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Workshop materials

Simulations and Modelling (in R)

 

Software and materials for the Simulations and Modelling Workshop at NUS, Singapore, 8-14 November 2018.

Before the workshop

  1. Check your laptop specs!
    • Your computer should have a 64-bit processor and 4 or 8 'logical' cores. To check the number of cores available, open R and do: parallel::detectCores().
    • We will be generating some large objects, so you will need at least 4 Gb of installed RAM.
    • Check your operating system: You can use Windows 7, 8 or 10 or a  Mac with OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) or later. If you have a Mac, you will need the XQuartz utility installed.
    • If you have problems with your operating system, see here for more information.
    • We will be doing a lot of heavy-duty number crunching, so if your laptop tends to overheat, you may need a cooling system.
       
  2. Check that you have recent versions of necessary software (see below).
     
  3. Prepare ONE PowerPoint SLIDE to introduce yourself and send to <workshops@bcss.org.my>. We'll put those together and show them during the introductions at the beginning of the workshop. The aspect ratio should be 4:3; go to Page Setup and select Slides sized for: On-screen Show (4:3).
     
  4. Download and preview the workshop materials (see below).
     
  5. Look through the R Skills Review again - both your answers and the suggested answers - and make sure you have these skills at your finger-tips.
     
  6. We'll be sharing scripts, so please look at the Google style guide for R. (Personally, I don't like dots in variable names, but I don't mind underscores.)
     

Software:

You should have the latest version of R installed (currently 3.5.1).

We will want to do some simulations with Bayesian analysis, so you should have JAGS 4.2.0 or later.  Look for the download link just below the menu bar here. Install the rjags package and check that it loads correctly: When you do library(rjags) you should get a message telling you that rjags has linked to JAGS 4.2.0 or 4.3.0.

You should have current versions of the following CRAN packages installed:

install.packages(c("beeswarm", "wiqid", "shiny", "secrdesign",
     "spatstat", "jagsUI", "AHMbook", "doParallel", "foreach"))

Materials:

The outline schedule for the workshop is here.

Materials for days 1-3 are here (ZIP, 423KB).

Additional materials, including large files, will be distributed on USB pen drives.

 

Page updated 31 Oct 2018 by Mike Meredith