In his seminal book, Shewhart (1931) makes no demand on the distribution of the characteristic to be plotted on a control chart. How then can we explain the idea that normality is, if not required, at least highly desirable? I believe that it has come about through the many statistical studies of control-chart behavior. If one is to study how a control chart behaves, it is necessary to relate it to some distribution. The obvious choice is the normal distribution because of its ubiquity as a satisfactory model. This is bolstered by the existence of the Central Limit Theorem.

Sampling: Design and Analysis

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov New York: Public Affairs, 2011 409 pages $16.99 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a highly touted speech on Internet freedom in which she stated, "The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you're on the Internet, you don't need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society." Evgeny Morozov, in his book The Net Delusion, takes great issue with the implication, however, that the so-called "Arab Spring" and "Twitter Revolution" were caused by unfettered access to the Internet. Instead, Morozov, a research academic, provides a cautionary tale about what he argues is any attempt to establish a monocausal relationship to meaningful political change (especially when that single focus is information technology). The book opens with a discussion of cyber-utopianism and Internet-centrism--mind-sets that focus on the positive "emancipatory" aspects of Internet communication while ignoring the downsides. The argument throughout centers on nation-state policy, or lack thereof, that attacks the "wicked" problem of authoritarianism by, as a colleague of mine has dubbed it, "wiring the world." Morozov, expectantly, but importantly, cites the hedonistic world portrayed by Huxley and the "Big Brother" world of Orwell to consider both the proactive and reactive approaches to Internet freedom by authoritarian regimes. Interestingly, he notes that there is often a mix of both. Such regimes certainly use the anonymity and openness of the Internet to spy on their people and shutdown undesirable sites. But there is also a subtle approach that belies the jackboot on the keyboard methodology. While China may be known more for suppressing the Internet and for employing the masses to counter antiregime rhetoric, Russia imposes no formal Internet censorship. It relies on entertainment (porn is specifically cited) to soothe the masses, assuming that given options for political discourse and anything else, most opt for "anything else." Hitler would understand. And in nations where freedom is not widely understood from a western perspective, any bit of additional mindless diversion may be viewed as liberty by the populace. Perhaps most importantly, Morozov rails against social media determinism as driving the end of authoritarianism, labeling it "an intellectually impoverished, lazy way to study the past, understand the present, and predict the future." He does not dismiss the value of Facebook and Twitter to quickly mobilize like-minded individuals. He notes as well that the development of that very like-mindedness is complex and potentially can be manipulated by authoritarian governments using the same Internet freedom. …

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom

I came to review this book by chance, having studied spatial epidemiology some years ago. Reviewing the book was an opportunity to update myself in this field, and see what had changed and what was new.

The book covers a wide range of material, including a description of data sources and their limitations, and the theoretical basis for the statistical methods that can be …

https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/57/3/232.2.full.pdf

Spatial epidemiology: methods and applications

The Printing Press As An Agent Of Change

Since 2000, many countries have achieved considerable success in improving child survival, but localized progress remains unclear. To inform efforts towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2—to end preventable child deaths by 2030—we need consistently estimated data at the subnational level regarding child mortality rates and trends. Here we quantified, for the period 2000–2017, the subnational variation in mortality rates and number of deaths of neonates, infants and children under 5 years of age within 99 low- and middle-income countries using a geostatistical survival model. We estimated that 32% of children under 5 in these countries lived in districts that had attained rates of 25 or fewer child deaths per 1,000 live births by 2017, and that 58% of child deaths between 2000 and 2017 in these countries could have been averted in the absence of geographical inequality. This study enables the identification of high-mortality clusters, patterns of progress and geographical inequalities to inform appropriate investments and implementations that will help to improve the health of all populations.

/pdf/mapping-123-million-neonatal-infant-and-child-deaths-between-b4v3366u7z.pdf

Mapping 123 million neonatal, infant and child deaths between 2000 and 2017

The under-five mortality rate (U5MR) is a critical and widely available population health indicator. Both the MDGs and SDGs define targets for improvement in the U5MR, and the SDGs require spatial disaggregation of indicators. We estimate trends in the U5MR for Admin-1 subnational areas using 122 DHS surveys in 35 countries in Africa and assess progress toward the MDG target reductions for each subnational region and each country as a whole. In each country, direct weighted estimates of the U5MR from each survey are calculated and combined into a single estimate for each Admin-1 region across five-year periods. Our method fully accounts for the sample design of each survey. The region-time-specific estimates are smoothed using a Bayesian, space-time model that produces more precise estimates (when compared to the direct estimates) at a one-year scale that are consistent with each other in both space and time. The resulting estimated distributions of the U5MR are summarized and used to assess subnational progress toward the MDG 4 target of two-thirds reduction in the U5MR during 1990-2015. Our space-time modeling approach is tractable and can be readily applied to a large collection of sample survey data. Subnational, regional spatial heterogeneity in the levels and trends in the U5MR vary considerably across Africa. There is no generalizable pattern between spatial heterogeneity and levels or trends in the U5MR. Subnational, small-area estimates of the U5MR: (i) identify subnational regions where interventions are still necessary and those where improvement is well under way; and (ii) countries where there is very little spatial variation and others where there are important differences between subregions in both levels and trends. More work is necessary to improve both the data sources and methods necessary to adequately measure subnational progress toward the SDG child survival targets.

/pdf/changes-in-the-spatial-distribution-of-the-under-five-349mz5lxg4.pdf

Changes in the spatial distribution of the under-five mortality rate: Small-area analysis of 122 DHS surveys in 262 subregions of 35 countries in Africa.

This article analyzes Martin Luther’s role in spreading the early Reformation, one of the most important episodes of radical institutional change in the last millennium. We argue that social relati...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0003122420948059

Multiplex Network Ties and the Spatial Diffusion of Radical Innovations: Martin Luther’s Leadership in the Early Reformation:

In recent years, scholars have argued that protests that employ nonviolent tactics attract greater support and are therefore more likely to succeed than those that use violence We argue that how p

Allies or Agitators? How Partisan Identity Shapes Public Opinion about Violent or Nonviolent Protests

Many have observed that a new political generation of digital natives has heavily used social media as means of facilitating street protests. Nevertheless, the mechanisms by which social media affe...

Understanding digital natives in contentious politics: Explaining the effect of social media on protest participation through psychological incentives:

Objectives:This study examines gang group processes on the digital street to understand if gang processes in the online environment mimic those on geographic street corners. Specifically, this pape...

Yuan Hsiao

Papers

Changes in the spatial distribution of the under-five mortality rate: Small-area analysis of 122 DHS surveys in 262 subregions of 35 countries in Africa.

Multiplex Network Ties and the Spatial Diffusion of Radical Innovations: Martin Luther’s Leadership in the Early Reformation:

Allies or Agitators? How Partisan Identity Shapes Public Opinion about Violent or Nonviolent Protests

Understanding digital natives in contentious politics: Explaining the effect of social media on protest participation through psychological incentives:

Gangbangin on the [Face]Book: Understanding Online Interactions of Chicago Latina/o Gangs.