Research Interests, Publications
[ USQ: Sciences: M&C: Staff ]

Research Interests/Publications

I am interested in statistical education, generalized linear models, statistical computing (see glmlab) and statistical climatology (my previous job at APSRU, now part of QCCA).

Publications and Students

Books

  1. Forthcoming book:
    Dunn, Peter K. and Smyth, Gordon K. Generalized linear models. Springer.

Journal Articles

  1. Kath, Jarrod, Maron, Martine and Dunn, Peter K. Interspecific competition and small bird diversity in an urbanizing landscape. Submitted.
  2. Brown, Jude, and Dunn, Peter K. Comparisons of Tobit, Linear Regression and Poisson-gamma regression models: An application of time use data. Submitted.
  3. Brodie, Ian and Dunn, Peter K. Suspended particle characteristics in storm runoff from urban impervious surfaces in Toowoomba, Australia. Accepted for publication in Urban Water
  4. Dunn, Peter K. and Smyth, Gordon K. (2008) Evaluation of Tweedie exponential dispersion model densities by Fourier inversion. Statistics and Computing, 18, 73–86.
  5. Dunn, Peter K. (2008) Building-in quality rather than assessing quality afterwards: A technological solution to ensuring computational accuracy in learning materials. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 27(1), 47–63.
  6. Parisi, A. V., Sabburg, J., Turner, J. and Dunn, P.K. (2008). Cloud observations for the statistical evaluation of the UV index at Toowoomba, Australia. International Journal of Biometeorology, 52(3) (January), p 159–166.
  7. Potgieter, A. B., Apan, A., Dunn, P. and Hammer, G. (2007) Estimating crop area using seasonal time series of Enhanced Vegetation Index from MODIS satellite imagery. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research, 58(4), 316–325.
  8. Dunn, Peter K., Powierski, Andrew P., and Hill, Rodger. (2006) Statistical evaluation of data from tractor guidance systems. Precision Agriculture, 7(3), 179–192.
  9. Dunn, Peter K. and Smyth, Gordon K. (2005) Series evaluation of Tweedie exponential dispersion model densities. Statistics and Computing, 15(4), 267–280.
  10. Dunn, Peter K. (2005) We can still learn about probability by rolling dice and tossing coins. Teaching Statistics. 27(2), 37–41.
  11. Dunn, Peter K. (2004a) Log-linear models. Invited submission for the Encyclopedia of Social Measurement. Elsevier.
  12. Dunn, Peter K. (2004b) Occurrence and quantity of precipitation can be modelled simultaneously. International Journal of Climatology, 24, 1231–1239.
  13. Dunn, Peter K. (2003a). Understanding statistics using computer demonstrations. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 22(3), 261–281.
  14. Dunn, Peter K. (2003b). What happens when a 1×1×r die is rolled? The American Statistician, volume 57, number 4, 258–264.
  15. Dunn, Peter K. and Harman, Chris (2002). Calculus Demonstrations in MATLAB. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 33, 584–595
  16. Dunn, Peter K. (2001). Bootstrap Confidence Intervals for Predicted Rainfall Quantiles. International Journal of Climatology, volume 21, number 1, 89–94.
  17. Dunn, Peter K. (1999a). Three Tools for Interactively Visualizing Some Distribution Theory Concepts. The American Statistician, volume 53, number 2, 137–139.
  18. Dunn, Peter K (1999b). A Graphical User Interface to Generalized Linear Models in MATLAB. The Journal of Statistical Software, volume 4, issue 4.
  19. Dunn, Peter K. (1999c). A Simple Dataset for Demonstrating Common Distributions. Journal of Statistics Education, volume 7, number 3.
  20. Connolly, R. D. Schirmer, J., Dunn, P.K. (1998). A daily rainfall disaggregation model. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, volume 92, issue 2, 105–117.
  21. Dunn, Peter K. and Smyth, Gordon K. (1996). Randomized Quantile Residuals. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, volume 5, issue 3, 236–244.

