Arnold Dashefsky, Doris and Simon Konover Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut, will present “Charitable Choices: Philanthropic Decisions of Donors in the American Jewish Community” on Monday, March 7 at 4:15 p.m. in the auditorium of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, 105 Merrick Building, Coral Gables campus. Cosponsored by the Department of Sociology, the lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is limited; first come, first served. Light refreshments will be served on the Scharlin Patio. RSVP at [email protected], or call 305-284-6882.

Arnold Dashefsky, Doris and Simon Konover Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut, will present “Interfaith Marriage and Jewish Journeys in the United States” on Monday, March 7 at 8 p.m. in the auditorium of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, 105 Merrick Building, Coral Gables campus. RSVP at [email protected], or call 305-284-6882. Light refreshments will be served on the Scharlin Patio. The event is free and open to the public.

The University of Miami Ethics Programs and the Arsht Ethics Initiatives, the Department of Philosophy, the Dunspaugh-Dalton Community and Educational Well-Being Research Center at the School of Education, and the Civic and Community Engagement Project present a lecture by Nel Noddings, the Lee L. Jacks Professor of Child Education Emerita at Stanford University.

Noddings will speak on contemporary issues involving U.S. educational policy and the implications of No Child Left Behind, followed by comments from President Donna E. Shalala. The talk will take place Monday, March 7 at 4:30 p.m. at the School of Nursing and Health Studies, Room 106.

Noddings is known for her work as an ethicist, feminist, and educational philosopher. She is the author of a wide range of books on ethics, education, school reform, and community, including Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach (2007), When School Reform Goes Wrong (2007), Happiness and Education (2003), An Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (2002), Starting at Home: Caring and Social Policy (2002), Educating Moral People (2002), Educating for Intelligent Belief or Unbelief (1993), The Challenge to Care in Schools (1992) and Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (1984). The lecture is free and open to the UM community. For more information call 305-284-3040.

In the last Law and Policy Workshop of the academic year, Markus Wagner, of the UM School of Law, will present “The Battlefield from Afar: Independently Operating Weapons System and the Law of Armed Conflict.” Gregory Koger, from UM’s Department of Political Science, will take part in the discussion. The workshop will be held on Monday, March 7, from 12:30 to 1:50 p.m. in Room F408. Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to Sandra Hernandez at [email protected].

Ralph G. O’Brien, of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University, will present “Direct Statistical Inference Requiring Only a Touch of Bayes: A ‘March of Science’ Schema for Data Analysis” on Monday, March 7 at 11:30 a.m. in the Clinical Research Building, Gordon Center’s Broad-Bussel Auditorium, first floor. Lunch will be provided.

O’Brien teaches several courses in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University. Previously, he directed the Collaborative Biostatistics Center at the Cleveland Clinic, was director of biostatistics at the University of Florida, and a professor at the Universities of Tennessee and Virginia. O’Brien’s main contributions in furthering statistical science have been in promoting more effective sample-size analyses for study planning. After his freeware module, UnifyPow.sas, became popular, he collaborated intensively with the SAS Institute in developing PROCs POWER and GLMPOWER. He has given dozens of workshops and tutorials on this topic and has received the American Statistical Association’s Excellence in CE award and the Distinguished Achievement Award from the ASA’s Section on Teaching Statistics in the Health Sciences. He has served the ASA in many ways, including on its board of directors, and is now chair-elect of the ASA’s Section on Statistical Consulting. He is a fellow of the ASA.

Abstract
Maxine Chance, a statistical scientist, collaborates with Will Treatrite, an expert in tropical diseases. They first discuss problems inherent in traditional (frequentist) statistical inference: (1) The point null hypothesis is virtually never true. (2) The two-sided “alternative” hypothesis rarely makes scientific sense. (3) The p-value is only “circumstantial” evidence and is among the most commonly misunderstood concepts in all of science. Chance knows that Bayesian methods offer elegant alternatives, but also sees how their complexities thwart their everyday use. Therefore, she is now proposing a general solution that combines frequentist test statistics with “a touch of Bayes.” First, she illustrates how her method handles data from Treatrite’s series of clinical trials on a malaria-like disease called furlingia (fictitious). Then she uses it to handle data from real studies that received extensive media coverage, including a “preliminary” trial that convinced a major pharmaceutical company to invest $1.3 billion to purchase a patent for a drug believed to reduce atherosclerosis but that had so far shown only a tiny chance of efficacy, and the controversial meta analyses of Nissen and Wolski (2007, 2010), which sparked the FDA’s extensive safety review and its resulting major relabeling of the popular Type 2 diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone). This presentation is designed to reach a broad audience, and thus will not attempt to cover the mathematical or computing underpinnings of the methods illustrated.