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Book Why Nobody Believes the Numbers

Download or read book Why Nobody Believes the Numbers written by Al Lewis and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-06-11 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Nobody Believes the Numbers introduces a unique viewpoint to population health outcomes measurement: Results/ROIs should be presented as they are, not as we wish they would be. This viewpoint contrasts sharply with vendor/promoter/consultant claims along two very important dimensions: (1) Why Nobody Believes presents outcomes/ROIs achievable right here on this very planet... (2) ...calculated using actual data rather than controlled substances. Indeed, nowhere in healthcare is it possible to find such sharply contrasting worldviews, methodologies, and grips on reality. Why Nobody Believes the Numbers includes 12 case studies of vendors, carriers, and consultants who were apparently playing hooky the day their teacher covered fifth-grade math, as told by an author whose argument style can be so persuasive that he was once able to convince a resort to sell him a timeshare. The book's lesson: no need to believe what your vendor tells you -- instead you can estimate your own savings using “ingredients you already have in your kitchen.” Don't be intimidated just because you lack a PhD in biostatistics, or even a Masters, Bachelor's, high-school equivalency diploma or up-to-date inspection sticker. Why Nobody Believes the Numbers explains how to determine if the ROIs are real...and why they usually aren't. You'll learn how to: Figure out whether you are "moving the needle" or just crediting a program with changes that would have happened anyway Judge whether the ROIs your vendors report are plausible or even arithmetically possible Synthesize all these insights into RFPs and contracts that truly hold vendors accountable for results

Book No Safety In Numbers

Download or read book No Safety In Numbers written by Dayna Lorentz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Think of the heart-racing chase of The Hunger Games, but a giant mall is your arena."--Seventeen.com A suspenseful survival story and modern day Lord of the Flies set in a mall that looks just like yours. A biological bomb has just been discovered in the air ducts of a busy suburban mall. At first nobody knows if it's even life threatening, but then the entire complex is quarantined, people start getting sick, supplies start running low, and there's no way out. Among the hundreds of trapped shoppers are four teens. These four different narrators, each with their own stories, must cope in unique, surprising manners, changing in ways they wouldn't have predicted, trying to find solace, safety, and escape at a time when the adults are behaving badly. This is a gripping look at people and how they can—and must—change under the most dire of circumstances. And not always for the better.

Book More Damned Lies and Statistics

Download or read book More Damned Lies and Statistics written by Joel Best and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-09-06 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sequel to the acclaimed Damned Lies and Statistics, which the Boston Globe said "deserves a place next to the dictionary on every school, media, and home-office desk," Joel Best continues his straightforward, lively, and humorous account of how statistics are produced, used, and misused by everyone from researchers to journalists. Underlining the importance of critical thinking in all matters numerical, Best illustrates his points with examples of good and bad statistics about such contemporary concerns as school shootings, fatal hospital errors, bullying, teen suicides, deaths at the World Trade Center, college ratings, the risks of divorce, racial profiling, and fatalities caused by falling coconuts. More Damned Lies and Statistics encourages all of us to think in a more sophisticated and skeptical manner about how statistics are used to promote causes, create fear, and advance particular points of view. Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think about public issues: missing numbers are relevant but overlooked; confusing numbers bewilder when they should inform; scary numbers play to our fears about the present and the future; authoritative numbers demand respect they don’t deserve; magical numbers promise unrealistic, simple solutions to complex problems; and contentious numbers become the focus of data duels and stat wars. The author's use of pertinent, socially important examples documents the life-altering consequences of understanding or misunderstanding statistical information. He demystifies statistical measures by explaining in straightforward prose how decisions are made about what to count and what not to count, what assumptions get made, and which figures are brought to our attention. Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think about public issues. Entertaining, enlightening, and very timely, this book offers a basis for critical thinking about the numbers we encounter and a reminder that when it comes to the news, people count—in more ways than one.

