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Benford’s Law and US Census Data, Part I
The first digit (or leading digit) of a number is the leftmost digit (e.g. the first digit of 567 is 5). The first digit of a number can only be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 since we do not usually...
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Benford’s Law and US Census Data, Part II
The Benford’s law is a probability model that is a powerful tool for detecting frauds and data irregularity. The first digit (or leading digit) of a number is the leftmost digit and can only be 1, 2,...
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Which Car Rental Company Is More Expensive, Budget or Avis?
Any “budget” conscious consumer/traveler would want to find a good deal wherever and whenever he or she can, especially when it comes to airfare and rental cars. In tough economic times, bargain...
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Cryptography and Presidential Inaugural Speeches
Given a letter in English, how often does it appear in normal usage of the English language? Some letters appear more often than others. For example, the last letter Z is not common. The vowels are...
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Is College Worth It?
Is college worth it? This was the question posed by the authors of the report called College Majors, Unemployment and Earnings, which was produced recently by The Center on Education and the Workforce....
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Another Look at LA Rainfall
In two previous posts, we examined the annual rainfall data in Los Angeles (see Looking at LA Rainfall Data and LA Rainfall Time Plot). The data we examined in these two post contain 132 years worth of...
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What Are Helicopter Parents Up To?
We came across several interesting graphics about helicopter parents. These graphics give some indication as to what the so called helicopter parents are doing in terms of shepherding their children...
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The Tax Return of Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney is currently a candidate for the 2012 Republican Party nomination for U.S. President. He recently, bowed to pressure from another presidential candidate in the Republican Party, had to...
View ArticleTwo Statisticians in a Battlefield
Two soldiers, both statisticians, were fighting side by side in a battlefield. They spotted an enemy soldier and they both fired their rifles. One statistician soldier fired one foot to the left of the...
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Looking at Spread
In the previous post Two Statisticians in a Battlefield, we discussed the importance of reporting a spread in addition to an average when describing data. In this post we look at three specific notions...
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