by info-services@infotechinc.com | Oct 31, 2020 | Case Updates
Infotech houses two distinct operating businesses, Systems and Consulting. However, both businesses were born out of one request by the Florida Attorney General 42 years ago: can computerized statistical techniques be developed to detect bid rigging in public procurement? The answer was yes, and Systems has been working with individual states ever since to make the highway construction industry more efficient and competitive while Consulting has been successfully helping states estimate damages when bid rigging is detected. This collaboration between businesses is still making an impact today, most recently in West Virginia.
In 2014, the Assistant Director of the West Virginia Department of Highways felt there were significant issues in their bidding process. After a preliminary analysis in 2015, Infotech began a thorough analysis of West Virginia AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS™ data going back to 1996. Infotech also obtained comparison data with cooperation from surrounding states including Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Data revealed that certain parts of the state were not competitive and, as a result, the West Virginia Attorney General and the Department of Transportation filed suit in 2017 against big name asphalt companies. Defendants attacked the reliability of the BAMS/DSS data and the subsequent analysis, but expert statistical consultant and Infotech co-founder Dr. Jim McClave, and Jeff Derrer, Infotech Senior Business Analyst, vigorously defended the data through multiple depositions and held steadfast in their knowledge that the data could only be explained by collusive behavior. After years of litigation, the case settled for $103,500,000, the largest antitrust settlement in West Virginia history. This was a victory for West Virginia and for both businesses of Infotech.
State of West Virginia, ex rel. Patrick Morrisey, Attorney General and Paul A. Mattox, Jr. in his Official Capacity as Secretary of Transportation and Commissioner of Highways, West Virginia Department of Transportation, v. CRH Plc, Oldcastle Inc, et al. Case No. 17-C-41, Cir. Ct of Kanawha County, WV (2017)
by info-services@infotechinc.com | May 27, 2020 | Case Updates
Infotech Consulting was retained on behalf of Beazer Homes in a class action suit filed by Heritage Commons Townhome Association alleging breach of implied warranty, violation of Florida building codes, and negligence in construction of an 89-unit townhome project in Seminole County, Florida. Plaintiffs maintained that defects observed in their homes’ exteriors, windows, and architectural elements were due to systematic issues in the original design and construction of the buildings. The class claimed that as a direct and proximate result of Beazer’s negligence, large sums of money would be required to repair the defects and deficiencies and to maintain the property and buildings going forward.
The Plaintiffs retained a statistical expert who collected the results from the destructive testing performed on the buildings in the townhome project, then designed a sampling methodology and performed analyses intended to determine the likelihood of systemic defects contributing to the observed defects, as well as the need for repair or replacement. Dr. Jamie McClave Baldwin was hired by the Defendant to evaluate the methodology employed and conclusions drawn by the Plaintiff’s expert. Dr. McClave Baldwin conducted a rigorous review of the opposing expert’s sampling methods and thoroughly evaluated the data used in his calculations of confidence intervals and estimated defect rates. Infotech Consulting’s attention to statistical standards of reproducibility and reliability demonstrated that the Plaintiffs’ expert analyses were biased and not based on sound statistical principles, thus rendering his conclusions unreliable. The case was settled in a manner favorable to defendants in February 2020 for an undisclosed amount.
Heritage Commons Townhome Association, Inc v. Beazer Homes Corp., No. 2016-CA-002447-11E-W (Circuit Court for the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit in and For Seminole County, Florida)
by Jamie McClave Baldwin | Apr 27, 2020 | Blog
Dr. Jamie McClave Baldwin
In an article enumerating the dos and do nots of statistical significance published in The American Statistician, Dr. Ronald Wasserstein et al. said the following:
“We summarize our recommendations in two sentences totaling seven words: ‘Accept uncertainty. Be thoughtful, open, and modest.’”
Seems like simple advice — applicable to anything and something most people would agree with. So what’s all the fuss and why does this need to be stated by the uppermost authorities in the statistical world?
The heart of that debate goes like this. Many academic journals have long required a study to show statistical significance, associated with a low p-value (typically less than .05) in the results to qualify for inclusion in the journal. This seemed reasonable on the surface — a study needed to show some sort of important effect to be included in the body of knowledge for that field. Unfortunately, this led to abuse. Authors would “p-hack” and manipulate results to get statistical significance in order to get published. So now these academic journals face a conundrum.
If they drop the statistical significance requirement, do they run the risk of letting in junk science and irrelevant material? Or if they continue the requirement, are they encouraging bad scientific practice, potential false positives, and a myriad of other scientific problems? The answer suggested by the statistics community, and practiced by Infotech since its inception, is that those choices fall into the fallacy of the false dilemma. Neither extreme is right and those extremes are not the only choices. Context is essential; honesty is crucial; and integrity is everything. The statistician is not just a person pressing a magic button that produces mysterious results that only he or she can unlock. Statistics is a toolbox and the statistician is the handywoman.