Book Numbers Don t Lie

    Book Details:
  • Author : Vaclav Smil
  • Publisher : Penguin
  • Release : 2021-05-04
  • ISBN : 0525507817
  • Pages : 368 pages

Download or read book Numbers Don t Lie written by Vaclav Smil and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Vaclav Smil is my favorite author… Numbers Don't Lie takes everything that makes his writing great and boils it down into an easy-to-read format. I unabashedly recommend this book to anyone who loves learning."--Bill Gates, GatesNotes From the author of How the World Really Works, an essential guide to understanding how numbers reveal the true state of our world--exploring a wide range of topics including energy, the environment, technology, transportation, and food production. Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy? From data about our societies and populations, through measures of the fuels and foods that energize them, to the impact of transportation and inventions of our modern world--and how all of this affects the planet itself--in Numbers Don't Lie, Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge conventional thinking. Packed with fascinating information and memorable examples, Numbers Don't Lie reveals how the US is leading a rising worldwide trend in chicken consumption, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). Urgent and essential, with a mix of science, history, and wit--all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics--Numbers Don't Lie inspires readers to interrogate what they take to be true.

Book Factfulness

    Book Details:
  • Author : Hans Rosling
  • Publisher : Flatiron Books
  • Release : 2018-04-03
  • ISBN : 125012381X
  • Pages : 353 pages

Download or read book Factfulness written by Hans Rosling and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.

Book Rogerson s Book of Numbers

Download or read book Rogerson s Book of Numbers written by Barnaby Rogerson and published by Picador. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE STORIES BEHIND OUR ICONIC NUMBERS Rogerson's Book of Numbers is based on a numerical array of virtues, spiritual attributes, gods, devils, sacred cities, powers, calendars, heroes, saints, icons, and cultural symbols. It provides a dazzling mass of information for those intrigued by the many roles numbers play in folklore and popular culture, in music and poetry, and in the many religions, cultures, and belief systems of our world. The stories unfold from millions to zero: from the number of the beast (666) to the seven deadly sins; from the twelve signs of the zodiac to the four suits of a deck of cards. Along the way, author Barnaby Rogerson will show you why Genghis Khan built a city of 108 towers, how Dante forged his Divine Comedy on the number eleven, and why thirteen is so unlucky in the West whereas fourteen is the number to avoid in China.

Book What s Behind the Numbers   A Guide to Exposing Financial Chicanery and Avoiding Huge Losses in Your Portfolio

Download or read book What s Behind the Numbers A Guide to Exposing Financial Chicanery and Avoiding Huge Losses in Your Portfolio written by John Del Vecchio and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2012-08-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how to detect any corporate sleight of hand—and gain the upper hand with smart investing Investing expert John Del Vecchio and “Motley Fool” Tom Jacobs offer a compelling arguement that the secret to stock-market success today isn’t finding the next Google or eBay, but avoiding the next AIG or Enron. To that end, they offer simple, clear techniques for detecting when and how legitimate companies make their numbers look better than they are. What's Behind the Numbers? offers seven rules for finding companies playing with—rather than by—the numbers and explains how to avoid losing money by determining exactly when a stock is about to head south. John Del Vecchio, CFA, serves as a Principal of Ranger Alternative Management and principal of Parabolix Research, Inc. Tom Jacobs is lead advisor for the Motley Fool Special Ops, a stock service where he manages a special situations and opportunistic portfolio. He is cofounder of Complete Growth Investor LLC.

Book No Easy Way Out

Download or read book No Easy Way Out written by Dayna Lorentz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sequel to No Safety in Numbers; a modern day Lord of the Flies for fans of apocalyptic thrillers It's Day 7 in the quarantined mall. The riot is over and the senator trapped inside is determined to end the chaos. Even with new rules, assigned jobs, and heightened security, she still needs to get the teen population under control. So she enlists Marco's help--allowing him to keep his stolen universal card key in exchange for spying on the very football players who are protecting him. But someone is working against the new systems, targeting the teens, and putting the entire mall in even more danger. Lexi, Marco, Ryan, and Shay believe their new alliances are sound. They are wrong. Who can be trusted? And who will be left to trust? The virus was just the beginning.

Book The Strength in Numbers

    Book Details:
  • Author : Barry Bozeman
  • Publisher : Princeton University Press
  • Release : 2020-07-14
  • ISBN : 0691202621
  • Pages : 242 pages

Download or read book The Strength in Numbers written by Barry Bozeman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why collaborations in STEM fields succeed or fail and how to ensure success Once upon a time, it was the lone scientist who achieved brilliant breakthroughs. No longer. Today, science is done in teams of as many as hundreds of researchers who may be scattered across continents. These collaborations can be powerful, but they also demand new ways of thinking. The Strength in Numbers illuminates the nascent science of team science by synthesizing the results of the most far-reaching study to date on collaboration among university scientists. Drawing on a national survey with responses from researchers at more than one hundred universities, archival data, and extensive interviews with scientists and engineers in over a dozen STEM disciplines, Barry Bozeman and Jan Youtie establish a framework for characterizing different collaborations and their outcomes, and lay out what they have found to be the gold-standard approach: consultative collaboration management. The Strength in Numbers is an indispensable guide for scientists interested in maximizing collaborative success.

