Scientists subject the temperature deviations to a range of statistical analyses, which can then be matched against theoretical expectations.

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Also, is there a chance that a complete overhaul can occur and the Dodgers become ardent disciples of statistical analyses and hire someone similar to Bill James as a senior advisor?

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Last month 49, 000 consumers self-selected among 598 brands in 83 diverse categories in which they are customers, and assessed brands based on an independently-validated technique that fuses rational and emotional aspects of the categories, using a combination of psychological inquiry and higher-order statistical analyses.

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Mr McFadden developed ways of modelling several types of choices, such as how many children to have. (He made time for three.) Multiple choices such as this one involve complex statistical analyses, since the factors influencing a couple to have their first child may not be the same as the ones that lead the parents of three children to have a fourth.

ECONOMIST: Economics focus

The trials are often run on small numbers of unrepresentative patients, and the statistical analyses are massaged to give as rosy a picture as possible.

ECONOMIST: Pick your pill out of a hat

The IRS compiles tax datasets that are used by Treasury and the JCT (as well as a sanitized version available to researchers outside government) and publishes statistical tables and analyses.

FORBES: Too many cooks on tax policy?