alone far exceeding any human data previously recorded, it’s fair to say that statistics and Big Data are a BIG deal.

In the age of the Internet, it becomes critically essential for businesses and corporations in virtually every sector to harness data that can be used for analysis and discovery. Regardless of whether your profession lies in healthcare, communications, bandwidth or something more complex, the power of numbers and Big Data will allow you to make faster and smarter decisions."

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Hans Roslings regler för att förstå samtiden

Foto: Magnus Sandberg/IBL

Hans Roslings regler för att förstå samtiden | SvD:
"Hur lär man sig tänka som Hans Rosling? I en postumt publicerad bok presenteras vad den populäre professorn kallar "factfulness" – tio metoder för att se världen som den är, bortom såväl "fake news" som omedvetet förvrängda mediebilder."

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Dataskyddsförordningen

Statisticon bjuder in till diskussion… Hur får jag hantera personuppgifter?

Nu är det bara några veckor kvar tills Dataskyddsförordningen (GDPR) träder i kraft den 25 maj 2018. Skyddet för personuppgifter kommer därmed att stärkas. Och det här kommer att påverka allas vår vardag. Vad är egentligen personuppgifter? Och hur får vi behandla dem?

Advokat Lotta Wikman Öman från Ahlford Advokatbyrå ger en genomgång av GDPR och svarar på frågor samt ger råd avseende vilka åtgärder som behöver vidtas och rutiner som behöver tas fram för att kunna efterleva den kommande lagstiftningen.

…se mer på sajt www.snackastatistik.se

Martin Lagerström 2017 års statistikfrämjare

Martin Lagerström 2017 års statistikfrämjare | Statistikfrämjandet:

"I want to say big thank´s to the Swedish Statistical Society which has given me the award as “The Statistician of the Year!”

Video (3 min in Swedish) when I receive the prize:
https://dreambroker.com/channel/dfa01fqt/n0ztt5r7

Video (80 min in Swedish) when I present how to use fact-based approaches to innovate and thrive in business:
https://dreambroker.com/channel/dfa01fqt/iqvtbztq

The jury´s motivation for the Award: ”For innovative application of statistical methodology in the fields of business development and strategic competence development of managers and management teams”

Previous Winners of this Award is e.g. Prof. Hans Rosling"

Non-tech businesses are beginning to use artificial intelligence at scale - GrAIt expectations

Economist - Non-tech businesses are beginning to use artificial intelligence at scale - GrAIt expectations:
"AI and machine learning (terms that are often used interchangeably) involve computers crunching vast quantities of data to find patterns and make predictions without being explicitly programmed to do so. Larger quantities of data, more sophisticated algorithms and sheer computing power have given AI greater force and capability. The outcomes are often similar to what an army of statisticians with unlimited time and resources might have come up with, but they are achieved far more quickly, cheaply and efficiently."

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Bill Gates Calls Factfulness One of the Most Important Books

Bill Gates Calls Factfulness One of the Most Important Books | Time:
Millions of people have tuned in for Swedish physician and statistician Hans Rosling’s TED Talks over the years, and the videos caught the attention of at least one famous fan: Bill Gates. Gates and his wife Melinda went on to befriend Rosling, who gained his global audience with insights on how data can help lead to better outcomes in global poverty and health.

Swansong of Hans Rosling, data visionary

Hans Rosling discusses population growth at the ReSource 2012 conference
in Oxford, UK.Credit: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images for ReSource 2012

Nature - Swansong of Hans Rosling, data visionary:
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think Hans Rosling with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund Flatiron: 2018.

Hans Rosling was many things. A physician and epidemiologist; a statistician and data visualizer; a staunch advocate of free data as the bedrock of an accurate world view. Factfulness is Rosling’s last, and posthumous, book; he died in February 2017. Like his other work, including his famous presentations, it throws down a gauntlet to doom-and-gloomers in global health by challenging preconceptions and misconceptions.

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Visst kan man lita på opinionsundersökningar

Medievärlden - Diskussion:
"Att VLT, och dess associerade publikationer, nu väljer att blankt vägra presentera opinionsundersökningar är ett uppseendeväckande ställningstagande, som på intet sätt bidrar till ett bättre undersökningsklimat, skriver branschorganisationen SMIF i ett svar till Daniel Nordström."

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