GLM tips: get non-linear with splines This tip is great for a quick non-linear test, before you go all the way with a GAM or parametric non-linear model. You’ll need the splines library, which comes shipped with R anyway. First, let’s make up a ... [Read more...]

R courses February 2020 Our next series of R courses for professionals and graduate students is now open for registration. The courses include 1-day for absolute beginners, 3 days for intermediate material and 3 days for the advanced class. They are r... [Read more...]

Diary of becoming a Bayesian Here’s my timeline of going from frequentist stats to becoming a fully fledged Bayesian eco-statistician. 2006 Read the Ecological Detective (Hilborn and Walters), the philosophy makes sense, the history of falsificatio... [Read more...]

R course in data wrangling and spatial analysis notes are online I have posted the notes to our new R course in data wrangling and spatial analysis notes on this webpage. The course is aimed at biological scientists who have some basic knowledge of R... [Read more...]

Generalized Linear Models: understanding the link function Generalized Linear Models (‘GLMs’) are one of the most useful modern statistical tools, because they can be applied to many different types of data. Count, binary ‘yes/no’, and waiting... [Read more...]

Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced R courses February 2019 This is an announcement of our next set of R courses. There are 4 separate courses taught over 5th-8th February 2019. You can register with the Centre for Applications in Resource Management... [Read more...]

Survey your audience and visualise the results with R and Google forms I wanted to make my presentation on dataviz at the UQ School of Bioinformatics more interactive. A quiz is a good way to engage your audience. Given I was giving a talk about R datavisuals I thought it ... [Read more...]

Data visuals 2018 Supplementary notes for CJ Brown’s talks on dataviz in 2018 for Griffith University’s honours students and the UQ Winterschool in Bioinformatics. These notes run through some of the principles I present and also show R code for generating data visuals. If you want to take the dataviz ... [Read more...]

How do I interpret the AIC? My student asked today how to interpret the AIC (Akaike’s Information Criteria) statistic for model selection. We ended up bashing out some R code to demonstrate how to calculate the AIC for a simple GLM (general linear model). I always think if you ... [Read more...]

Should I learn sf or sp for spatial R programming? I recently received an email about some of the short-courses on my webpage. The correspondant was asked whether my course on Maps and GIS in R was still relevant, it being written in 2014. The R env... [Read more...]

How do I calculate the R squared metric for a Bayesian model? A good friend I met on a field trip long ago, Dominique Roche, recently emailed me to ask about evaluation of Bayesian models. He has been delving into generalized linear models, using Ba... [Read more...]

General Linear Models: The Basics General linear models are one of the most widely used statistical tool in the biological sciences. This may be because they are so flexible and they can address many different problems, that they provide useful output... [Read more...]

Checking residual distributions for non-normal GLMs Quantile-quantile plots If you are fitting a linear regression with Gaussian (normally distributed) errors, then one of the standard checks is to make sure the residuals are approximately normally d... [Read more...]

Stay motivated with R programming by knowing your emotions We don’t usually think of programming as an ‘emotional’ experience. It is all code and computer logic and if using R, probably statistics. But recognising the emotions you face when pro... [Read more...]

Some thoughts about Bayesian Kriging in INLA I have been playing around with spatial modelling in the R INLA package. This blog just records a few thoughts I have had about using INLA for kriging (spatial interpolation). I am keen to discuss these ide... [Read more...]

seascapemodels.org version 2 I just (8-8-2017) updated my webpage to version 2 styling. If something is missing that you use, please let me know. Hope you enjoy the new page. [Read more...]

Impact of the conservation optimism hashtag The hashtag #conservationoptimism became popular during the recent International Congress for Conservation Biology symposium. Michael Burgass asked me what its twitter impact was, so here is a quick analysi... [Read more...]

What analysis programs drive conservation science? With the International Congress for Conservation Biology on at the end of July I was wondering, what analysis programs are supporting conservation science? And, what programs support spatial analysis ... [Read more...]

“Memorable dataviz with the R program” awarded people’s choice prize For the past two years Dr Nick Hamilton has invited me to give a talk on creating data visuals with the R program at the wonderful UQ Winterschool in Bioinformatics. This year... [Read more...]

What are people saying about International Congress for Conservation Biology 2017 on Twitter? Here’s a brief analysis of tweets from the International Congress for Conservation Biology to date. The conference started on the starting 23rd July I was ... [Read more...]