Book The Locomotive News and Railway Contractor

Download or read book The Locomotive News and Railway Contractor written by and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Making Numbers Count

Download or read book Making Numbers Count written by Chip Heath and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear, practical, first-of-its-kind guide to communicating and understanding numbers and data—from bestselling business author Chip Heath. How much bigger is a billion than a million? Well, a million seconds is twelve days. A billion seconds is…thirty-two years. Understanding numbers is essential—but humans aren’t built to understand them. Until very recently, most languages had no words for numbers greater than five—anything from six to infinity was known as “lots.” While the numbers in our world have gotten increasingly complex, our brains are stuck in the past. How can we translate millions and billions and milliseconds and nanometers into things we can comprehend and use? Author Chip Heath has excelled at teaching others about making ideas stick and here, in Making Numbers Count, he outlines specific principles that reveal how to translate a number into our brain’s language. This book is filled with examples of extreme number makeovers, vivid before-and-after examples that take a dry number and present it in a way that people click in and say “Wow, now I get it!” You will learn principles such as: -SIMPLE PERSPECTIVE CUES: researchers at Microsoft found that adding one simple comparison sentence doubled how accurately users estimated statistics like population and area of countries. -VIVIDNESS: get perspective on the size of a nucleus by imagining a bee in a cathedral, or a pea in a racetrack, which are easier to envision than “1/100,000th of the size of an atom.” -CONVERT TO A PROCESS: capitalize on our intuitive sense of time (5 gigabytes of music storage turns into “2 months of commutes, without repeating a song”). -EMOTIONAL MEASURING STICKS: frame the number in a way that people already care about (“that medical protocol would save twice as many women as curing breast cancer”). Whether you’re interested in global problems like climate change, running a tech firm or a farm, or just explaining how many Cokes you’d have to drink if you burned calories like a hummingbird, this book will help math-lovers and math-haters alike translate the numbers that animate our world—allowing us to bring more data, more naturally, into decisions in our schools, our workplaces, and our society.

Book Cell Biology by the Numbers

Download or read book Cell Biology by the Numbers written by Ron Milo and published by Garland Science. This book was released on 2015-12-07 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Top 25 CHOICE 2016 Title, and recipient of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (OAT) Award. How much energy is released in ATP hydrolysis? How many mRNAs are in a cell? How genetically similar are two random people? What is faster, transcription or translation?Cell Biology by the Numbers explores these questions and dozens of others provid

Book Numbersense  How to Use Big Data to Your Advantage

Download or read book Numbersense How to Use Big Data to Your Advantage written by Kaiser Fung and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2013-07-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to make simple sense of complex statistics--from the author of Numbers Rule Your World We live in a world of Big Data--and it's getting bigger every day. Virtually every choice we make hinges on how someone generates data . . . and how someone else interprets it--whether we realize it or not. Where do you send your child for the best education? Big Data. Which airline should you choose to ensure a timely arrival? Big Data. Who will you vote for in the next election? Big Data. The problem is, the more data we have, the more difficult it is to interpret it. From world leaders to average citizens, everyone is prone to making critical decisions based on poor data interpretations. In Numbersense, expert statistician Kaiser Fung explains when you should accept the conclusions of the Big Data "experts"--and when you should say, "Wait . . . what?" He delves deeply into a wide range of topics, offering the answers to important questions, such as: How does the college ranking system really work? Can an obesity measure solve America's biggest healthcare crisis? Should you trust current unemployment data issued by the government? How do you improve your fantasy sports team? Should you worry about businesses that track your data? Don't take for granted statements made in the media, by our leaders, or even by your best friend. We're on information overload today, and there's a lot of bad information out there. Numbersense gives you the insight into how Big Data interpretation works--and how it too often doesn't work. You won't come away with the skills of a professional statistician. But you will have a keen understanding of the data traps even the best statisticians can fall into, and you'll trust the mental alarm that goes off in your head when something just doesn't seem to add up. Praise for Numbersense "Numbersense correctly puts the emphasis not on the size of big data, but on the analysis of it. Lots of fun stories, plenty of lessons learned—in short, a great way to acquire your own sense of numbers!" Thomas H. Davenport, coauthor of Competing on Analytics and President’s Distinguished Professor of IT and Management, Babson College "Kaiser’s accessible business book will blow your mind like no other. You’ll be smarter, and you won’t even realize it. Buy. It. Now." Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google, and author, Web Analytics 2.0 "Each story in Numbersense goes deep into what you have to think about before you trust the numbers. Kaiser Fung ably demonstrates that it takes skill and resourcefulness to make the numbers confess their meaning." John Sall, Executive Vice President, SAS Institute "Kaiser Fung breaks the bad news—a ton more data is no panacea—but then has got your back, revealing the pitfalls of analysis with stimulating stories from the front lines of business, politics, health care, government, and education. The remedy isn’t an advanced degree, nor is it common sense. You need Numbersense." Eric Siegel, founder, Predictive Analytics World, and author, Predictive Analytics "I laughed my way through this superb-useful-fun book and learned and relearned a lot. Highly recommended!" Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence

