World Mental Health Day and Statistics

Today is World Mental Health Day. 

Recently, I stumbled upon an engaging visualization representing the increase in the 'deaths of despair' due to the pandemic. Here is a link for the same.

https://lifelines.periscopic.com/

Do use the arrow icons to get more information. For example, in one of the panels, you can play around the different levels of 'mental health care', 'employment status', and 'social connect' to see the effect of these variables on the number of deaths of despair.

In recent years, the overbearing use of social media has been cited as one of the leading causes of mental health issues. This is because so many of us, at one point or other, have felt jealous of someone else, looking at their lives on social media. But, as students of statistics, we must remember that the data on social media are the classic example of data 'missing not at random'. 

What is meant by that? 

We all have heard the problem of missing data in statistics and how it can affect our conclusions. There have been many developments in the field of probability and statistics about handling missing data. However, most of these focus on the data  'missing completely at random'. 

On the other hand, what we see missing on social media is not at all random. We see hundreds of stories of weddings, new cars, new jobs, new babies, family picnics, festivities and whatnot. But we rarely see things like breakups, divorces, job losses, prolonged illnesses, infertility struggles, piled up debts on these platforms, even though these could be happening to the same people. 

So, as statistics students, let us remember that the grass always looks greener on the other side because the data are missing not at random. 

and here is another example of 'data missing not at random', ironically, received thanks to the social media 😎 

सफर संभाव्यतेच्या विश्वातील - ३

सफर संभाव्यतेच्या विश्वातील - २ 

१९२० सालच्या उन्हाळ्यातील एक निवांत दुपार. केम्ब्रिज विद्यापीठाच्या दिग्गज प्राध्यापकांपैकी काही मंडळी आपल्या कुटुंबातील सदस्यांबरोबर चहा पीत गप्पा मारत बसली होती. तितक्यात उपस्थितांपैकी एका बाईंनी कपात चहा आधी ओतला की दूध यानुसार चहाची चव बदलते असं मत व्यक्त केलं. जमलेली सारीच मंडळी विद्वान. त्यामुळे काहींनी एकूणात मिश्रण तेच असल्यानं क्रम बदलून काय फरक पडणार अशी टिप्पणी केली. अचानक एक किरकोळ अंगयष्टीचा तरूण पुढे आला. "दुधात चहा ओतला आणि चहात दूध ओतलं तर चवीत फरक पडतो की नाही हे प्रयोग करून तपासून पहायला हवे " असं त्यानं सुचवलं. सर्वप्रथम त्या बाईंना तयार चहाचा एक कप देऊन तो कोणत्या प्रकारे बनवला आहे हे ओळखण्यास सांगायचं असं ठरलं. प्रत्यक्षात दोन्ही प्रकारच्या चहाच्या चवींमध्ये काही फरक नसला, तरी अंदाजाने उत्तर सांगून ते बरोबर येण्याची शक्यता ५० टक्के आहे. त्यामुळे हा प्रयोग एकापेक्षा जास्त वेळा करायला हवा. शिवाय बनवणार्‍यानं समजा मिश्रण नीट ढवळलं नाही, तर त्याचा परिणामही चवीवर होऊ शकेल. त्यामुळे अशा परिस्थितीत सगळे कप अचूकपणे ओळखण्याची अपेक्षा करणं गैर ठरेल. हे कप कोणत्या क्रमानं दिले जात आहेत, यावरही चव ओळखणं / न ओळखणं अवलंबून असू शकेल. या सर्व शक्यतांचा विचार करून त्या तरूण शास्त्रज्ञानं किती कप, कोणत्या क्रमानं दिले पाहिजेत आणि खरंच जर चवीत फरक असेल, तर किमान किती कप अचूकपणे ओळखता आले पाहिजेत याचं गणित मांडलं. हा तरूण शास्त्रज्ञ म्हणजेच आधुनिक संख्याशास्त्राचे जनक म्हणून ओळखले जाणारे सर रोनाल्ड फिशर. यातूनच पुढे फिशर यांनी “Design of Experiments (DoE) & Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)” या संकल्पनांचा विकास घडवून आणला.

आज बहुतेक सर्व क्षेत्रात DoE & ANOVA या संख्याशास्त्रातील तंत्रांचा मोठ्या प्रमाणावर वापर होतो. शेतात कोणत्या प्रकारचं खत, किती प्रमाणात वापरलं तर उत्पादनात वाढ होते हे ठरवायला याच तंत्राची मदत होते. अनेक शेतांमध्ये एकाच वेळी हा प्रयोग करायचा झाल्यास, प्रत्येक ठिकाणच्या मातीचे घटक वेगवेगळे असल्यामुळे खताच्या परिणामांमध्ये तफावत जाणवू शकते. ही तफावत दूर करून खताचा परिणाम अचूकरीत्या मोजणं, वेगवेगळ्या खतांची तुलना करून त्यांची गुणवत्तेनुसार क्रमवारी ठरवणं हे सगळं या तंत्राद्वारे शक्य होतं. जी गोष्ट झाडांबाबत घडते, तीच माणसांची. म्हणूनच, नवीन औषध बाजारात आणण्यापूर्वी करण्यात येणार्‍या चाचण्यांमध्येही हे तंत्र मोठ्या प्रमाणात वापरलं जातं. प्रत्येक रूग्णाची शारीरिक स्थिती वेगवेगळी असल्यामुळे औषधाचा परिणामही कमी-जास्त प्रमाणात दिसून येतो. त्यामुळे साधारण समान (वय, लिंग, वजन, आजाराची स्थिती इत्यादी) प्रकारच्या माणसांवरच एखाद्या औषधाची चाचणी केल्यास, ते औषध इतर प्रकारच्या व्यक्तींमध्ये प्रभावशाली ठरेल याची खात्री देता येत नाही. शिवाय नवीन येणारे औषध हानीकारक तर नाही ना (Side Effects) हे ठरवण्यासाठी देखील प्रायोगिक स्तरावर किमान किती लोकांना ते दिले पाहिजे, हे या तंत्राद्वारे ठरवलं जातं. दोन औषधांची तुलना करायची झाल्यास ती औषधे ज्या दोन गटांना दिली जातील, ते गट साधारणतः समान गुणधर्मांचे असायला हवेत. यामुळेच अलिकडच्या काळात, सौंदर्यप्रसाधनांच्या तुलनेसाठी, एकाच व्यक्तीच्या डाव्या हाताला एक आणि उजव्या हाताला दुसरं क्रीम लावूनही चाचण्या केल्या जातात. वेगवेगळ्या प्रकारच्या वेगवेगळ्या आकाराच्या समूहांवर केलेल्या या सगळ्या चाचण्यांमधील परिणामांची तुलना करून त्यावरून सार्वत्रिक निष्कर्ष काढण्याचं काम संख्याशास्त्रातील हे तंत्र करतं. अशा प्रकारे जिथे जिथे म्हणून विविधता आहे, तिथे तिथे हे तंत्र उपयोगी पडतं.

