Book picks similar to
Latent Variable Models and Factor Analysis: A Unified Approach by David J. Bartholomew
economics
mathematics
mmath
62-statistics-and-statistical
Complexity and Chaos
Roger White - 1994
But scientists in the late 20th century have found patterns in things formerly thought to be chaotic; their theories help explain the unstable irregular yet highly structured features of everyday experience. It now seems likely that randomness and chaos play an essential role in the evolution of the living world-and of intelligence itself. Script by Dr. Roger White.
Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception
Charles Seife - 2010
According to MSNBC, having a child makes you stupid. You actually lose IQ points. Good Morning America has announced that natural blondes will be extinct within two hundred years. Pundits estimated that there were more than a million demonstrators at a tea party rally in Washington, D.C., even though roughly sixty thousand were there. Numbers have peculiar powers-they can disarm skeptics, befuddle journalists, and hoodwink the public into believing almost anything. "Proofiness," as Charles Seife explains in this eye-opening book, is the art of using pure mathematics for impure ends, and he reminds readers that bad mathematics has a dark side. It is used to bring down beloved government officials and to appoint undeserving ones (both Democratic and Republican), to convict the innocent and acquit the guilty, to ruin our economy, and to fix the outcomes of future elections. This penetrating look at the intersection of math and society will appeal to readers of Freakonomics and the books of Malcolm Gladwell.
Schaum's Outline of Calculus
Frank Ayres Jr. - 1990
They'll also find the related analytic geometry much easier. The clear review of algebra and geometry in this edition will make calculus easier for students who wish to strengthen their knowledge in these areas. Updated to meet the emphasis in current courses, this new edition of a popular guide--more than 104,000 copies were bought of the prior edition--includes problems and examples using graphing calculators..
The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics
Tim Harford - 2020
That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics—we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us.” If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly—understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray—statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter.As “perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world” (New Statesman), Tim Harford is an expert at taking complicated ideas and untangling them for millions of readers. In The Data Detective, he uses new research in science and psychology to set out ten strategies for using statistics to erase our biases and replace them with new ideas that use virtues like patience, curiosity, and good sense to better understand ourselves and the world. As a result, The Data Detective is a big-idea book about statistics and human behavior that is fresh, unexpected, and insightful.
Understanding the Black Economy and Black Money in India: An Enquiry into Causes, Consequences & Remedies
Arun Kumar - 2017
It has crippled the country’s economy for a long time to come. In this book, Arun Kumar, the country’s leading authority on the black economy, tells us why Modi’s gambit failed. He shows us the way in which the problem can be rooted out, provided the government has the political will and determination to act.Today, the black economy is estimated to be 62 per cent of GDP—or about `93 lakh crore ($1.4 trillion). Corrupt businessmen, corrupt politicians, and corrupt members of the executive (bureaucrats, police and the judiciary) are responsible for controlling the black economy and enabling its growth. If the black economy were to be dismantled and turned into a part of the ‘white’ economy, the country’s rate of growth would be 12 per cent. If it had not grown the way it has since the 1970s, India’s per capita income today would be approximately `7 lakh per annum ($11,000) and India would become the second largest economy in the world. If the black economy were taxed at current rates, it would generate `37 lakh crore in additional taxes and the union budget would show a surplus of `31 lakh crore instead of a deficit.The failure of successive governments to tackle the problem effectively has been the single biggest obstacle to eradicating poverty. It is the cause of both widespread policy failure and the inability of the nation to improve its living conditions rapidly.
Introduction to Topology
Bert Mendelson - 1975
It provides a simple, thorough survey of elementary topics, starting with set theory and advancing to metric and topological spaces, connectedness, and compactness. 1975 edition.
Viva the Entrepreneur: Founding, Scaling, and Raising Venture Capital in Latin America
Brian Requarth
He shows how to manage your own psychology and your operations, be it working with co-founders, building a culture, or managing a board of directors. Brian also reveals the secrets of scaling a business and best practices for raising venture capital in Latin America. You will develop an understanding of the most critical parts of an investor term sheet, and gain perspective into the inner workings of the venture capital game.
