Pavel Prikhodko, Ph.D. Machine Learning
If we examine the statistics representing first-time home buyers in the United States in 2015, we see that a majority of buyers in the 35-and-under age group were first-time buyers, at 67 percent. About 26 percent, of 36 to 50-year-olds were first-time buyers in 2015. The share of first-time buyers in the 51 to 60-year-old age group amounted to 11 percent, while people aged 61 to 69 who were first-time buyers only made up 6 percent.
Kristine Barseghyan, Ph.D. (ABD) Social Sciences
The phrase “I’d rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle,” now a catchphrase, belongs to a 20-year-old female contestant on a Chinese game show. For her, like for many of us, sadness in luxury is preferable to happiness in necessity. But when the conditions for happiness are that high, frustration with reality makes people unhappy. China is generally not a very happy nation — it finished in a low 93rd in the World Happiness Report published by the United Nations in September 2013.[i] In contrast, Denmark, which has the second most bicycles per capita (4,500,000 bicycles per 5,560,628 people, 80.1 percent of the population being cyclists)[ii], is the happiest nation in the world. BMWs are not for everyone, but bicycles are.
Continue reading Satisfaction with Life and Happiness in the U.S.
Andrey Kamenov, Ph.D. Probability and Statistics
The deadliest shooting in U.S. history happened last year in Las Vegas. But there is much more to gun-related incidents. The Gun Violence Archive database is one of the most complete sources of data. By now, it has records of over 30,000 gun-related incidents that happened this year — and that’s excluding accidental shootings.
Is there any pattern? Or are these incidents completely random?
Here’s a plot showing the total number of incidents, day-by-day, from the start of the year.
Continue reading Finding patterns in gun violence in the U.S.
Pavel Prikhodko, Ph.D. Machine Learning
Cement is one of the world’s key building materials, both in the residential and nonresidential sectors. This material is also used for the production of concrete. Thus, over 70 percent of cement sales in the United States were made to producers of ready-mixed concrete, and about 12 percent of sales went to concrete product manufacturers. According to information published at Statista.com, around 4,100 million metric tons of cement were produced globally in 2015. The U.S. accounted for about 83.4 million metric tons of this production. The year before, 4,180 million metric tons of material were produced worldwide, and 83.2 million metric tons were produced in the U.S. In 2013, these numbers decreased: 4,080 million metric tons globally and about 77.4 million metric tons in the U.S.
Continue reading Hard market: consumption and production of cement
Andrey Kamenov, Ph.D. Probability and Statistics
Where are the safest jobs in the United States located? Surprisingly, it’s not New York or California.
Quite recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the 2015 Census of Fatal Occupational data. Below is the map showing the number of fatal injuries per 100,000 workers in each state.
Continue reading Where are the safest jobs in the United States located?
Benjamin Schultz, Ph.D. Geography
There are very few events that have the ability to bring people together (or to push them apart) quite like sports. Sports franchises possess the ability to become the public face of an entire city. As such, big-city mayors from Boston to San Francisco are jumping on board to participate in the current boom in the construction of sports-related facilities. According to the Brookings Institution, American cities spent over $7 billion on new facilities in the first decade of the 2000s, most of which came from public sources.
Pavel Prikhodko, Ph.D. Machine Learning
Historically, gold has been the most precious and coveted metal in the world due to its rarity. Currently, China is the world’s leading producer of gold, followed by Australia and Russia. Approximately 3,000 metric tons of gold were produced worldwide in 2015. In 2014, some 2,990 metric tons of gold were produced globally. The year before, in 2013, the world’s gold production approximated to around 2,800 thousand metric tons. In 2012 and 2011, the amount of gold produced globally amounted to 2,690 thousand metric tons and 2,660 thousand metric tons accordingly.
Continue reading Golden States: production of the most precious material
Alexander Fishkov, Ph.D. student Computer Science
The United States Bureau of Economic Analysis provides a lot of quantitative information on the country’s economic activities. The Bureau’s Industry Economic Program prepares one particularly interesting type of data: commodity input-output tables. These tables show how industries interact to provide input to and take output from one another.
Alexander Fishkov, Ph.D. student Computer Science
A connected car is a car equipped with internet access and occasionally connected to a local wireless network as well. This allows the car to communicate with other devices, both inside and outside the car, to provide the driver and passengers with additional functions. Typically, a connected car offers entertainment, navigation, safety and diagnostic capabilities. The concept of a connected car is related to technologies such as self-driving cars and the internet of things.
