STA215: Statistical Inference

Prof:Robert L. Wolpert wolpert@stat.duke.edu (211c Old Chem, 684-3275)
TA:Enrique ter Horst Gomez enrique@stat.duke.edu (223a Old Chem, 684-4558)
Class:Mon & Wed 3:55-5:10pm Soc/Psych 126
OH:Tue 3:00-4:00pm Old Chemistry 211c
Text: Peter Bickel & Kjell Doksum, Mathematical Statistics: Basic Ideas and Selected Topics (2nd edn)
Opt'l:James Berger & Robert Wolpert, The Likelihood Principle (2nd edn)
Andrew Gelman, John Carlin,
Hal Stern, & Don Rubin,		 Bayesian Data Analysis
John Kalbfleisch & Ross Prentice, The Statistical Analysis of Failure Time Data
Erich Lehmann, Theory of Point Estimation and Testing Statistical Hypotheses
Home Page Syllabus Computing ACES

Description

This is a course about making inference using statistics, or functions of observed data: this includes the (point and interval) estimation of uncertain parameters and the testing of statistical hypotheses. All three contemporary paradigms of inference (Likelihood, Classical, Bayesian) are presented and compared; traditional properties of estimators (bias, consistency, efficiency, sufficiency, etc.) and tests (size, power, probability) are considered in detail. The emphasis is perhaps 60% on frequentist methods, 30% on Bayesian methods, and 10% on likelihoodist methods.

Students are assumed to be familiar with random variables and their distributions from a calculus-based or (better) measure-theoretic introduction to probability theory. Some problems and projects will require computation; students should be or become familiar with either S-Plus (some notes and an intro are available, also in an older but nice form (Contents, 1-29, 30-64, 65-85, Examples)) or Matlab (a primer and intro are available), both easier to use than compiled languages like Fortran or C.

Not all homework sets will be graded, but they should be turned in for comment; Monday classes will begin with a class solution of two of the preceeding week's problems. Here is at least a tentative schedule, containing most of the topics below.

OUTLINE -- course topics will include: (look here for a tentative schedule)