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X-WR-CALNAME:Department of Statistics Seminar
PRODID:-//Department of Statistics//NONSGML Stephen Cope//EN

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20100325T160000
DURATION:PT60M
SUMMARY:Modelling Inter-Ethnic Partnerships in New Zealand 1981-2006: A C
 ensus-Based Approach
UID:2010-03-25-1600@vcal.stat.auckland.ac.nz
DESCRIPTION:My thesis examined the patterns of ethnic partnership in New 
 Zealand using national census data from 1981 to 2006.  Inter-ethnic part
 nerships are of interest as they demonstrate the existence of interactio
 n across ethnic boundaries\, and are an indication of social boundaries 
 between ethnic groups.  A follow-on effect of inter-ethnic marriage is t
 hat children of mixed ethnicity couples are less likely to define themse
 lves within a single ethnic group\, further reducing cultural distinctio
 ns between the groups.\n\nThe main goals of the research were to examine
  the historical patterns of ethnic partnership\, and then use simulation
  models to examine the partnership matching process.  It advanced the cu
 rrent research on ethnic partnering in New Zealand through its innovativ
 e methodology and its content.  Previous studies of New Zealand have exa
 mined at most two time periods\, whereas this study used six full sets o
 f census data from a twenty-five year period.  There were two key compon
 ents to the methodological innovation in this study.  The first was the 
 use of log-linear models to examine the patterns in the partnership tabl
 es\, which had previously only been analysed using proportions.  The sec
 ond was the use of the parallel processing capability of a cluster compu
 ting resource to run an evolutionary algorithm which simulated the partn
 ership matching process using unit-level census data of the single peopl
 e in the Auckland\, Wellington and Canterbury regions.\n
LOCATION:Statistics Seminar Room 222\, Science Centre
CREATED:20100112T005625Z
DTSTAMP:20100226T030346Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20100226T030346Z
SEQUENCE:6
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20100408T160000
DURATION:PT60M
SUMMARY:Challenges Encountered While Attempting to Reconstruct a Demograp
 hic Expansion from Archaeological and Genetic Evidence
UID:2010-04-08-1600@vcal.stat.auckland.ac.nz
DESCRIPTION:We aim to reconstruct the demographic expansion of humans acr
 oss Europe during the Neolithic era by simultaneously analysing informat
 ion from the fields of archaeology and genetics\, allowing a coherent in
 terpretation of the evidence.\n\nA Bayesian framework was adopted to fac
 ilitate the combination of data from the disparate sources. However\, as
  is often the case with complex systems such as this\, the construction 
 of a likelihood function to permit inference about the parameters of int
 erest was determined to be infeasible\, if not impossible.\n\nWe are att
 empting to proceed using techniques from the field of indirect inference
 . We are developing an approach that incorporates a statistical model fo
 r simulation outputs given input parameters\, where the statistical mode
 l acts as a descriptive approximation to the underlying process of inter
 est. This work is still very much in-progress\, but we can illustrate th
 e potential application of the proposed approach with toy examples.\n
LOCATION:Statistics Seminar Room 222\, Science Centre
CREATED:20100223T205824Z
DTSTAMP:20100309T001118Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20100309T001118Z
SEQUENCE:2
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