CQI: Excel recap +Absolute addresses

Colbert bumpElection

Visualization past due. EXCEL help due.

Homework: prepare to VOTE Postings

PROPOSALS. Presentations

Postings: general

• Do look at the posting after you have made it. You can edit!

• Content has been good• …. But many are not participating.

Recent posting on Catholics more progressive…

• Good comments• On comparing Catholics versus ALL

Protestants• Correlation is not causation•Was there a correlation? Drawing a line

doesn't mean that the correlation is strong.

• Form of question matters

General

• Data source, which includes format of questions on survey

• Distributions• Comparisons: what's the difference?• Dimension can be applied to categories,

factors.• Definitions• Be skeptical AND/BUT allow the findings to

contradict your preconceptions…

Recap on mortgages

• Mortgage: pay (fixed) amount for whole term of mortgage.– Some goes towards interest– Some goes towards paying off the debt

• The Excel pmt, ppmt, cumprinc provide information

• Look at posted example, different times, and the happy and unhappy story

Formulas

• pmt computes fixed payment, same throughout the time period of loan

• ppmt computes amount towards principal • ipmt computes amount of interest. Note

this is the amount that is tax deductible.• cumprinc computes cumulative amount paid

towards principal• Use Excel function list or google help

Homework problems

• This was an exercise in exploring Excel.• The future value of an investment such as

retirement savings (FV)– Answer(s) ???

• Purchasing decision: pay a lot now or stretch out payments (PV)– Answer(s) ???

Relative Addressing

• default – what we have done:–When a formula is copied from one column to

another • =C3*C18 from column C to column D, it becomes

=D3*D18• =B2-C5 from column C to column D, it becomes =C2-D5• Similarly for rows

• Recall that this is what we wanted in cookies, diet & exercise, mortgages

Absolute Addressing

• When you want addresses to stay the same, use $ before letter or number or both– = $C$2*C15 copied from column C to column D

becomes=$C$2*D15

• This has a role to play and you will see it. • I have not used it because I have

demonstrated ????

Naming

• Names of cells or ranges are absolute.• Used names in–Midterm for ranges for frequency– Diet and exercise–Mortgage

But ….

• If the spreadsheet has values for which you want one dimension to be copied relatively and one not, naming will not work

• =A$2*A5 if copied from A3 to B3 will become=B$2*B5 and if copied to B4 will become=B$2*B6

Recall cookie lab

Change to columns corresponding to daysEach day, eat different cookiesCalculate costs, caloriesAt start of each day, have calorie goal and for

each cookie type, compute proportion of that day’s calories.

NEED: reference to row with calorie goals to be absolute, but can make column reference relative.

Advice

IF AND WHEN you need this type of thing, just remember that naming and absolute addressing are possibilities and work it out!

Do check after copy and paste operations.

VERY GENERAL ADVICE: many computer tools have default settings. Relative addressing is the default. Need to check that that is what you want.

Colbert Bump

• Several years ago, Stephen Colbert claimed that being on a show gave candidates (and others) a distinct bump.

• How to test this?

Colbert bump study by James Fowler

• http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/colbert_bump.pdf

Presidential Elections

• What is (was) a swing state / battleground state?

• History: shows roles of different states: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/15/us/politics/swing-history.html

GOTV• Campaigns divided into 3 phases:

1. ID2. Persuasion3. Get out the vote– Getting ‘your’ voters to the polls more critical

than persuasion. This is not a good thing.

• Campaigns focus on getting out people they have previously identified as voting for their candidate– “The 1s”

Previous election

• Note: I emailed them and they are working on similar map for 2012. This is a big effort.

• Stanford Spatial map of precincts • http://faculty.purchase.edu/jeanine.meyer/pr

ecincts2008.html

Visualizations: 2012 election results

http://2012electoralcollegecalculator.com/blog/u-s-presidential-election-result-2012-11-09/

More maps

• http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/10/1106266/-Electoral-College-Map-Porn-Cartogram-Peep-Show

Comments on visualizations?

