Here is another summer school on social simulation

I wish I can go there!
The First ESSA Summer School in Social Simulation (University of Brescia, Department of Social Sciences, 13-17 September 2010)

I wish I could be there if I am a student again.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     Reminder: 5 bursaries available for UK full-time students to
attend Social Simulation Summer School in Italy
Date:     Fri, 14 May 2010 15:50:03 +0100
From:     SIMIAN <lu.yang@surrey.ac.uk>
Reply-To:     SIMIAN <lu.yang@surrey.ac.uk>

Computational modelling is a new method for the social sciences,
combining many of the advantages of quantitative and qualitative
approaches. It also has distinctive benefits of its own. SIMIAN:
Simulation: a Node of ESRC National Centre for Research Methods wishes
to encourage UK postgraduate students from any discipline who would like
to apply mixed methods or use an innovative method for their research to
attend the Social Simulation Summer School, which will be held in the
University of Brescia, Italy from 13th to 17th September 2010.

The Summer School in Social Simulation aims to provide a comprehensive
educational programme on the basics of this new field. Lectures range
from epistemological to methodological issues, from examples of real
world applications to policy implications, and are accompanied by
modelling exercises, student papers and the discussion of research
projects, and tutoring sessions. Lecturers at the Summer School include:

Iqbal Adjali (Unilever, UK)
Riccardo Boero (University of Torino, Italy)
Giangiacomo Bravo (University of Torino, Italy)
Claudio Cioffi-Revilla (George Mason University, Fairfax, USA)
Rosaria Conte (CNR, Rome, Italy)
Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey, UK)
Bridget Rosewell (Volterra Consulting, UK)
Juliette Rouchier (GREQAM, Marseille, France)
Klaus G. Troitzsch (University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany)
More details can be found http://www.eco.unibs.it/essasummer/.

SIMIAN will offer 5 bursaries to postgraduate students who are
registered full time at ESRC recognised institutions in the UK to attend
the summer school.

To apply, please send your CV, a one page description of your
dissertation/research project and a letter of support from your
supervisor by email to lu.yang@surrey.ac.uk by 31st May 2010 at the
latest. And register at:
http://www.simian.ac.uk/courses/course-registration.

*Notes:*

The bursary covers the registration fee and accommodation only.
Eligible students should be full time postgraduate students who
currently are (and will be by 18th Sep 2010) registered at a ESRC
recognised institution in the UK.
Researchers or staff in UK High Education Institutions can seek funding
from The ESRC Research Resources Board (
http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/about/funding/training/), applications open from
the beginning of April onwards. Success rate is fairly good.
Notification will be sent out by 30th June 2010.

If you have any queries, please contact lu.yang@surrey.ac.uk

R bloggers!

It's great to discover that there is a blogger of R users/bloggers. Check this out and see how professional R users can become!

中山大學19號舉辦講座：Romance, love and marriage with a Buddhist Perspective

10 tips for making your R graphics look their best

I found that this page gives helpful advices for creating high-quality images in R.

Wow. Is it true?

台灣助理教授月薪約6萬元，副教授約8萬元，教授10萬元，與外國相比，算是廉價的「知識勞工」。國民所得比我們差一截的中國，助理教授薪水是台灣的2 倍；教授可高達台灣的3~5倍，香港與新加坡平均約為台灣的3~4倍。（引自鄭盈湧的部落格）

如果你還不知道用Xmarks來同步你的書籤，現在就學會它吧。

http://thenextweb.com/2009/02/07/sync-bookmarks-firefox-safari-foxmarks/

其實，政治學的研究也應該能夠這麼有趣

2009年搞笑諾貝爾獎
http://www.sciscape.org/print_news.php?news_id=2460

For more information about using LyX and Sweave in Windows machines...

Check out the updated instruction by Murat Yildizoglu here: http://yildizoglu.blogspot.com/2009/02/lyx-and-sweave-under-windows-xp.html
And a wonderful paper "Using Swave with Lyx" by Gregor Gorjanc is worth reading, too: http://gregor.gorjanc.googlepages.com/lyx-sweave

LyX and Sweave

I am dreaming if someday I have enough time to write a Chinese text book about how to use R to replace SPSS in processing survey datasets. I am dreaming this book is done with LyX and the R codes in the book are well incorporated into the book. Then I thought about Sweave, a tool that I heard about when I was in  graduate school.

After some  hours of reviewing concepts about shell and online materials about Sweave, I am writing down the steps for setting up the LyX-Sweave environment in a Linux (Fedora 11) machine:

A good guidance of installation and example Lyx files provided by Paul Johnson are available here: http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/LyxWithRThroughSweave. Below is a bit updated information about the steps.

1. Create a file named Rweave in /usr/local/bin, where two lines of codes are put into the file:
#!/bin/sh
echo "library(\"utils\"); Sweave(\"$1\")" | R --no-save --no-restore

2. Put Noweb.sty and Sweave.sty in /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/noweb (create the folder "noweb" if necessary). Noweb.sty can be downloaded here and Sweave.sty is available in your R library: /usr/share/R/texmf/Sweave.sty.

3. In the terminal, change to the root, type "texhash" to update the tex system. Then go to LyX, Tools -> Reconfigure. Next, restart LyX.

4. In LyX, Tools->Preferences-->File Handling, choose "Noweb" in "From format" and "LaTeX(pdflatex)" in "To format". Then, in converter box, type "Rweave $$i". Hit Add and Save.

5. Then you can try to open the example files and making the pdf files.