Back to Blog...

It has been really long, since I wrote...Dec-Jan is generally the most inspiring month for me (& probably for many young academicians like me) as it's a conference season. That's why, this blog also started in January, when I was overwhelmed by one such motivating experience. This year-end & New-year was no exception. It started with the alumni meet at our Department, where we actually got to meet many alumni about whom we had heard a lot; from our seniors as well as teachers. It was more like a family reunion for our ilk. Then came the conference to mark International Year of Statistics & Diamond Jubilee of our Department. Listening about Huzurbazar, Fisher and many more like them was really an interesting experience. 

Aurangabad Caves

After a while, we went for a conference at my Hometown. Visiting Aurangabad Caves, Panchakki after about 12-13 years was a refreshing experience. I had almost forgotten the beauty of these places. Getting to meet some old & new conference pals was as expected a nice experience. 

Then came a trip to Hyderabad, which was an unforgettable journey as we got to meet a living legend in Statistics, Prof. C. R. Rao. We got to talk to him and got a signed copy of his autobiography. This was really enthralling. The gallery at the C R Rao Institute was also worth visiting. We also got to meet some non-statisticians doing great work in Statistics. Getting to see the museums at Hyderabad was a pleasing by-product.

The latest in this series was a trip to Nashik for a national workshop. The journey to Nashik and the stay there were both amazing as I got to listen to many amusing anecdotes related to Statistics and Statisticians. It was really illuminating to see how even simple statistical tools can help us in real life.

Getting to meet so many great people has lengthened my wish-list. Let's see how many of them, I can  fulfill...


PS: Special thanks to Deep & Richa for their great company and lovely snaps...

On the Occasion of Statistics Day

Year 2013 is being celebrated as the ‘International Year of Statistics’. Since 2007, India started celebrating 29th June as the National Statistics Day. Most of us are scared of the numbers and the formulae that constitute the subject of Statistics. But, if used wisely these dreadful numbers and formulae can simplify the solutions of many real world problems. In fact, this has been proved many times even in the Indian context. At this juncture, I remember an incidence dating back to 1947. Our country was rejoicing at the newly acquired independence. However, at the same time, due to partition, some areas had a riotous situation. Red Fort in New Delhi was occupied completely by the refugees. Government had given the contract of providing food to these refugees to some contractor. But no one knew the actual count of refugees. As a result, the contractor took advantage of the situation and provided a huge bill. Due to explosive situation, it was almost impossible to enter the red fort and take the actual count of people. So, everyone was puzzled. At that time, a statistician named Dr. J. M. Sengupta came up with an interesting idea. Salt was the cheapest item among those foodstuffs. So, the contractor knew that he wouldn’t earn much by inflating the quantity of salt. Dr. Sengupta decided to use this knowledge. He estimated the average amount of salt consumed per head in the Indian families and used it to estimate the number of refugees inside the Red fort. This method was tested on another smaller colony of refugees and it was found to give accurate results. As a result, Statistics was useful in detecting the fraud.

The basic paper in Statistics “Ars Conjectandi” was written by Jacob Bernoulli, 300 years ago. This year also marks the 250th anniversary of the discovery of Bayes' theorem, which is useful in many fields. As a result around 124 countries and 2040 organizations all over the world have joined hands to celebrate this year as the International Year of Statistics. Special efforts are being made to increase the awareness about Statistics. The M.Sc. Statistics course in the University of Pune was started 60 years ago. So, to commemorate both these special occasions, Department of Statistics has planned various activities throughout the year and the concluding ceremony of these year-long celebrations will be held during an International conference and Alumni meet which would be organized in December 2013.

29th June is the birth anniversary of Dr. P. C. Mahalanobis, who is considered as the father of Statistical thinking in India. He played a major role in formation of policies regarding industrialization and economic planning in India. His work on sample surveys received a worldwide recognition. Indian Statistical Institute established in 1932, under his guidance has been continuously producing many statisticians who went on to achieve name and fame in the various fields of Statistics. An important Statistician from Maharashtra is Dr. P. V. Sukhatme. His work on hunger, malnutrition is noteworthy.

One more statistician who became famous world-over is Dr. V. S. Huzurbazar. Department of Statistics in the University of Pune was founded by Dr. Huzurbazar. He did his Ph.D. from Cambridge University and returned to India. He devoted all his energies for the growth of this newly established department thereby proving his mettle as a good administrator as well. He was awarded the coveted Adams Prize by Cambridge University. His work was efficiently continued by two of his students, Dr. S. R. Adke and Dr. B. K. Kale. Dr. Adke made significant contributions to the field of Statistics, during his stints as researcher/faculty members across various institutions in India, Australia, USA etc. He took sincere efforts to put in good shape the journal of Indian Statistical Association. Even until today, the Indian Statistical Association functions from the Department of Statistics, University of Pune and the journal is also published from the same department. Work of Dr. Adke was recognized by the “Distinguished Statistician Award”, which he received from the Indian Society for Probability and Statistics. Dr. Kale also had an illustrious career. Along with the Department of Statistics, University of Pune, he also played a major role in the growth and development of Department of Statistics, at the University of Manitoba, Canada. His books have been included in the syllabus of various universities. One of his books has been translated in Japanese. Dr. Kale received “Dr. P. V. Sukhatme” award from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India. The same award was bestowed upon another Puneite Dr. J. V. Deshpande in 2012. Through his publications, Dr. Deshpande has contributed tremendously to survival analysis, which forms a basis of many problems in Medical science.

