Remiss on my Posting Again...

Teaching is hard work (and also quite time consuming)!  A quick update on my research, with more to follow later today...

For the last two weeks, I have been teaching myself how to program in Python.  I have now done a quick pass through tutorials for all of the major modules that I suspect I will be using:

1. NumPy
2. SciPy
3. NetworkX
4. PyGraphviz
5. SymPy
6. Matplotlib
7. RPy2

 I now plan to double back and do more detailed work with each of the packages goals in mind.  The first thing I plan to do is implement the Clauset et al (2009) procedure to detect power laws in  empirical data using Python and then systematically apply the procedure to major economic variables.  The Clauset et al procedure relies on MLE and an iterative application of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test to determine the threshold value above which the power law is a good model.  The authors are heavily critical of least-square approaches to fitting power laws to data and detail the issues with using such procedures.  Interestingly most empirical studies of power laws in economics (that I have seen) seem to use ad hoc least-squares approaches.

Whether the results of this study will be publishable or not I have no idea, but I think it would be very useful to have an understanding of which economic variables exhibit power law behavior, and which are simply heavy-tailed (i.e., log-normal or something else)...if nothing else I will add a new tool to my arsenal that has significant practical applications...

A Great Loss...

Benoit Mandelbrot died today...a great light has gone out...Such an intellect comes only a few times each generation.  He was a truly original thinker, and one of my role models...

He will be truly missed.

The Aonach Eagach...

First major hill-walking trip of the year to Glencoe this past weekend.  A group of us tackled the Aonach Eagach Ridge on the north side of Glencoe...here is map of the hike:

The ridge is composed of two Munros and two tops and the hike is rated as a Grade-II scramble (which I would say is a fair assessment of the difficulties).  I have climbed Liathach in Torridon (another Grade II) before and I would rate the Aonach Eagach ridge to be more difficult/interesting scrambling than Liathach.

Though things started out cloudy, by the time the group reached the scrambling section the weather was excellent.  I was even able to grab a picture of a Brocken Spectre...

I will add some more photos once I have a chance to get more from friends...my next post will detail my ill-fated hike the next day up the Ballachulish Horseshoe...

Sound Familiar...

For any readers who happen to be interested in economics take a look at the following article on Wikipedia...sound familiar?

I came across a reference to the "ecological fallacy" in Daniel Katz's slides on Schelling's segregation model...

For Those Interested in ABM...

I came across an excellent set of lecture slides from Daniel Katz at Michigan on computational modeling for social sciences, and for those interested in NetLOGO there are an excellent set of introductory tutorials on Youtube

4th Cooked Breakfast of the Year...

Deacon Brodie's...coffee was terrible but the full Scottish breakfast was excellent!  Definitely the best I have had so far...and it was relatively cheap (about 7 GBP).   Breakfast included 2 rashers of bacon, 2 sausages, large portion of Haggis, beans, fried egg, potato scone, plum tomato, two large mushrooms, and crusty bread.  I would highly recommend it...

Goldmine of Information on using Python in Social Sciences...

I came across this gem of a post on Zero Intelligence Agents while waiting for Business School IS support to install Python, NetLOGO, and R onto my office computer...