30 Mar 2015, No.

In This Issue. . .

Past RUG MTG

Prep for Next MTG
Next Meeting
Future Events
RMarkdown package
Problem of the Month
Learn R
Mission Statement

Purpose of Newsletter
The UTRGV RUG Newsletter is published sporatically, usually once or
twice between meetings.
Reveiw recent activities of
RUG.
Announce time a place of
next meeting.
Suggest reference materials to be considered before
next meeting.
Provide contact information.
The Newsletter gives information
about past events, schedule of future events, ways to prepare for future events, and contact information.
Newsletters will be archived on the
UTRGV RUG website providing an
historical perspective for the group.
This newsletter and the website are
an excellent tools to pass along
as you invite others to participate
with RUG and to use R in teaching
and research.

Contact Information:
UTRGV RUG
Rug Users Group
http://utpa.edu/rug or
c/o Mathematics Department
University of Texas-Pan American

http://math.utpa.edu
(956) 665-3451
or
Guillermo Garza, RUG Organizer
ggarzaz39@utpa.edu

Next Meeting
Our speaker for the meeting on April 2 will be Dr. Will Watkins. He will be
discussing A First Foray into Forensic Linguistic Analysis.
When the U.K.s Sunday Times receieved an anonymous tweat
(circa July 2013) that Robert Galbraith, the author of The Cuckoos
Calling is in reality J.K. Rowling, they wanted stronger evident
before approaching the publisher for confirmation, they called on
Patrick Juola to statistically analyze the likelihood that the two
authors are the same person.
In this presentation we examine Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte using
tools freely available in R. The techniques illustrated are also used
in forensic linguistic analysis, data mining of big data sets, and
elsewhere. We examine an elementary subset of tools suggested by
Matthew L. Jockers Text Analysis with R for Students of Literature, a
text used in his Standford University courses and classroom tested
elsewhere.
The material requires no prerequisite knowledge and will be of
interest to anyone thinking of using R for exploratory data analysis
of text based data.

Past RUG Meeting

Dr. Tamer Oraby was the guest speaker for both of our past meetings,
on 05feb2015 and 05mar2015. He is a assistant professor in the UTPA
Mathematics Department currently teaching Applied Statistics II at UTPA.
His presentation walked us through a set or R scripts he is working on
that intend to demonstrate statistical concepts. The R scripts are hosted
at http://rutrgv.wikispaces.com. The scripts are intended to be a
resource for all instructors teaching statistics. RUG members are invited to
contribute both content and editorial feedback.

Agenda Next RUG Meeting

The next scheduled meeting of UTRGV RUG:
April 2, 2014 11:00am-12:00pm
CSTEM (MAGC 2.402)
RUG meetings are BYOD events. Some computers and iPads will be
available but you are encouraged to bring your own devices with you.
Proposed Agenda:
1. Welcome
2. Business
(a) RUG Webpage & Newsletter
(b) RUG Problem of the Month
(c) RUG Learning Resources (see side panel in Newsletter)
3. Will Watkins A First Foray into Forensic Linguistic Analysis.
4. Next Meeting: time, place, topics

Interesting Package: RMarkdown

R Problem of the Month

Markdown is a simple format to add things like headers, lists, and italics to plain text. It is extremely simple
and you can learn it in five minutes at most. The
RMarkdown package allows you to mix Markdown
with R code and generate html, pdf, or even Word documents. These documents can display both the R code
and the output of that code, including figures. Support
for RMarkdown is built-in to RStudio. With RMarkdown you can keep most of your workflow within the R
ecosystem. Furthermore, RMarkdown documents are
fully reproducible.
http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/

To introduce random variables to his elementary statistics students, Mr. Garza gives the following problem:
Suppose a person throws a dart and hits a
circular board of radius 9 inches. Let Y denote the distance in inches from the point of
impact to the top center of the board. Is Y
a discrete or a continuous random variable?
What values does the continuous random
variable Y take on?
The answers are that Y is a continous random variable
and that it can take on any value between 0 and 18
inclusive.

The problem does not ask students to find probabilities involving Y . To do so would require calculating
integrals or otherwise be very clever. But if he teaches
Watch for announcements about our next RUG meeting. his students R he may be able to ask them to approxPossible topics for our next meetings are R in Labs for imate probabilites involving Y by using Monte Carlo
Statistics classes and Using RMarkdwon.
methods.

Future Events

Thus, the problem posed is this: assuming that all

points on the dartboard are equally likely to be hit with
the dart, find P (0 < Y < 9) using R or other software.

Learn R
RUG is often asked for suggestions on where and
how to learn R. Here is a list of starting places. Make
suggestions and proposed changes to this list.

Help us improve this list my suggesting additions,

deletions, and order of preference.

.DataCamp.
.TryR Code School.
.UCLAs Resources for R.
.R Studios online learning.
.Courseras R Program MOOC.
.Quick R.
.SwirlStats interactive.
.Marin Statistics Lectures.

The Dartboard with 1000 darts

10

10

Mission Statement
The mission statement is posted on the RUG website and may be amended from time to time.
The UTRGV RUG promotes and supports the use of R and related software solutions. Our aim is to bring together practitioners of
exploratory data analysis, statistical problem solving, and those who teach these concepts to exchange knowledge and experience. The
group addresses ways to use R in research settings and ways to use R in instructional settings. The group discusses techniques and
solutions in R with an emphasis on developing understanding of data analysis and statistical modeling methodologies. We are especially
committed to helping new users acquire the expertise to successfully use R.
To accomplish the groups aims we:
1. Meet approximately monthly to discuss the use of R in research and in the classroom;
2. Maintain a webpage archiving presentations from meetings;
3. Sporadically publish a newsletter keeping the group aware of RUG activities.