Due to the contribution of such stalwarts, the Department of Statistics, of University of Pune grew rapidly. Currently it is recognized as the Centre for Advanced Studies in Statistics by University Grants Commission. Every year around 50 students are admitted for M.Sc. course. Along with the fundamentals of Mathematical Statistics, these students get to learn about applications of statistics in various fields including Finance, Insurance, Economics, Genetics, Medical Statistics etc. Some students join research programmes such as M.Phil. and Ph.D. Due to ever-growing need for trained Statisticians, these students get placed in different sectors such as insurance, finance, software, pharmaceutical industries, banks, colleges, universities, research institutes, Indian Statistical Services etc.

Statistics has tremendous applications in the variety of fields, such as weather forecasts, psephology, market research, finance, economics, insurance, epidemiology, genetics, medical science, clinical trials, quality control etc. Statistics is required for assessment of efficiency of drugs, assessment of severity of the side-effects of the drugs, determining the causes of diseases such as cancer, maintaining the quality of the products, comparative study of efficiency of fertilizers, ranking of sportspersons, designing new insurance policies, determining the rate of spread of epidemic and accordingly the intensity of the measures to control this spread etc.

One more important contribution of Statistics, in the Indian history can be found in the works of Florence Nightingale. Her work as a nurse is well-known. But, she was a good statistician as well; in fact she was the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society. Her skill of representing the data into graphs proved useful for creating awareness about the health problems of soldiers. In those days, the reports on such issues used to be highly technical and hence were rarely read and understood by the politicians. As a result, no policy changes could be made due to lack of awareness about the severity of the problem. Her important contribution to the field of statistics was the Nightingale Rose Plot. It’s a variant of the pie diagrams that we generally see in the newspapers. In the pie diagrams, radius of each sector is same and the angle of the sector is proportional to the contribution of the corresponding fields, whereas in the Nightingale Rose plots, the angles are same for all the sectors and the radii are proportional to the contributions of the respective fields. Due to the simultaneous efforts on the statistical and medical fronts, Nightingale was successful in reducing the mortality rates among Indian patients from 69 per 1000 to 18 per 1000.

This is just a glimpse into the uses of Statistics. If you are further interested, you may visit the link: www.statistics2013.org. It also features a small video made by SAS company, to showcase the role of statistics in our daily lives. Prof. A. P. Gore, former head Department of Statistics, University of Pune has also composed a song for Statistics. You can listen to this song at: http://bit.ly/YcufiJ .

सफर संभाव्यतेच्या विश्वातील - २

सफर संभाव्यतेच्या  विश्वातील - १

“To understand God's thoughts we must study statistics, for these are the measure of his purpose.”

- Florence Nightingale

मार्च महिना म्हटलं  की  आठवण होते ती आंतरराष्ट्रीय महिला दिनाची. म्हणूनच आज दोन महिला संख्याशास्त्रज्ञांचा परिचय करून घेऊयात. त्यांपैकी पहिली म्हणजे फ्लोरेन्स नाईटिंगेल.  परिचारिका म्हणून तिचं काम आपल्याला माहित असतं. पण हीच नाईटिंगेल संख्याशास्त्राच्या क्षेत्रातही नावाजलेली आहे.  १८५९ मध्ये 'Royal Statistical Society' ची पहिली  महिला सभासद  होण्याचा सन्मान नाईटिंगेलला लाभला. माहितीचं  सर्वसामान्य लोकांना सहज समजेल अशा आलेखात रुपांतर करण्याचं  तिचं  कौशल्य वाखाणण्याजोगं होतं . त्यामुळेच दुर्लक्षित राहिलेला सैनिकांच्या आरोग्याचा प्रश्न सोडवण्यात तिला यश मिळालं . त्यापूर्वीचे संख्याशास्त्रीय अहवाल भलेमोठे, किचकट असल्याकारणानं सहसा राजकारण्यांकडून वाचले जात नसत. त्यामुळे त्या अहवालातील समस्यांवर उपायही शोधले जात नसत. याउलट चित्रात्मक मांडणीमुळे नाईटिंगेलचे अहवाल लोकांना सहज समजले आणि त्यामुळे समस्येचं गांभीर्य लक्षात येऊन  त्यावर उपाययोजना केल्या गेल्या.

संख्याशास्त्राच्या क्षेत्रातील नाईटिंगेलचं सर्वात महत्त्वाचं  योगदान म्हणजे,  तिने प्रकाशात आणलेले नाईटिंगेल रोझ प्लॉट.  आजकाल मोठ्या प्रमाणात वापरल्या जाणाऱ्या 'पाय आकृती'चंच हे दुसरं  रूप. वर्तमानपत्रात  पाय आकृती आपण नेहमीच पाहतो. विशेषत:  'रुपया असा आला, असा गेला' किंवा 'वेगवेगळी वर्तमानपत्रे वाचणाऱ्या  लोकांचे प्रमाण' अशा प्रकारच्या माहितीचं रुपांतर रंगीबेरंगी पाय मध्ये केलं जातं.  याचंच थोडं वेगळं  रूप म्हणजे नाईटिंगेल रोझ प्लॉट. या  आकृतीचा वापर साधारणत: मासिक/साप्ताहिक  माहितीसाठी केला जातो. याचं  वैशिष्ट्य म्हणजे वर्तुळाच्या प्रत्येक पाकळीचा कोन हा सारखाच असतो. पण प्रत्येक पाकळीची त्रिज्या (लांबी), ही वेगवेगळी असते. त्यामुळे मूळ पाय आकृतीप्रमाणेच यातही पाकळीचे क्षेत्रफळ हे त्या क्षेत्राच्या योगदानाच्या प्रमाणात असते. 

