MacKay Minutes 2016/06/23

MacKay website, and minutes

How did we do on our todo list?

• Andy, Laura, Madison, Steve:
  • we're all going to work on adding to the report, touching up what we've discovered so far
  • everyone should feel free to edit everything. Remember that the wiki keeps track of changes, so that we can always get back to a "better place" if something bad happens...:)

Let's go through the modifications we've each made....

• Andy:
  • Model for soil temperature and tipping point temperature for appearance
  • SVD theorem added; note on using mathematics command "math" (use \left. and \right. at beginning and end of the math command for better formatting):
    • Default: ${\sqrt {r}}$ is the square root of $r$
    • Better: $\left.{\sqrt {r}}\right.$ is the square root of $\left.r\right.$

Steve/Laura:

• looking into turning Mathematica into R: use http://www.inside-r.org/packages/cran/missMDA/docs/imputePCA?

The Readings

• Climate Modelling
• These are listed for next week: I just wanted to make them available now:
  • Butterflies, tornadoes and climate modelling (2008) -- this is a short, nice overview of Lorenz, who had just died.
  • Selections from Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow (Lorenz, 1963);
• Kolbert: Chapter Five (The Curse of Akkad)

Moving forward

• Climate and first appearance: what is our model?
  • Do atmospheric temp and precipitation constitute "climate"? How about ocean currents?
  • Soil temperature as a function of climate -- we've got a model to start with (Chang, et al.).
    • Andy's take on a strategy....: FATfitting
• Can we use the rank one version of our five favorite species, to reduce noise? We create one new variable from the top five, and follow it through time and space....

In the News

• National Academy Press is touting their set of resources for Climate Adaptation
• Canada Moves to Strengthen Environmental Reviews of Pipelines: Carr and McKenna unveiled interim measures in January affecting pipeline projects already under review, including TransCanada Corp.’s Energy East pipeline and Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain expansion. That step was criticized for adding yet another layer to an already lengthy process, with Conservative lawmaker Candice Bergen saying Trudeau’s Liberals “have created massive uncertainty when it comes to building pipelines.”
• China's plan to cut meat consumption by 50% cheered by climate campaigners: New dietary guidelines could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1bn tonnes by 2030, and could lessen country’s problems with obesity and diabetes

Todo for next week

• Andy
  • Perform the regression proposed this week on a single mean temp data set provided by Laura

• Laura
  • Create tables of p-values for her report (and add p-values inside the report).
  • Produce a set of regressions of the rank-two approximation to Mayflower.

• Madison
  • Start the Recipe of the Week feature (done!)
  • Get the final data set together (replace my earliest regressions with the SVD imputed values).

• Steve
  • continue thinking about the imputePCA code, which is in the missMDA package. I've installed that package on mathstat (if you try to install a package from RStudio it just does it for your local space). Having put the missMDA package in there, I find only binary code -- so we may not be able to easily swipe the source for imputePCA.

Recipe of the Week

Tofu beef stew (Thanks Madison!)

• 1 small bag of baby carrots.
• 1/2 of medium yellow sweet onion chopped (I put mine through my handheld food processor).
• 3 potatoes chopped into chunks.
• 12-16oz of extra firm tofu. (Cut into bite size squares)
• celery flakes (half container) or you can substitute real celery
• 1.5-2 cups of water (you can use vegetable stock -- I use water and it tastes fine)
• 2 packets of Kroger beef stew seasoning or 1 packet of a name brand beef stew packet.

Mix water an seasoning. Then put all other ingredients into a crock pot and stir. Add the water and seasoning and stir again. Cook 8-10 hours on low. I usually cook mine for 10 but it depends on how much you want your vegetables cooked. (Stir occasionally if possible)

Next meeting

Thursday, 6/30, noon?