Shakedown Socialism: Unions, Pitchforks, Collective Greed, The Fallacy of Economic Equality, and other Optical Illusions of "Redistributive Justice"
Oleg Atbashian - 2010
Atbashian explains why Socialism cannot work. He exposes the injustice of "Collective Greed" and shows why Economic Equality is a fraud. The book is an eye-opener as the author illustrates his points with examples drawn from his life in the Soviet Union before 1994 and more recent events in the USA. "Oleg Atbashian has written a timely warning for Americans about the collectivists among us and their plans for the future. I hope everyone reads this book." -- David Horowitz, Author of One Party Classroom (2009) "In his brilliant, witty, and wonderfully illustrated Shakedown Socialism, Oleg Atbashian -- who grew up in the Soviet Union, shows what is happening in Obama's America today, and explains why it is putting us on the road to ruin. Shakedown Socialism is an enlightening, sobering, and wonderfully clear explanation of why statism kills -- and thus also of why and how Barack Obama is killing the American economy. This book shows why Obama's statist economic policies are a looming disaster for America and for the spirit of the free human individual." -- Pamela Geller, author, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War On America "Brightly written and filled with entertaining and illuminating illustrations, Oleg Atbashian's Shakedown Socialism is a clear and eye-opening guide to exactly what is wrong with socialism and state control of the means of production, and how it kills both the economy and human initiative. Shakedown Socialism is an essential and inspiring guide to the virtues of the free market." -- Robert Spencer, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad
Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak
Travis Sawchik - 2015
Pittsburghers joked their town was the city of champions…and the Pirates. Big Data Baseball is the story of how the 2013 Pirates, mired in the longest losing streak in North American pro sports history, adopted drastic big-data strategies to end the drought, make the playoffs, and turn around the franchise's fortunes.Award-winning journalist Travis Sawchik takes you behind the scenes to expertly weave together the stories of the key figures who changed the way the small-market Pirates played the game. For manager Clint Hurdle and the front office staff to save their jobs, they could not rely on a free agent spending spree, instead they had to improve the sum of their parts and find hidden value. They had to change. From Hurdle shedding his old-school ways to work closely with Neal Huntington, the forward-thinking data-driven GM and his team of talented analysts; to pitchers like A. J. Burnett and Gerrit Cole changing what and where they threw; to Russell Martin, the undervalued catcher whose expert use of the nearly-invisible skill of pitch framing helped the team's pitchers turn more balls into strikes; to Clint Barmes, a solid shortstop and one of the early adopters of the unconventional on-field shift which forced the entire infield to realign into positions they never stood in before. Under Hurdle's leadership, a culture of collaboration and creativity flourished as he successfully blended whiz kid analysts with graybeard coaches—a kind of symbiotic teamwork which was unique to the sport.Big Data Baseball is Moneyball on steroids. It is an entertaining and enlightening underdog story that uses the 2013 Pirates season as the perfect lens to examine the sport's burgeoning big-data movement. With the help of data-tracking systems like PitchF/X and TrackMan, the Pirates collected millions of data points on every pitch and ball in play to create a tome of color-coded reports that revealed groundbreaking insights for how to win more games without spending a dime. In the process, they discovered that most batters struggled to hit two-seam fastballs, that an aggressive defensive shift on the field could turn more batted balls into outs, and that a catcher's most valuable skill was hidden. All these data points which aren't immediately visible to players and spectators, are the bit of magic that led the Pirates to spin straw in to gold, finish the 2013 season in second place, end a twenty-year losing streak.
Patriots
David Frum - 2012
A new leader tries to pull the country out of a terrible recession—only to face a devilish plot from inside his own party. David Frum's darkly comic satire PATRIOTS is not only a warning about the future of American politics. It is a scorching, intimate explanation of why the U.S. political system has so badly failed the American people over the years just past.PATRIOTS tells the story of Walter Schotzke, the aimless young heir to America's largest mustard fortune. Walter is sent by his tough-minded grandmother to work in the office of a distinguished U.S. Senator. She hopes her otherwise worthless only grandchild might find purpose, and even appreciation for his country, from political service. Perhaps the job will also help Walter overcome the tragic loss of both his parents—especially that of his famous father, a genuine American hero, whose example Walter can't ever hope to live up to.
My Brain is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdős
Bruce Schechter - 1998
Hungarian-born Erdős believed that the meaning of life was to prove and conjecture. His work in the United States and all over the world has earned him the titles of the century's leading number theorist and the most prolific mathematician who ever lived. Erdős's important work has proved pivotal to the development of computer science, and his unique personality makes him an unforgettable character in the world of mathematics. Incapable of the smallest of household tasks and having no permanent home or job, he was sustained by the generosity of colleagues and by his own belief in the beauty of numbers. Witty and filled with the sort of mathematical puzzles that intrigued Erdős and continue to fascinate mathematicians today, My Brain Is Open is the story of this strange genius and a journey in his footsteps through the world of mathematics, where universal truths await discovery like hidden treasures and where brilliant proofs are poetry.
Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data
Charles Wheelan - 2012
How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you’ll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.For those who slept through Stats 101, this book is a lifesaver. Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions.And in Wheelan’s trademark style, there’s not a dull page in sight. You’ll encounter clever Schlitz Beer marketers leveraging basic probability, an International Sausage Festival illuminating the tenets of the central limit theorem, and a head-scratching choice from the famous game show Let’s Make a Deal—and you’ll come away with insights each time. With the wit, accessibility, and sheer fun that turned Naked Economics into a bestseller, Wheelan defies the odds yet again by bringing another essential, formerly unglamorous discipline to life.
Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics
Paul Ormerod - 2005
For every General Electric–still going strong after more than one hundred years–there are dozens of businesses like Central Leather, which was one of the world’s largest companies in 1912 but was liquidated in 1952. Ormerod debunks conventional economic theory–that the world economy ticks along in perfect equilibrium according to the best-laid plans of business and government–and delves into the reasons for the failure of brands, entire companies, and public policies. Inspired by recent advances in evolutionary theory and biology, Ormerod illuminates the ways in which companies and policy-setting sectors of government behave much like living organisms: unless they evolve, they die. But he also makes clear how desirable social and economic outcomes may be achieved when individuals, companies and governments adapt in response to the actual behavior and requirements of their customers and constituents.Why Most Things Fail is a fascinating and provocative study of a truth all too seldom acknowledged.