Nightingale Rose Plot

भारतीयांशी देखील नाईटिंगेलचे विशेष नाते आहे. १८६३   ते १८७३ या दहा वर्षांच्या कालावधीत नाईटिंगेलच्या प्रयत्नांमुळे भारतातील सैनिकांच्या मृत्यूचे प्रमाण हजारी ६९ वरून १८ वर आले.


अशीच दुसरी एक संख्याशास्त्रज्ञ म्हणजे जेनेट लेन क्लेपन.  क्लेपन ही देखील  खरं  तर वैद्यकीय क्षेत्रात होती. १९१२   साली तिनं पहिला 'Cohort Study' केला. Cohort म्हणजे काहीतरी एक गुणधर्म समान असणाऱ्या अनेक लोकांचा समूह. साधारणत: एकाच वेळी जन्माला आलेल्या १००० मुलांच्या वाढीचा तिनं अभ्यास केला. यांपैकी ५००  मुलांना आईचं दूध दिलं  गेलं  होतं  तर उरलेल्या ५००  मुलांना गाईचं दूध देण्यात आलं होतं. संख्याशास्त्रातील 't -test' आणि इतर काही साधनांचा वापर करून आईचं  दूध मिळालेल्या मुलांची वाढ अधिक चांगल्या रीतीनं होत असल्याचं  तिनं सिद्ध केलं. हा फरक आर्थिक स्थिती अथवा इतर कारणांवर अवलंबून नाही किंवा निव्वळ योगायोगही नाही हेही तिनं संख्याशास्त्रीय साधनांनी दाखवून दिलं.
पुढच्या काळात तिने 'Case Control Study' करून स्तनाच्या कर्करोगाची कारणे शोधून काढली. ५०० कर्करोगी महिला (Case) आणि साधारण समान स्थितीतील (वय, सामाजिक स्तर इत्यादी) ५०० इतर महिला (Control) यांच्याकडून  भरून घेतलेल्या ५० प्रश्नांच्या प्रश्नावलीतील उत्तरांवरून संख्याशास्त्राच्या साह्याने तिने कर्करोगाची कारणे  शोधून काढली. नंतरच्या काळात इतर संशोधकांनीही तसेच निष्कर्ष काढल्यामुळे  तिने दिलेली कारणे  आजतागायत वापरली जातात. विसाव्या शतकाच्या सुरुवातीच्या काळात दुहेरी डॉक्टर (MD + PhD) पदवी मिळवणाऱ्या फार थोड्या लोकांपैकी एक क्लेपन होय.
आजच्या पाय दिनाच्या दिवशी या दोन महिला संख्याशास्त्रज्ञांना अभिवादन करून थांबते.

सफर संभाव्यतेच्या विश्वातील - १

२०१३ हे वर्ष 'आंतरराष्ट्रीय संख्याशास्त्र वर्ष', म्हणून साजरं  केलं  जातंय. आपल्यापैकी बहुतेक जण हे गणित / संख्याशास्त्र म्हटलं  की "भोलानाथ उद्या आहे गणिताचा पेपर, पोटात माझ्या कळ येऊन दुखेल का रे ढोपर", याची आठवण होणारे. पण या संख्यांशी मैत्री झाली की संभव - असंभवतेची  गणितं  उलगडायला लागतात आणि मग अनेक अवघड प्रश्न चुटकीसरशी सुटतात. उदाहरणच घ्यायचं  झालं  तर १९४७ सालची एक घटना आठवतेय; तीसुद्धा आपल्या भारतातच घडलेली. फाळणीमुळे देशातील वातावरण तंग होतं. दिल्लीतला लाल किल्ला निर्वासितांनी व्यापला होता. त्यांना अन्नधान्याचा पुरवठा करण्याचं  कंत्राट सरकारनं एका कंत्राटदाराला दिलं  होतं. पण किल्ल्यात नेमके किती लोक आहेत हे कुणालाच ठाऊक नव्हतं. शिवाय परिस्थिती स्फोटक असल्यानं प्रत्यक्ष आत जाऊन मोजणी करणं अशक्य होतं.  साहजिकच कंत्राटदारानं भरमसाठ रकमेचं  बिल दिलं. त्या वेळी जे. एम. सेनगुप्ता नावाच्या एका संख्याशास्त्रज्ञानं एक क्लृप्ती लढवली. सगळ्या अन्नपदार्थांमध्ये मीठ हे सगळ्यात स्वस्त होतं. त्यामुळे वापरल्या गेलेल्या मिठाचं प्रमाण वाढवून दाखवून कंत्राटदाराच्या फायद्यात फारशी वाढ होणार नव्हती. त्यामुळे कंत्राटदारानं वापरलेल्या मिठाचं प्रमाण आणि सामान्यपणे आहारात वापरल्या जाणाऱ्या  मिठाचं दरमाणशी प्रमाण, यांचा वापर करून सेनगुप्ता यांनी संख्याशास्त्राच्या मदतीनं लाल किल्ल्यातल्या निर्वासितांच्या संख्येचा अंदाज बांधला.  दिल्लीतल्याच दुसऱ्या एका छोट्या छावणीतल्या निर्वासितांची प्रत्यक्ष गणना करून ही पद्धत उत्तमरीतीने काम करत असल्याचं  सिद्ध झालं. 

