Course in generalized linear modeling with biological applications - Spring 2008

The course is accepted as a PhD-course of Aarhus University (10 ECTS points).
The pages was updated: Jun 18, 2008

News

The course is now booked up. (11. 01. 2007)
The course starts Monday, 25. February 2008, 10:00, at the Reserach Centre Foulum.
Schedule:
The course will consist of 4 blocks, the first and third blocks consisting of 3 days.
The dates are
Venue:
The course takes place at the Research Centre Foulum, Mødelokale 1.
As a guest from outside please visit first the information at the main entrance. There you will receive a guest identification card. Afterwards, turn into the direction of the 'Auditorium'. Pass the auditorium and on the left you find the 'Mødelokale 1'.
Accommodation:
The course is arranged in blocks of 2 to 3 days to facilitate participation from other locations than Foulum such that people will not have to spend too much time on transportation and with the only additional expense of having to spend a few nights in the Foulum area. Accommodation is available at Nørresøkollegiet in Viborg, see http://www.nkvib.dk/. If participants come from far away, we have the possibility of not starting until 10am on the first day in a block.

Registration

The course i booked up.
The maximal number of particpants is 15 and the minimal 5.

Course description

The fundamental focus in many experiments and studies is on relating a response variable to one or several explanatory variables. A traditional way of accomplishing this is through a multiple linear regression model (technically speaking, analysis of variance is also a multiple linear regression).
Through practical experience with regression and analysis of variance, one may have experienced situations where the model assumptions are questionable: Data might not be normally distributed, for example because the data are counts (0,1,2,3,4,5,...) or binary (sick/not sick or yes/no). It is not uncommon to find that the variance of the response variable grows with the expected value, or the response variable depends on the explanatory variables in a nonlinear way. Starting from real data examples, it is shown how generalized linear models (GLM) are used for handling such data. The course also describes how to analyze such data, when they are correlated, e.g. because the measurements are made on the same experimental unit. This is achieved using the approach of generalized estimating equations.
The course is planned such that practice and theory goes hand in hand. This means that the starting point for all topics will be practical examples primarily, but not exclusively, taken from biological sciences. The necessary statistical theory is then added as needed to solve the practical problems.
Topics: Linear normal models, logistic regression, analysis of count data, analysis of data with non-constant variance (in particular data with constant coefficient of variation), nonlinear relations between data and explanatory variables, analysis of correlated data (GEE), the model concept, statistical inference, model control.
Every lecture will be followed by computer exercises. For these computer labs the R program will be used. In the course an introduction to R will be given on the first two days. Nevertheless, the participants are strongly recommended to download, install and start playing around with R before the course starts.

Facilitites

The lecture room is equipped with computers with internet-access and will be used during the practicals.

Prerequisites

Working knowledge of basic mathematical and statistical tools and concepts: Solving a simple equation, logarithmic and exponential function. Probability distribution, random variable, mean, variance, normal distribution, confidence interval, linear regression, analysis of variance, hypothesis testing. If you are uncertain about whether you meet these requirements, please contact the lecturer!
It may be advisable to brush-up your statistical skills before the start of the course. We suggest to consult e.g. 

Additional information

Language:
The course language will be English.
On the web:
The course homepage is http://genetics.agrsci.dk/statistics/courses/phd08
Homepage of the previous course in 2007
Form:
The course will consist of a mixture of lectures, exercises, and computer practicals.
Credit:
The course is approved as a PhD course at Aarhus University with 10 ECTS points.
Workload:
To complete this course you should expect to put about 7 weeks of full time work into it.
Compulsory homework:
A very important part of the course is the take-home assignments. These are larger assignments which must be handed in and approved. Participants can only attend the exam if the take-home assignments have been approved.
Exam:
A project has to be made at the end of the course. The final (oral) exam is based on that project, but a participant can only attend the exam if the take-home assignments have been approved.
Price:
The course is free for PhD students. It is also free for students and employees affiliated to Aarhus University. Other participants will have to pay 12.000 DKK for participation.
Lecturer:

Course program and course material

The data sets used in the course are installed to R by executing in R the command
install.packages("dataRep",repos="http://gbi.agrsci.dk/statistics/software/r/packages")

In the software folder you can find the setup file for the editor Tinn-R (1.19.3.1). The homepage for Tinn-R is http://www.sciviews.org/Tinn-R/.
The material for the present course is available (exception Day 10). You may download the files. The following files have the same content but in different format:
  1. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  2. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  3. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  4. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  5. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  6. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  7. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  8. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  9. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  10. DAY Click here to find material for this day
  11. Final-Exam Click here to find material for this day
  12. HOMEWORKS Click here to find material for this day
  13. extra material Supplementary material
Homework:

Literature

In addition we suggest consulting:

Useful Links




File translated from TEX by TTH, version 3.79.
On 18 Jun 2008, 16:36.