• Which were appealing / informative / ?

• Did the fact that NY probably will NOT be a swing state in 2016 make you less interested in voting?

Electoral college

Not this election but ….What is the electoral college?

To put it another way, how do we elect the president?

Answer• Each state has a number of electoral college votes

equal to the number of senators (2) plus the number of representatives.• So it is roughly proportional to population, but not quite.

Small states get somewhat more.

• Washington, DC has 3 votes• All but 2 states have winner-take-all.• Maine and Nebraska have some winner take all and

some by Congressional District.• 538 votes

What do you think?

• Is the electoral college a good thing? What is the alternative?

• Is it the reason that most of the action is only in the swing states?– “Candidates running to be president of Ohio.” Not

quite true.

My prediction

• Registered voter (public information) versus actual voter may be issue, but…

• The polls were not faulted when DiBlasio won by larger margin than predicted.

• Note: I predict that Nate Silver will comment on polling accuracy.

Why vote?

• Participate in the democratic process

• Practice / get started for lifetime participation

• Refute claim that young people are apathetic

• People have died for the right to vote!

Remember• … to vote the whole ballot• Governor• Congress• State Senate• State Assembly• Local• Judges• Library Board Trustee ?

Party line• Many candidates appear on multiple party

lines. Why?• Democrats often appear on Working

Families• Republicans often appear on Conservative• Independent: can be distinct or with main

party• Green• New this year: Anti Common Core and

Women's Equality Agenda

Why?

• Do I / we spend time on elections?

Reasons• Lots of mathematics• Lots of quantitative reasoning

• Lots of visualizations

• Way to promote civic engagement

• It is a topic I am interested in…• [Not original with me, but I can’t find the source] Don’t

limit yourself to things (e.g., courses) that you are interested in. Do things to make yourself more interesting.

Visualizations

• http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/• http://www.theatlantic.com/business/

archive/2012/04/how-we-pay-taxes-11-charts/255954/

• Diagrams that changed the world: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/21/100-diagrams-that-changed-the-world/

More

Collection: http://chartsbin.com/graph?sortby=chart_modified_date

Sports

• Old World Series championships: http://www.statcrunch.com/5.0/viewreport.php?reportid=7108

• World Cup: http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/gallery/history-world-cup

Visualizations, cont.

• Recommendation: look up work of Edmund Tufte • Need to work.

• Books, posters, talks

Space shuttle Challenger• Background:• 0-rings used for rocket booster

• Political pressure to make equipment around the country• Pressure to have flight with teacher aboard

• critical decision made to go ahead with flight even though weather was predicted to be cold

• Tufte claims that the presentation was (prime) cause of wrong decision being made.

• For more discussion: see http://www.onlineethics.org/cms/12709.aspx

Diagram shown

Diagram shown

Note

Information on temperature versus tile damage was known but the so-called crayons in a box showed flights in chronological order not sorted by damage or temperature or …

Certain engineers did argue against the flight but decision made to go ahead.

Substitute diagram

Presentations• Get your proposal in– You cannot present (earn zero points) if no

proposal

• At presentation, bring in “1-pager”– Abstract 100 to 200 words. Formal English

describing presentation–Works cited: proper format (this means more than

just web address: author, organization, title, date viewed)

–Most important diagram, chart or picture

Successful presentation

• Be prepared• Be interested in topic– If you aren’t, we won’t be

• Keep audience in mind and • … get audience involved– make us work….

Quantitative aspects

• Definitions• What’s the difference?– Context, comparisons, categories

• (As appropriate): denominators, distribution, data source, dimension

• Do make comparisons.• Do consider counter-arguments.

Homework

• Proposals• Presentations• Postings

• Prepare to Vote• NYS does not have early voting. Should it?

• Postings– Election predictions, then results, then analysis