अशा या संख्याशास्त्रातील  Jacob Bernoulli   या महान शास्त्रज्ञाने लिहिलेल्या "Ars Conjectandi" या मूलभूत निबंधाच्या प्रकाशनास यंदा ३०० वर्षे पूर्ण होत आहेत. त्याचबरोबर अनेकविध क्षेत्रात उपयोगी पडणाऱ्या Bayesच्या प्रमेयाचा शोध लागूनही यंदा २५०  वर्षे पूर्ण झाली आहेत. त्यानिमित्तानं जगभर विविध उपक्रमांचं आयोजन करण्यात येतंय. सर्वसामान्य जनता आणि संख्याशास्त्र यांच्यातील दरी कमी व्हावी म्हणूनही काही खास प्रयत्न केले जात आहेत. तुम्हालाही या दुनियेची सफर करायची असेल तर www.statistics2013.org या संकेतस्थळास अवश्य भेट द्या. तेथेच आपल्याला दैनंदिन जीवनात कुठे - कुठे  संख्याशास्त्र भेटू शकतं  यासंबंधी SAS या कंपनीनं बनवलेला छोटासा व्हिडीओ देखील बघायला मिळेल.  आणि संख्यांना कशा निरनिराळ्या प्रकारे कामाला लावता येऊ शकतं  हे आपल्या मायबोलीत ऐकायचं असेल तर पुणे विद्यापीठाचे  माजी संख्याशास्त्र विभागप्रमुख प्रा. अनिल गोरे यांनी रचलेलं गीत ऐकायला तुम्हाला नक्कीच आवडेल.  

A Google Disaster

We were happily running our blog: Certain News about Uncertain World (no use of clicking since it is locked). In fact recently we had extended our presence on Facebook as well. We also got to meet many readers of our blog who were impressed by this venture. Our blog life was beautiful and everything seemed to make perfect sense until the moment we attempted making a Google+ page.

So what actually happened?

For making a Google page first of all we were asked to provide the Name. Though the Gmail account is named “Statistical Events”, Google + settings didn’t allow us with that name. So we named it “Akanksha Inderdeep”. Next step was to provide date of birth. We had created this blog on 2nd Feb 2011, so we have always considered this as the DoB of our joint venture. For a moment a thought came to our mind that if it had created so much fuss about name, then it might even retort on our age. But we went on to submit the information expecting not more than a pop-up prompting to change the DoB just like Name. And guess what happened the next moment…. Our account was disabled and we were asked to submit DoB proof within 29 days. We went to a state of shock. We were wondering whose DoB proof should be attached. At the same time a thought of copying stuff from blog flashed in our minds, to have raw material, just in case we need to start from square one.

And then came the biggest shock as a blogger. Our blog was removed. We hadn’t imagined, even in a nightmare that some such thing would happen in a matter of a click. We had invested a lot of time in meticulously maintaining this blog. We are robbed of our most prized possession.

Now what??

We have submitted a file with DoB proofs of both of us, since we don’t have ID with Akanksha Inderdeep K. We have also tried to explain our sad little story to them in that file itself. What we can do now is just wait and watch.

We already miss you alot..
Please come back soon !!!

The only ray of hope is that our blog is not dead yet. It’s in coma and even if it recovers it is in a danger of suffering from loss of memory. So please please please pray for us…

Afterword

Posted after 19 hours: Our blog life is back to normal :) :) . Seems Google people were really moved by our sad little story and chose to react quickly. Thank you all for your prayers ..

डॉ. सुखात्मे - नीलफलकाच्या निमित्ताने

आजच्या स्वातंत्र्यदिनी भारतमातेच्या एका सुपुत्राबद्दल लिहावं वाटलं, म्हणून ही पोस्ट. आजवर अनेक क्षेत्रात अनेक महान हस्ती होऊन गेल्या. पण बहुतेकदा त्या त्या क्षेत्रातील लोकांनाच त्यांच्या कार्याची महानता जाणवते. इतरांपर्यंत ती फारशी पोहोचतही नाही. कधी कधी तर अगदी आपल्या घरापासून हाकेच्या अंतरावर राहणाऱ्या दिग्गजांचीही आपल्याला माहिती नसते. "पुणे ऐतिहासिक वास्तू स्मृती समिती"च्या नीलफलक लावण्याच्या अतिशय स्तुत्य अशा उपक्रमामुळे आपण सामान्य लोक निदान आसपासच्या परिसरातील ज्येष्ठ - श्रेष्ठांना ओळखायला लागूत.

नीलफलकाची ही कल्पना मुळात लंडनमधली. लोकमान्य टिळकांच्या तिथल्या वास्तव्यस्थानी असा फलक लावला गेला, तेव्हा त्याने प्रेरित होऊन जयंत टिळक आणि दीपक टिळक यांनी असा उपक्रम इथे सुरु केला. काळकर्त्या शि. म. परांजपेंपासून सुरुवात करून आजवर या समितीने पुण्यात 116 फलक लावलेत.

मागच्या रविवारी पद्मभूषण पुरस्कार प्राप्त डॉ. सुखात्मेंच्या प्रभात रोडवरील "सांख्यदर्शन" या घरावर 116 व्या फलकाचे अनावरण झाले. डॉ. पांडुरंग वासुदेव सुखात्मे - संख्याशास्त्रात जागतिक स्तरावर पोचलेलं नाव. लंडनमध्ये संख्याशास्त्रात Ph. D. करून भारतात परतल्यावर बनारस हिंदू विद्यापीठात प्राध्यापक पदासाठी त्यांनी अर्ज केला. विद्यापीठाचे तत्कालीन कुलगुरू पं . मदनमोहन मालवीय डॉ. सुखात्मेंच्या शैक्षणिक गुणवत्तेने प्रभावित झाले खरे, पण संख्याशास्त्राचा भारताला गरिबीतून बाहेर काढायला कसा उपयोग होणार या पंडितजींच्या प्रश्नाला समर्पक उत्तर न देता आल्याने डॉ. सुखात्मेंनी याच प्रश्नाला आपलं जीवनध्येय बनवलं. बनारस विद्यापीठातील प्राध्यापकपद न स्वीकारता राष्ट्रीय कृषी संशोधन संस्थेत (ICAR) संख्याशास्त्रात संशोधक म्हणून त्यांनी काम सुरु केले. त्यांच्या अनमोल कार्यामुळे आज या संख्याशास्त्र विभागाचा विस्तार होऊन एक नवी संस्था IASRI उभी राहिलीये. भूक, कुपोषण या समस्यांवरील त्यांचं काम जगभर नावाजलं गेलं आहे.