Wasserstein’s ultimate advice is right: accept uncertainty. The p-value may shed light on the amount of uncertainty, but it does not eliminate it full stop.
Throwing out p-values as a whole is inappropriate and would disregard hundreds of years of statistical theory. Recognizing that p-values have limitations and must be considered in context – how large is the sample, are the results also practically significant, do other tests confirm the results – is also a necessary part of science. Studying new and improved tools for evaluating hypotheses has its place as well. In the end, if the effect doesn’t reach statistical significance, that may still provide direction for future research or different avenues to travel. It may tell you that you have another statistical problem, such as multicollinearity, too little information, confounded effects, omitted variables. Or it may tell you that there is no relationship between the variables of interest. No news is neither good news or bad news; but it is news.
by Jamie McClave Baldwin | Apr 3, 2020 | Blog
Anomalies are not usually a golden opportunity for data – they’re usually classified as outliers. But COVID-19 is not a normal anomaly, in any way, shape or form, and the surge of statistics circulating the internet about any given aspect of the virus and its impact (or potential impact) gave our team of data junkies a hot topic to hash out in their Slack Chat Team Question.
Jamie McClave Baldwin (Dr. Jamie McClave Baldwin – President, Expert Statistician): Depending on your news source or website, the analytics and recommendations continue to be all over the place concerning the spread, contagion, and best way to prevent or end COVID-19. So my question to our crack team of data junkies and analysis addicts is this: If you could access any data you wanted, what would that be and what analysis would you do to learn more about COVID-19?
Paula Mullally (Paula Mullally – Senior Case Analyst): Without really knowing much about epidemiology, maybe spread patterns of previous viruses including measures taken country by country and at what point during the spread? Logistics networks for medical supplies that are most needed for containment.
Chuck Girard (Senior Data Analyst): Given that we haven’t had a world-wide epidemic like this in 100 years, but have had several smaller outbreaks in the last 20, I would want to know a lot of background demographic, environmental, socioeconomic, behavioral, health information about the patient 0(very low number) population in order to try to determine what is causing this seemingly unusual increase in the outbreaks of deadly diseases. We’ve had SARS, Ebola, and several others recently. Then, of course, COVID-19 this year. What will we have next year? In what ways are we possibly contributing the origin, spread, or deadliness of these diseases? Climate change, antibiotics, something else in the food/water supply… aliens…
Janese Nix (Janese Nix – Statistical Consultant): Has anyone seen any reports on hospital beds and ICU beds/person by community or region? Any reports of increased capacity? I’ve seen articles that talk about increases but not any tracking of that info.
This is a cool site for tracking Florida activity. It doesn’t estimate the onset (symptomatic) but diagnosis. It is more up to date than the CDC, since it updates more often. https://fdoh.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/8d0de33f260d444c852a615dc7837c86
It’s got age demographics by county which is cool as well as number hospitalized. Alachua County had 5 hospitalized yesterday and 4 today. That may mean that one patient has been discharged (and recovered). Other countries are reporting numbers of recovery but I haven’t seen that for the US.
Paul Manning (Paul Manning – Director, Data Management): Data update: The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington. They have been identified as a “legitimate” source for COVID projections. Their hospital resource used analysis to provide US and state by state projections for beds, ICU beds, and ventilators. Their numbers imply that local officials may be making requests based on worst-case scenarios instead of expected values, i.e. 20k (40k upper 95% UI) ventilators will be needed nationwide at the peak while Mr. Cuomo is requesting 30k for NY alone.
The good/bad news for us (Florida) is we are flattening the curve better than most but our peak occurs in mid-May which is a month after the US and 2 weeks later than most every other state. Plus we will have no bed shortages and actually will continue to have high excess capacity. What is causing Florida’s curve to be so different from the rest of the country? Are our medical facilities better than most because of our older population or is the delay a result of the late migration of New Yorkers?
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation – IHME | COVID-19 Projections
Explore hospital bed use, need for intensive care beds, and ventilator use due to COVID-19 based on projected deaths for all 50 US states and District of Columbia
Paula Mullally: So what you’re telling me is that we’re all going to be working from home until June.
Dr. Allison Zhou (Senior Economic Consultant): Weather. Dr. Fauci may disagree, but I think weather matters. Our summer arrives earlier and more noticeably than any other states, which I think makes a difference. Only wish it would be drier. @paula.mullally Stay cool in our cocoons. We should be fine soon (wishfully ). I saw the!