Book No Dawn without Darkness

Download or read book No Dawn without Darkness written by Dayna Lorentz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for fans of Life As We Knew It and Michael Grant's Gone--the conclusion to the thrilling No Safety in Numbers trilogy First--a bomb released a deadly flu virus and the entire mall was quarantined. Next--the medical teams evacuated and the windows were boarded up just before the virus mutated. Now--the power is out and the mall is thrown into darkness. Shay, Marco, Lexi, Ryan, and Ginger aren't the same people they were two weeks ago. Just like the virus, they've had to change in order to survive. And not all for the better. When no one can see your face, you can be anyone you want to be, and, when the doors finally open, they may not like what they've become. If you think it's silly to be afraid of the dark, you're wrong. Very wrong.

Book My Remarkable Journey

Download or read book My Remarkable Journey written by Katherine Johnson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable woman at heart of the smash New York Times bestseller and Oscar-winning film Hidden Figures tells the full story of her life, including what it took to work at NASA, help land the first man on the moon, and live through a century of turmoil and change. In 2015, at the age of 97, Katherine Johnson became a global celebrity. President Barack Obama awarded her the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—for her pioneering work as a mathematician on NASA’s first flights into space. Her contributions to America’s space program were celebrated in a blockbuster and Academy-award nominated movie. In this memoir, Katherine shares her personal journey from child prodigy in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia to NASA human computer. In her life after retirement, she served as a beacon of light for her family and community alike. Her story is centered around the basic tenets of her life—no one is better than you, education is paramount, and asking questions can break barriers. The memoir captures the many facets of this unique woman: the curious “daddy’s girl,” pioneering professional, and sage elder. This multidimensional portrait is also the record of a century of racial history that reveals the influential role educators at segregated schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities played in nurturing the dreams of trailblazers like Katherine. The author pays homage to her mentor—the African American professor who inspired her to become a research mathematician despite having his own dream crushed by racism. Infused with the uplifting wisdom of a woman who handled great fame with genuine humility and great tragedy with enduring hope, My Remarkable Journey ultimately brings into focus a determined woman who navigated tough racial terrain with soft-spoken grace—and the unrelenting grit required to make history and inspire future generations.

Book Meta Math

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gregory Chaitin
  • Publisher : Vintage
  • Release : 2006-11-14
  • ISBN : 1400077974
  • Pages : 242 pages

Download or read book Meta Math written by Gregory Chaitin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2006-11-14 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory Chaitin, one of the world’s foremost mathematicians, leads us on a spellbinding journey, illuminating the process by which he arrived at his groundbreaking theory. Chaitin’s revolutionary discovery, the Omega number, is an exquisitely complex representation of unknowability in mathematics. His investigations shed light on what we can ultimately know about the universe and the very nature of life. In an infectious and enthusiastic narrative, Chaitin delineates the specific intellectual and intuitive steps he took toward the discovery. He takes us to the very frontiers of scientific thinking, and helps us to appreciate the art—and the sheer beauty—in the science of math.

Book The Book of Why

    Book Details:
  • Author : Judea Pearl
  • Publisher : Basic Books
  • Release : 2018-05-15
  • ISBN : 0465097618
  • Pages : 432 pages

Download or read book The Book of Why written by Judea Pearl and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Turing Award-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence "Correlation is not causation." This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality -- the study of cause and effect -- on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.