Perhaps, R Analytic Flow might even help people to start using R-Project, which was more explicitly the purpose of the other presentations. I’ve seen Nicholas Lewin-Koh presenting how he implemented to R-Project the analyses that are quite standard and often performed on his medical department. To give students a better feel for statistics, Adrian Bowman wrote simulation modules for often used distributions and analyses. Richard Pugh from Mango Solutions gave a nice presentation on the experiences of his company with teaching R-Project to people. I totally agree with him that at first a firm basis should be created, before the more interesting capabilities should be taught.

I can’t think of a nicer place than the useR! conference to find my single reader. Or, at least, one of the not-all-that-much readers. He appeared to be a sociologist, quite involved in the German ‘blogosphere’.

We ended up having lunch, while discussing differences between the Dutch and German sociological community. Apparently, there are not that many differences. Both have had a debate between proponents of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and in both countries the quantitative groups seem to have ‘won’ the discussion, in the sense that quantitative methods are gaining in influence and relative number of users.

Interestingly, he was amazed by the openness of American professors such as Douglas Bates, whose session we had both attended. When I attended the ECPR conference in Rennes, France, I had a similar discussion with a German PHD-student. It seems that in Germany the distance between student and professor is indeed a lot larger than in other countries.

Well, B., should you read this: it was nice meeting you, and hopefully we run into each other a couple of times more during the conference.

I look forward to the experience, and some sessions in particular. The tutorials by Douglas Bates and Frank E. Harrell Jr. should be something that will give a lot of food for thought. I have prepared some problems regarding mixed models and migration, so I hope that these questions can be answered.

Also, I’m excited about presenting my Read.isi package to the people attending this conference. Already, it has been a while since I developed it, but being able to present it was a nice impulse to finish and polish it so that it could be made publicly available. I hope to receive some constructive feedback and perhaps an idea or two to develop it even further.

The number of presentations during this conference is rather enormous! I expect to attend to more than 25 presentations in three days. Supposedly there will be WIFI connection at the conference location, so expect some serious live-blogging on this site. I will primarily focus on sessions applicable to social sciences, with a personal preference for mixed models, data visualization, and facilities for large-scale (survey) research.