Jamie McClave Baldwin: I hadn’t seen ICU beds by region or per capita. In fact, I think much of what has been missing from the equation here is per capita and demographic breakdown. For example, China has a higher male to female ratio among adults than most other countries in the world. So we kept hearing that this affected men more than women, but was that a factor of the male:female ratio or was that real? Also USA deaths are pretty high but per capita are on the lower end of the spectrum. We keep hearing about NYC but isn’t that the MSA with the highest population density in the US? Show the a logistic regression with population density, sex, age, an indicator for whether the government has imposed shelter-in-place, what else? Maybe some economic measures? Per capita income? Might be too correlated with pop dens.
Jim McClave (Dr. Jim McClave – CEO, Founder, Econometric Expert): Might want to include ethnicity in the model. I saw stats this morning from Switzerland indicating a big range of death rates ranging from 0.6% for German speaking cantons (I admit I didn’t know what “cantons” were until Google informed me they are the 26 member states that comprise Switzerland) to 4.4% for Italian speaking cantons. Of course, there may be numerous confounding factors that explain the differences, as well as sample size deficiencies.
Ed See (Dr. Edward See – Senior Economic Analyst): I would look at the testing rate first. I suspect the reason why the US jumped other countries in the number of confirmed cases could be that the US is more aggressive in testing (less testing means less chance of getting positive cases).
Jamie McClave Baldwin: But are we testing aggressively? How do we know? I hear anecdotal stories all the time about people being turned away from testing. Also, with all of the various tests being put forth for COVID-19, anyone concerned about false negative or false positive rates? I haven’t been able to tell from the news what kind of testing they have done to assess the accuracy of the tests.
Ed See: Some countries are reporting that China supplied them with defective testing kits.
Jamie McClave Baldwin: @edward.see I hadn’t heard that. Interesting. I’m definitely concerned about the false negatives. If we are all supposed to act like we have it, the false negatives are not helping that behavior!
Jodie Newman (Jodie Newman – Director, Case Development): I have a running text chat with friends in Gainesville, several of whom are physicians. They say that the medical community is talking about the lack of really any data on false test results.
Jodie Newman: I wonder whether there isn’t a relationship yet because physical distancing seems so subject to “cheating” — e.g., I am going to go out and run errands and it’s ok as long as I stay 6 ft from everyone. Maybe measuring rates of infection for those who followed “stay at home” vs. not. On the other hand, the rates of infection data is going to be impacted by the reality that many are not being tested — in my parents’ community, no testing unless you are ready for admission in the hospital or a healthcare prof.
Jamie McClave Baldwin: What originally got me thinking about data was the chart I saw on social distancing, as measured by the reduction in movement tracked by cell phones. They compared that reduction in movement to daily reported cases – and there was no obvious relationship yet. Got me thinking about how we might test that. How would we measure the effect of social distancing? How do you best measure social distancing in the first place?
Janese Nix Did the analysis you saw take into account the variable time from exposure to symptoms to positive test? This can be as short as 1 day and as long as 24. Some models are working with a minimum of 5 day lag, but that time would be different as diagnosis and testing time and behaviors change.
Jamie McClave Baldwin: There was no lag incorporated. I want to see some moving averages about both social distancing and number of cases.
Erica Bloomberg-Johnson (Senior Case Analyst): Would be interesting to observe and analyze post COVID-19, the amount of research/innovation that occurred in that period of time. Instead of “What drives Winning,” it is “What drives Innovation.”
Janese Nix: We are seeing both increased collaboration even multicultural, and increased competition (the race for a faster test, effective treatment…). And open source innovation with abilities to add on and share.
Jamie McClave Baldwin: There was a hackathon in Switzerland (I think?) last weekend. 72 hours of global innovation around these questions.
Ed See: Not just innovation but also dedication to invest in pandemic virus vaccines. Pandemic virus vaccines may not be profitable for investors since pandemics are rare and no one invested in it.
Ed See: On the shortage of ventilators:
“Government officials and executives at rival ventilator companies said they suspected that Covidien had acquired Newport to prevent it from building a cheaper product that would undermine Covidien’s profits from its existing ventilator business.” The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed.
As the coronavirus spreads, the collapse of the project helps explain America’s acute shortage.
Allison Zhou: UF researchers lead the way in rapidly designing, building low-cost, open-source ventilator As a University of Florida mechanical engineering student decades ago, Samsun Lampotang, Ph.D., helped respiratory therapist colleagues build a minimal-transport ventilator that became a commercial success.
Allison Zhou: Isn’t it cool? I feel so proud.
Erica Bloomberg-Johnson: I get articles from Wards after doing research for a previous case. Interesting article on how automakers are dedicating manufacturing support. WardsAuto article.pdf
Jamie McClave Baldwin: All of this talk, and not one of us has brought up the antitrust violations that are sure to come out of this or how to navigate the necessary coordination to defeat this thing. I predict we will have to add a COVID-19 effect into models spanning this time for the price effects this thing has had on nearly everything we purchase. A chat for another time, I suppose. Be well, my friends.