Refereed Conference Presentations

  1. M. Maron, P.K. Dunn and A. Apan (2007). Continent-scale patterns in temporal dynamics of avian assemblages, in Proceeding of the International Association of Landscape Ecology World Congress, 8–12 July, Wageningen, The Netherlands
  2. Carmichael, C., Dunn, P. and Taylor, J. (2006). Identifying at-risk students: Is it possible in a Tertiary Preparation Course for adults? In P.Grootenboer, R. Zevenbergen and M.Chinnappan (Eds.) Identities, Cultures and Learning Spaces: Proceedings of the 29th annual conference of the mathematics research group of Australasia. Adelaide: MERGA pp107–114.
  3. Dunn, Peter K and White, Neil. (2005) Power-variance models for modelling rainfall, in Statistical Solution to Modern Problems: Proceedings of the 20th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling, Sydney, Australia, 11–15 July 2005, p 149–156.
  4. Lennox, S. M., Dunn, P. K., Power, B. D., and Devoil, P. (2004) A statistical distribution for modelling rainfall with promising application in crop science. 4th International Crop Science Congress (4ICSC) in conjunction with the 5th Asian Crop Science Conference (5ACSC) and the 12th Australian Agronomy Conference (12AAC). Brisbane, 26 September–1 October.
  5. Dunn, Peter K. and Smyth, Gordon K. (2001). Tweedie Family Densities: Methods of Evaluation, in Proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling, Odense, Denmark, 2–6 July, p 155–162. I was awarded one of three prizes for the student talks at the Workshop for this talk. The slides for the talk can be found here in postscript (preferred) or here in pdf.