केंद्र सरकारच्या सांख्यिकी व कार्यक्रम कार्यान्वयन मंत्रालयाच्या वतीने दर दोन वर्षाने एका ज्येष्ठ संख्याशास्त्रज्ञाला "डॉ. सुखात्मे पुरस्कार" दिला जातो. 2003-04 साली डॉ. बी. के. काळे तर 2011-12 साली डॉ. जे. व्ही. देशपांडे अशा दोन पुणेकरांना या पुरस्काराने सन्मानित करण्यात आले आहे. साहजिकच या नीलफलकाचे अनावरण डॉ. जे. व्ही. देशपांडे यांच्याच हस्ते करण्यात आले. त्यामुळे डॉ. सुखात्मेंच्या कार्याबद्दल डॉ. देशपांडेंच्या तोंडून "सांख्यदर्शन" मध्ये ऐकायला मिळणं आणि त्यानिमित्तानं अनेक संख्याशास्त्रज्ञांना भेटणं ही माझ्यासारख्या संख्याशास्त्राच्या विद्यार्थिनीसाठी पर्वणीच होती. शिवाय पद्मश्री डॉ. सुहास सुखात्मेंची भेट आणि त्यांच्या तोंडून त्यांच्या वडिलांच्या आठवणी ऐकणं हा तर एक अनपेक्षित बोनस होता. अशा रीतीने स्वातंत्र्यदिना पूर्वीचा रविवार एका उत्तम कार्यक्रमात सहभागी होण्याचा आनंद देऊन गेला.

Happy B’Day

Dear ----,

First of all, wish you many many happy returns of the day… We still remember the day, when you entered our lives. We couldn’t contain our excitement. We were waiting for you since so many days. Every now and then, we used to feel the need of someone like you. Your absence made us wander in this World Wide Web, in search of someone, who can lessen our web-trotting efforts. But , most of the times, it yielded no fruitful results. It isn’t the case that you are the only member from your clan to exist in this world. There are few like you, who had secured their virtual positions, even before your birth. But, none of them could match our expectations. We wanted someone who could provide exactly the things that someone like us would want; nothing less and nothing more. It’s well said “Look within, Don’t search for the things you want, in the external world. They are inside you.” So, we finally decided that we can’t wait for others to come forward. We have to take initiative and bring someone like you in the lives of many like us… That was exactly one year before….

Considering your age, you have achieved a lot. Though sometimes, we being only two, fail to give you the attention you deserve. In fact, today also, we almost forgot your birthday. In this first year of your life, you have given us immense pleasures… especially, the joy of creation. Within a week of your birth, you had earned the praises from a rock star in our field. Throughout the year, we received the words of appreciation about you from the young and old alike. Some even gave you a special mention on their homepages/blogs/walls. With the support of people like these, you grew up very fast and are about to complete the century of your contributions to this uncertain world.

Hope, you get better, day by day and enrich the lives of many like us, in the coming years…..

Once again, Many Many Happy Returns of the Day to our (me and Deep’s) dear blog “Certain News about Uncertain World”. You can see your gift on the right panel of this blog.... :)

Discoveries in a Day

Today was pretty eventful. Our usual discussions and surfing led to three discoveries (to be precise...Observations). None of them is that significant, but still we found them to be notable. It may happen that some of you are already well aware of these facts. But for us, it's nontrivial. Hence, the post...

1. Real life application of the fact that the sequence (n+k)/n goes to 1.

Most of you must have solved age problems in school. The problem statement would be something of this type....
"A man is 4 times as old as his son. In 3 years, the father will be 3 times as old as his son will be. How old is each of them now?"
Cynosure's post on the difference between the ages of siblings reminded Deep of a question that she had in mind as a school going kid.- "Why does it happen that as the time progresses, father who was 4 times his son's age became 3 times the same son's age". Translating this question into the language of Mathematics, with son's age as 'n' and father's age as 'n+k', yields a sequence (n+k)/n which is obviously decreasing and converges to 1 as n goes to infinity.

2. Sunrise and Sunset timings

It started as a discussion with MGK on the timings of getting up. We were whining about not feeling like getting up, as it's too dark around 6.30. Out of usual habit, we googled and got the latest time for sunrise as 7.15 am, which happens to be in the second week of January. Isn't it too late for The Sun to rise at 7.15 am??? No wonder then that we petty human beings don't feel like leaving our beds. This googling led to the second interesting observation of the day - "The shortest day doesn't correspond to the latest sunrise and the earliest sunset." Again resorting to the tools of real analysis, if we define the timing of sunrise on nth day by Rn and that of sunset by Sn, the shortest day would correspond to the smallest value of (Sn-Rn). But then inf (Sn-Rn)≠inf Sn + inf (-Rn) (To be precise, argmin (Sn-Rn)≠argmin (Sn) or argmin (-Rn) ). In fact, in this case it turns out that the “n” for which the corresponding extreme values are attained (argmin), are different for all the three quantities, Sn, Rn and Sn-Rn. So, we got a good application for somewhat non-intuitive real analysis result. For actual geographical reasoning, you may google and do explain us, if you get something.

Enough of real analysis stuff now…. Let’s get to real blogging

3. “blogspot.com” changed to “blogspot.in”

Richa noticed that the Feedjit has kind of restarted, as it was showing only latest 2-3 entries instead of its usual count of 50. But, when we went to Feedjit’s “real time view” for our joint blog, it seemed perfectly alright except the fact that in last 8 hours there was only one entry and it was from Indonesia. When we tried to visit the same link via blog, it turned up that it had almost 20 entries during last 5 hours, but all of them were from India. Then we noticed the change in the link from “.com” to “.in” and realized that all the blogspot.com links are getting redirected to blogspot.in links. Googling almost instinctively, we stumbled upon the page giving the details of this country specific redirecting. This helps Google to remove the content found objectionable by a specific country from a page visible in that country only. Of course, it won’t affect the harmless content posted by ordinary people like us. But still, if you want to see the original “.com” version, just type “-----.blogspot.com/ncr” to get the no country redirect version. Dear Feedjit users, don’t get disheartened if the panel on your regular blog shows only Indian visitors. If you want to see your visitors from abroad, go to “/ncr” link given above…..

