VHM 802, Advanced Veterinary Biostatistics (e-mail 9/12-2015)

Announcement of Biostats VHM 802 course at AVC (UPEI)
Please find below an outline of the course VHM 802: Advanced Veterinary
Biostatistics for the Winter Semester 2016. To (informally) register for
the course, send an e-mail with name and affiliation to hstryhn@upei.ca.
You may also indicate if the schedule outlined below is inconvenient -
the schedule may be changed to suit the participants better (conditional
upon available rooms for lectures and labs).

The course will be run in part jointly with VHM 812: Epidemiology II
(Instructor: Dr. Javier Sanchez). Students may take VHM 802 separately 
(3 credits) or in combination with VHM 812 (taken simultaneously or in a
previous year, 2 credits).

The course content may be adapted from the general outline below to 
match specific student interests. The course may not be offered if the 
number of students registered is too low.

For any inquiries about the course, contact the course lecturer:

Henrik Stryhn,
Department of Health Management, AVC
office: 412S
phone: (902) 894-2847
e-mail: hstryhn@upei.ca

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Biostats VHM 802 Course - Winter Semester 2016

Preliminary schedule:
- time: January 5 - April 15; first session January 5, 1-4pm.
- lectures joint with VHM 812:
  Tuesdays 1-4pm and Fridays 9am-12pm in AVC 278N (also 280N,
  286CN), 5/1-5/2 + 15/3-18/3,
- lectures for VHM 802 only:
  Thursdays 9-11am in the AVC 286CN (mostly), 11/2-14/4 (excl 17/3),
- labs: Mondays 1-4pm (mostly) in the large computer lab (218S), start
  18/1, last session 15/4

Course format:
Weekly lectures reviewing the theory and working through minor
exercises, supplemented by weekly lab sessions containing tutorials
of statistical software, individual work (statistical analyses) using
computers, discussions and student presentations. In weeks taught
jointly with VHM 812, the course has two lecture/review sessions instead
of one lecture and one lab session.
An applied course project is anticipated for each student, based on the
student's own data or literature data relevant to the student's projects.

Textbook:
(1) Chapters 14 and 16 of Dohoo, Martin and Stryhn: Veterinary 
Epidemiological Research; students not taking the epi course will be 
given chapter handouts.
(2) Gary Oehlert: A first Course in Design and Analysis of Experiments, 
2000, W.H. Freeman, ISBN 0716735105. The text is out of print, but can 
be downloaded for free at http://www.stat.umn.edu/~gary/.

These texts covers the main course material, with supplementary
notes for some subjects and supplementary exercises.

Course content overview:
Regression analysis (multiple linear regression and logistic regression
models)
Experimental design and ANOVA analysis (multifactorial models)
Random effects models and repeated measures models
Power and sample size

Detailed course topics (keywords):
Simple linear and polynomial regression
Multiple linear regression (model selection, regression diagnostics)
Analysis of covariance and General linear models
Logistic regression and generalized linear models
Analysis of variance (1-way, 2-way and multifactorial),
Experimental designs: blocking versus replication,
complete/incomplete designs, Latin squares and balanced
incomplete designs, cross-over designs, fractional designs,
Random effects models (e.g. split-plot designs and hierarchically
nested factors)
Repeated measures models and analysis
Methods for dealing with clustering in continuous and discrete data
Power and sample size calculation in simple and complex models
Primary stats computer package: Minitab and Stata
Additional stats computer packages: SAS and R

Examination:
home assignments, course project and final exam

Prerequisites:
equivalent to VHM 801 (see http://people.upei.ca/hstryhn/vhm801)
familiarity with Minitab or Stata

Further information:
http://people.upei.ca/hstryhn/vhm802
(with a more detailed schedule and links to previous years' homepages)