[Cowystats] CO/WY ASA Fall Meeting October 26th - AMC

[Matt Pocernich]

Fall Meeting Friday, October 26th, 2007 1 pm - 4 pm.

The Fall Chapter will be held at the Anshutz Medical Center (formerly
Fitzsimons Hospital.  )   next Friday, October 26th from 1 to 4 pm.  This is
the first time we have held a meeting at this location.  There are several
reasons for holding the meeting at this location.  Many of our members are
in the biostatistics, bioinformatics and health science related fields.
After reading and hearing about many groups moving to the new location over
the past decade, this might the first chance some of us have had to visit
the new facilities.

The talks described below cover a variety of topics both in and outside of
the health sciences field.  As always, we hope that these talks will appeal
to both those involved in the field as well as those outside. A tentative
agenda follows.

Starting at 1pm.

Laura Saba - University of Colorado Denver and Health Science Center
Calvin Croy - University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center
Manuel Lladser - University of Colorado - Boulder

Break with refreshments ~ 20 minutes

Dennis Lezotte -  University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
Derek Sondregger - Colorado State University

With the exception of Denny Lezotte's talk which is 45 minutes, the talks
will be approximately 25 minutes.  With a little drift, we will conclude at
4pm.  Abstracts are below.


Laura Saba
Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado Denver and Health Science
Center

Why Mice Drink: Identifying candidate genes from microarray analyses

Often differential gene expression analyses result in a large list (>100) of
potential candidate genes for a disease or condition.  We have developed
several filters, both statistical and biological, to help distinguish which
genes have the highest potential of clinical significance.  This series of
analyses is illustrated using data from a mouse model of alcoholism.  Data
and several statistical tools are publicly available at
http://phenogen.uchsc.edu.

Calvin Croy

American Indian and Alaska Native Programs
Department of Psychiatry
University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center

A Brief Introduction to Multiple Imputation

Popular methods for dealing with missing data in statistical analyses are to
delete all observations with missing values or to replace each missing value
with a single estimated value.  In this talk I will present a high-level
introduction to multiple imputation (MI), a less common but often superior
method for handling missing data.  In multiple imputation several copies of
the dataset are created that contain different estimates of the missing data
values.  The statistic of interest is computed separately from each copy
dataset and then combined into a final single  value and an associated
standard error is also derived.

My talk will begin with a conceptual overview of MI and its merits over
case/listwise deletion and single imputation.  Next I will address the key
Missing at Random assumption and how it differs from the similar but
unnecessary Missing Completely At Random assumption.  I'll also show in
general how the final statistic of interest and its standard error are
computed.  Finally I'll conclude by mentioning software for conducting MI,
touch upon best practices, and share a variety of online resources for MI.


Manuel Lladser
The University of Colorado Department of Applied Mathematics

TBA

Dennis Lezotte
Medical Informatics and Biostatistics
Director, Bioinformatics PhD Program

The Colorado School of Public Health Consortium - More than a Thought!

Over the past two years, many Coloradans including legislators, public
health practitioners, academic leaders, educators and non-faculty partners,
have worked tirelessly to conceive of and plan for a School of Public Health
(CSPH) that serves Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region.  Members of the
Colorado School of Public Health Initiative have successfully navigated many
obstacles to make the dream of a CSPH a reality.  However, before June 1,
2008 many additional operational, logistical and policy decisions must be
made and implemented in order to begin the final accreditation phase for
this new and exciting initiative.

The CSPH is a true consortium consisting of several academic institutions,
including programs at CSU, UNC, UC Denver and UCHSC.  The CSPH will be an
accredited school of public health, providing MPH degrees in the five
essential areas of public health concentrations, including: Biostatistics,
Epidemiology, Behavioral Health, Environmental Health and Health Systems and
Policy.   In addition, the CSPH must have established PhD programs in three
of these? areas. Currently, a DrPH is being developed as the third
PhD program to compliment the two existing PhD programs in Biostatistics and
Epidemiology at the HSC campus.

The purpose of this presentation is to describe the proposed strategies for
providing a multi-campus MPH/Biostatistics degree emerging from the planning
efforts of many faculty representing the consortium schools.  The mission,
vision and values statements have been articulated and initial curricula and
program logistical and operational strategies are being
solidified for implementation in 2008.  This presentation will describe the
consortium MPH/Biostatistics degree program, including anticipated teaching
collaborations, student and resource sharing opportunities, the single
degree concept and multi-institutional faculty governance issues being
anticipated.  In addition, the MPH/Biostatistics degree program will be put
in context with existing degree programs currently in place on each of the
participating campuses.  Our goal is to demonstrate that Statistics,
Biostatistics, and Public Health Statistics are alive and thriving in
Colorado.

Derek Sonderegger
Colorado State University

Using SiZer to detect thresholds in ecological data.

Ecological systems can display substantial changes in a state variable due
to small changes in environmental conditions. Such changes are characterized
by a nonlinear relationship between the value of the state variable and one
or more environmental variables. Documenting the magnitude of change and
environmental conditions that give rise to threshold responses is important
to both the scientific community and the agencies charged with ecosystem
management. A threshold is defined as a significant change in a response
variable given a marginal change in environmental conditions. In this paper
we demonstrate the usefulness of a derivative-based method for detecting
ecological thresholds along a single covariate. The Significant Zero
crossings (SiZer) approach employs a nonparametric method to approximate the
response function and its derivatives and then examines the how those
functions change across the range of the covariate. SiZer makes fewer
assumptions than conventional threshold models explores a full range of
smoothing functions. We believe SiZer is a useful technique for the
exploratory analysis of many ecological data sets.


Directions and Parking

Directions and Parking Information can be found at
http://www.uchsc.edu/fitzsimons/maps .
The new center is located approximately at Colfax and Peoria Street - in
Aurora.

On the Anschutz Medical Campus, there are daily cash customer parking lots
for UCDHSC Patients and Visitors:

Ignacio Lot (511) - located in back of the Administration Building (Building
500) on East 19th Avenue.  Neon orange signs posted on campus will also
direct you to the UCDHSC visitor parking lot. There are two pay and display
machines that are available to render payment.  These machines will accept
bill denominations up to $20.00 and coins. The flat $4 rate has been change
to the following:
   1 hour or less - $1
   1 – 3 hours - $2
   Over 3 hours - $4
After 5pm and weekends - $1

Lot 504 - located on the west side of Uvalda Ct. between 17th Place and 19th
Avenue is a metered lot for short term visitors. The rate is $1 per hour.
This lot was opened to replace the parking meters that used to be along 17th
Place in front of Building 500.
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