That’s enough research for today… Off to some real research now…

- Akanksha & Deep

Putting Chance to Work….

“Statistics and Truth – Putting Chance to work ” , a book which is on my “To be read ” list since long. Today is the day when world honours this chance for the work it has done for the betterment of the human race. Probably, the most widely discussed example of this leads us to Prof. Paul Meier, who died just two months ago. His randomization of trials was really a breakthrough in the way the treatments worked and has changed the lives of many terminally ill patients.

This science of uncertainty has conquered almost all the areas of our lives – from the proverbial rocket science to the daily chatter of a layman which involves many guesstimates. A look at the Google NGram shows how the usage of the word Statistics increased over the years… That’s mainly because of the vast amount of data we are continuously being bombarded with. In today’s age of information explosion, we have become more and more thirsty for the knowledge. This is because,

Knowledge is what we know
Also, what we know we do not know.
We discover what we do not know
Essentially by what we know.
Thus knowledge expands.
With more knowledge we come to know
More of what we do not know.
Thus knowledge expands endlessly. 

Moreover what we know is simply the data is not a knowledge. In fact ,

Uncertain knowledge + Knowledge of the amount of uncertainty in it = Usable knowledge 

That’s why the world has now started realizing the importance of this science of uncertainty. This tool, which once had a dubious distinction of giving fallacious conclusions is now an integral part of each and every field, as people have started believing in C R Rao’s words,

All knowledge is, in final analysis, history.
All sciences are, in the abstract, mathematics.
All judgments are, in their rationale, statistics. 

and without the judgments , we cannot move an inch further. Someone wisely anticipated this inevitable and ever growing need of Statistics and UN started celebration the 20th day of October as the World Statistics Day since 2010.

So, in the end my hearty wishes to the Statisticians, on the eve of 2nd World Statistics day. In fact all of us are statisticians as we are always trying to choose an optimal life-path by predicting the future outcomes on the basis of the past data, keeping in mind the constrains that we have. Still for the so-called nonstatisticians, what better day to start for the growth of the statistical component of your brain, so that the numbers can help us become efficient citizens because, as H G Wells has said,

“Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write”.

Moment

Last week was a pretty hectic one. It all started last Friday. As I was working over a recently started problem, something struck my mind. There was a thing I could use to solve my long standing problem which I was about to wind up as it hadn’t moved an inch further in the last seven-eight months. This was a problem which we encountered in September 2010. We struggled over it for nearly three months but to no avail. We could neither prove nor disprove the result we were interested in. Finally, in December we decided to put it off indefinitely. But somewhere at the back of our mind, we had a feeling that the result must be true. So, I continued to have a look at it in-between. We were almost convinced that no existing techniques could solve this problem. So, I tried to develop something new to cater to this situation. But of course, it’s not a child’s play and that’s why I couldn’t progress much in that direction, though I used to work over it at least twice a week.

And then, last Friday the thought came that I could mould the things to fit in the existing setup. And on Sunday, the eureka moment came. I was thrilled to see the solution. Things fitted in so nicely as if it was just a jigsaw puzzle, made to give you a correct picture once you get a trick to fix it. I was experiencing something which Erdos would call a proof from THE BOOK; more elegant than we could have ever imagined. Over the next few days, the process of refining the arguments continued, to make the things more rigorous. And now, we have an almost surely correct proof for the almost sure convergence we were looking for.

That was a moment, when I could experience the joy of creation. Artistically, I have never been much creative nor do I have much of an aesthetic sense. But I used to enjoy making things when the directions were given. That’s why I think I love Mathematical things…. you can create something new even when you are restricted by the existing rules and regulations . Here’s the latest instance of my effort of creating something - the 3D model car made from the fevicol box (which contained the guidelines) with the measly accessories. (Blue and black pens to substitute for the colours. What else a doctoral student in Statistics can have, especially while staying in a hostel ? )

But now, I think I need to form a new set of rules for myself. I couldn’t resist the temptation of completing this car, when I saw the picture and wasted more than an hour in it. Right now also I am writing this post when I should have been working on the three assignments that I am expected to submit this week apart from my regular research work. Enough of the celebration for the newly discovered result; off to work now….

Tribute to a Probabilist and an Actor

I was strolling in the cyber space just to get some inputs for our budding joint venture, when I stumbled upon the following news on the website of Bernoulli Society – “Prof. Patrick Billingsley passed away on April 22, 2011.” This was a single line, but it couldn’t leave me, as Billingsley occupies a significant place in my daily research work. Impulsively, I googled his name to get a glimpse of his life.  Unsurprisingly, the first result was from Amazon, as he has touched lives of many like me with his fundamental books on advanced probability theory.  The second result was from IMDb about some actor Pat Billingsley. I overlooked it as a mere coincidence, thinking - even the great “Billingsley” is not unique …Google has a name-alike for him too. So to get a relevant and reliable account of his life I started hunting for his Wikipedia entry, and to my surprise, the very first line was – “Patrick Billingsley was an American mathematician and stage and screen actor, noted for his books in advanced probability theory and statistics.”  I was rendered speechless. I couldn’t imagine that a person who wrote something so technical can be an actor as well…

This is not the first time that I am shocked after hearing something about Billingsley.  The first startling revelation was the fact that he is Feller’s student. Knowing that Feller is pretty sympathetic towards his readers, it’s very hard to believe that his student wrote such books. But considering his intellect, the gaps that he leaves for his readers to fill in must be really trivial for him.

