Stats Chat

Team Ratings for Finals Week 1

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 192 matches played, 116 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 60.4%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Finals Week 1

Here are the predictions for Finals Week 1. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Team Ratings for Round 9

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 24 matches played, 15 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 62.5%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 9

Here are the predictions for Round 9. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Team Ratings for Round 4

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 22 matches played, 14 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 63.6%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 4

Here are the predictions for Round 4. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

We’re in the interesting situation this election where it looks like political preferences are actually changing quite rapidly (though some of this could be changes in non-response that don’t show up in actual voting).

On Thursday, One News released a poll by Colmar Brunton that found Labour ahead of National by 43% to 41% for the first time in years.  Yesterday, NewsHub released a Reid Research poll with Labour back behind National 39% to 43%.

“Released” is important here. The Colmar Brunton poll was taken over August 26-30. The Reid Research poll was taken over August 22-30. That is, despite being released  later, the Reid Research poll was (on average) taken earlier. Comments (and even analysis) of polls often ignore the interview time and focus on the release date, but here we can see why the code of conduct for pollers requires the interview period to be described.

A difference of 4 percentage points in Labour’s support is quite large for two polls of this size (though not out of the question just from sampling error). If the polls were really discrete events four days apart, it would be plausible to argue they showed Labour’s support had stopped increasing — that the Ardern effect had reached its limit. If the two polls were taken over exactly the same period, the most plausible conclusion would be that the true support was in between and that we knew nothing more about Labour’s trajectory. With the Sunday poll actually taken slightly earlier, the difference is still likely to mostly be noise, but to the (very limited) extent that it says anything about trajectory, the story is positive for Labour.

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday September 8 2017.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of September 2 – 8 2017 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

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Team Ratings for Round 26

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 184 matches played, 111 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 60.3%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 26

Here are the predictions for Round 26. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Team Ratings for Round 3

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 14 matches played, 9 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 64.3%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 3

Here are the predictions for Round 3. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Team Ratings for Round 8

The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 21 matches played, 12 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 57.1%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 8

Here are the predictions for Round 8. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

There’s a trial of a herpes vaccine being conducted on the Caribbean island of St Kitts, because it can be done there without any ethical or regulatory oversight.  This is not a good precedent.

One of the investors involved a well-known NZ not-precisely-immigrant, Peter Thiel. He has said in the past  “you would not be able to invent the polio vaccine today.” Perhaps he should talk to the people who think there are far too many new vaccines nowadays.  They’re both wrong.

Because this is the sort of factoid that gets passed around, I thought a list of some recently approved vaccines  might be helpful.  They’re taken from this list:

20-30 years ago: Hepatitis A vaccine (PDF). Hemophilus influenzae Type B vaccine (PDF)

10-20 years ago: Intranasal quadrivalent flu vaccine (PDF).  Meningococcal Group A, C, Y, W (PDF). Shingles (PDF)

less than 10 years ago: Human papilloma virus (PDF). Injected quadrivalent flu vaccine (PDF). Japanese encephalitis vaccine (PDF) Live-bacteria cholera vaccine (PDF). Meningococcal Group B (PDF). Rotavirus (PDF)

And, polio vaccine? If you look at the consultation procedures used in designing the polio vaccine trial, back when randomised trials were new and controversial, you’d be glad to just deal with an ethics committee and an FDA advisory panel.

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday September 1 2017.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of August 26 – September 1 2017 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)