5th Annual Sobel Lecture

Event Date: 

Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 3:15pm

Event Date Details: 

Refreshments served at 3:00pm

Event Location: 

  • Sobel Seminar Room; South Hall 5607F
  • Annual Sobel Lecture

5th Annual Sobel Seminar

Speaker:

Dr. Michael Newton; University of Wisconsin, Madison

Title:

Dirichlet Orderings, Differential Expression, and Gene Sets

Abstract:

In genomics, and possibly other domains of high-dimensional statistics, it can be useful to know the probabilities that a length-n Dirichlet distributed random vector attains each of its n! possible orderings. Each ordering event is equivalent to an event regarding independent negative-binomial random variables, and this finding guides a computational approach via dynamic programming. Dirichlet ordering probabilities are central to a new clustering method for multi-group microarray data analysis, which I will discuss and demonstrate in several examples. Time permitting I will also discuss statistical elements in the related problem of gene set enrichment.