The Princeton graduate was an accomplished actor with around 20 plays, 8 movies and 9 television shows to his credit. He had earned a black belt in judo. Besides occupying many important academic positions, he served on the athletic board of University of Chicago and even helped run the football scoreboard.  In words of his daughter Marty Billingsley - “A true Renaissance man, he also painted, did woodworking, read Beowulf in the original Old English. His interest in folk music led him to study the collection of ballads put together by Francis James Child in the late 19th century, which he sang as lullabies to his five children. Echoes of those ballads can be found in his daughter Franny Billingsley's young adult novels.”  (Source : UChicago News)

When asked about his equal interest in academics and acting, Billingsley replied  – “Teaching has a little bit of show biz. When you teach, you perform in front of an audience. That’s much like acting. As a teacher you’re used to being on stage”.

In short, if you are a genius, it doesn’t matter, which career path you have chosen. You can make a mark, in any field you like….

Advaita: in my Ph.D. Problems

It has been a month since I wrote… Firstly, it was the effort to catch up with the running time, which had left me back (or may be I had let it run, as I was too inertiatic to catch up) and then, for a short while, blogger fuelled the lack of posts … I had a good excuse for not writing anything…

But now, some deep spiritual realization, urged me to write this…  Adi Shankaracharya proposed “Advaitawad” (nonduality) in his quest for understanding the Brahman. "Advaita" refers to the identity of the Self (Atman) and the Whole (Brahman). Seems pretty difficult to digest, isn’t it? But I hadn’t thought even in my dreams that my petty Ph.D. work  (It’s really petty compared to the problems he was thinking about, though for me it’s certainly worth more than that ) may make me a staunch follower of Advaitawad.  I was struggling for a while for getting uniform integrability of some particular class of functions. That seemed to be the biggest hurdle, which showed no signs of moving… We tried to bypass it in many ways, either trying to choose some completely different, well-trodden (and hence easier) path or even by devising escape routes… But,…. there was no way we could avoid it…Whatever may be the road, we were bound to stumble upon it sooner or later….

And now, finally, that is solved……I was very much relieved to see the solution. But my joy was short lived…As soon as I thought that I have crossed the so called biggest hurdle, another one was there to welcome me… Now, it is the situation where I am in search of something which Ramanujan had encountered when he was in school. I have to work out the limit of the type 0/0. Now, again the fruitless efforts of filling up the notebook pages for rearranging the things in a frail hope of landing on something  finite have started. But, whatever may be the shuffling, the terms tend to remain loyal to their original form…In fact once I came up with a limit, which involved some intricate mathematical expression with three different constants, and kept on simplifying it for about 10 minutes, only to discover that the most simplified version was 0.

In essence, even these problems deny dualism. All these problems have a single soul, though they may be having different external forms. And one more thing, avoiding a problem, is like simply avoiding an unwanted relative (some nosy aunty or meddlesome uncle, which all of us come across pretty often), who is sure to bump into us at the next crossing.

Procrastination…

Procrastination…. almost everyone has experienced it…I’m not an exception. But this time, it was heights of indolence. It has probably been a week since I spent my entire day prolifically. Initially, tried to work on some tedious, almost new topic “EM Algorithm”; so, could console myself about the sudden dip in the efficiency.  In fact, managed to convince my advisor, by giving the same excuse… how it’s inevitable to study this topic and at the same time it’s so time-consuming…. But, alas, even these excuses have their own “best before” date L.  Was thinking that it’s time to seriously get back to the work… but it’s difficult to get back on track, once you have derailed. Inertia makes its presence felt, every now and then… and as expected, before I could reach in the right gear, the excuse became outdated. Probably, for the first time during the past 7-8 months, I faltered over a seemingly innocuous question by my advisor, “What’s going on?”.  So now, it’s time to wake up, before it’s too late….. Will have to work really hard, to make up for this gap… off to work now…

A short update...

In marathi, there is a saying -
ऋषीचं कुळ आणि नदीचं मूळ शोधू नये..
But what about present generation scholars... I think many of us are interested in exploring about their ancestral roots, though not in the usual sense, but in the academic sense. It's a great feeling to realize that a teacher you adore most comes from a family which has produced many such erudite professors... and somewhere you are also going to be part of this bright academic clan.... The same feeling tempted us (me and deep) to invest our time in enriching an online database about the folks from our statistical clan....Just have a look at the complete account - keeping track of the lineage....

Certain about Uncertainty

Last weekend was special in a sense; it was the last weekend of a month, year and a decade…But for us (me and deep), it was special in one more sense… a candlelit dinner with some of the brightest minds from the probabilistic world, the folks who are certain about uncertainty…

This opportunity was provided by LPS-V workshop, in ISI Bangalore. At the beginning itself, we were pretty excited, as some of the names in the list of participants, were eminent statisticians. But as the course progressed, we were simply dumbfounded, by the sharpness of the minds around us…Everyone here was simply a probabilist, other identities had vanished. It was just like a family gathering with people from almost three generations; veterans encouraging neophytes, by listening to their ideas. They were always there for the younger ones to help them convert their lumbering walk into an exciting hike, be it in the classroom or in the Makalidurga trek which was one of the social events in the workshop. And one more thing…Even this Makalidurga was not spared from the statistical lessons. The relaxation breaks were made lively by the interesting statistical puzzles regarding card magic, chessboards and exciting facts like how Diaconis (a magician turned mathematician) constructed a machine giving a desired outcome for a coin toss.

The nonstatistical joys included the special south Indian dinner served on the plantain leaves, which had almost 20 different delicacies. Apart from the two special dinners, there were other delectable treats like fruits and various kinds of cakes, which were made sweeter by the excellent hospitality of the canteen people and the individual attention by the organizers.

Last and the most important delight was the interaction with the students/alumni of many prestigious institutes all over the world including IITs, ISIs and Ivy League institutions. There we were among the gifted minds attaining zenith, but with their feet firmly rooted in the ground; some of them barely 7-8 years older than us. And thus we returned motivated, and at the same time wondering how people can achieve such great heights, in such a short span of life…