Conference Presentations

  1. Lawson, K. Werth, S, Dunn, P, D'Abadie, D. (2008). The Learning Experience of Students with Disabilities and Long-term Medical Conditions at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), in Pathways 9, 2–5 December, Melbourne.
  2. Potgieter, Andries, Apan, Armando, Dunn, P and Hammer, G. Estimating winter crop area across seasons and regions in Queensland using multi-temporal MODIS satellite imagery. 14th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin, 29 September–03 October, 2008.
  3. Ohnishi, Toshio, and Dunn, Peter K. Precipitation data analysis of Queensland state which uses Tweedie GLM (Translation from Japanese). The 2007 Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting, Kobe University, Japan, 6–9 September, 2007
  4. Brown, Jude and Dunn, Peter K Analysis of LSAC Time Use data: Opportunities and Challenges. ACSPRI Social Science Methodology Conference, University of Sydney 10–13th December 2006
  5. M. Maron, P. K. Dunn and A. Apan. Temporal dynamics of avian assemblages: a continent-scale analysis International Association for Landscape Ecology 22nd Annual Conference, April 9–13, 2007 Tucson, Arizona
  6. Lennox, SM and Dunn, PK (2006). One rainfall model for the simultaneous modelling of rainfall occurrence and amounts. Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Climate Forum 2006, p 73, Canberra, 05–07 September.
  7. Brown, Jude and Dunn, Peter (2006). Too little time? A fresh look at right skewed data and how Poisson-gamma distributions may provide a viable solution. Proceedings of IATUR (International Association of Time Use Researchers)—XXVIII Annual Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 16–18 August, 2006.
  8. Dunn, Peter K and Fahey, Paul P (2006). And the winner is… A statistics poster competition for Australian school students. Proceeding of the Australian Statistical Conference/New Zealand Statistical Association Conference 2006, Auckland, 03–06 July.
  9. Dunn, Peter K and Smyth, Gordon K (2006). Tweedie exponential dispersion model densities: evaluation using Fourier inversion. Proceeding of the Australian Statistical Conference/New Zealand Statistical Association Conference 2006, Auckland, 03–06 July.
  10. Potgieter, A.B., Apan, A., Hammer, G. and Dunn, P. (2005). "Spying" on the Winter Wheat Crop—Generating Objective Planted Area and Crop Production Estimates Using MODIS Imagery. Proceedings of SSC 2005 Spatial Intelligence, Innovation and Praxis: The national biennial Conference of the Spatial Sciences Institute, September, 2005. Melbourne: Spatial Sciences Institute, pp. 1086–1090.
  11. Powierski, Andrew P and Dunn, Peter K (2004). Tractor guidance systems: A case study of generalized estimating equations (GEEs) and linear mixed effects models (LMEs). The International Biometrics Conference/ Australian Statistics Conference, Cairns, 12–16 July.
  12. Dunn, Peter K (2004). A statistical distribution for modelling precipitation. The International Biometrics Conference/ Australian Statistics Conference, Cairns, 12–16 July.
  13. Dunn, Peter K (2003). Sweave--when R and LaTeX come together, Proceedings of the R Workshop, part of the Queensland Statistics Conference, USQ, 1 October 2003.
  14. Dunn, Peter K (2003). When is it sensible to model the dispersion in generalized linear models? Proceedings of the Queensland Statistics Conference, Toowoomba, 1–3 October.
  15. Dunn, Peter K (2003). Dicey statistics. Proceedings of the Queensland Association of Mathematics Teachers Annual Conference, Toowoomba, 22–23 September.
  16. Dunn, Peter K (2003). What happens with all that maths? Proceedings of the Queensland Association of Mathematics Teachers Annual Conference, Toowoomba, 22–23 September.
  17. Ruscoe, Peter and Dunn, Peter (2003). Fatal Accident Rates in Private Pilots (PPLs) 1992--1999: An Australian Review. AMSANZ Annual Conference & Scientific Meeting 2003, Hamilton Island, 18–21 September 2003.
  18. Lennox, Sarah M. and Dunn, Peter K. (2003). A statistical distribution for improved precipitation modelling, Weather and Water: The 10th annual Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society conference, Perth, 10–12 February.
  19. Dunn, Peter K. (2002). Generalized linear models for continuous data with exact zeros Proceedings of the 16th Australian Statistics Conference, Canberra, 7–11 July, 2002. I was awarded the EJ Pitman Prize for this talk at the Conference.
  20. Dunn, Peter K. (2001). Modelling rainfall (or the lack thereof). The USQ Climate Forum, Toowoomba, 20 November.
  21. Dunn, Peter K. (2000) A Collection of Demonstrations for Teaching Calculus Proceedings of the Australian MATLAB User Conference 2000 Melbourne, 9–10 November. A pdf version of the paper is available here.
  22. Dunn, Peter K. (2000) Utilising MATLAB's Graphical Capabilities in Statistics Classes, Proceedings of the Australian MATLAB User Conference 2000 Melbourne, 9–10 November. A pdf version of the paper is available here.
  23. Dunn, Peter K. and Smyth, G. K. (2000) Evaluation of Tweedie family densities using inversion and acceleration techniques , Proceedings of the 15th Australian Statistics Conference, Adelaide, 3–7 July, 2000. The pdf file of the presentation can be found here.
  24. Dunn, Peter K. (1997) Adding Generalised Linear Models to MATLAB's Statistical Armoury, presented at the 1997 MATLAB Conference, Sydney.
  25. Dunn, P, K. and Smyth, G. K. (1995) Randomized Quantile Residuals, Proceedings of the Statistical Computing Section,, American Statistical Association, Alexandria, VA, 81–84.
  26. Dunn, P. and Addie, R. G. (1994). Time-Series Analysis of SOI and Rainfall in South-East Queensland, Proceedings of 8th Australasian Climatology Forum, Toowoomba, February.

Workshops/Conferences

  1. Presented a workshop "Sweave/ofWeave: Bringing R and LaTeX/Office together" at the Computing with R Workshop Melbourne 28 and 29 July 2008, a satellite workshop to the 2008 Australian Statistical Conference.
  2. Presented a workshop "Generalized linear models in R" at the Computing with R Workshop Melbourne 28 and 29 July 2008, a satellite workshop to the 2008 Australian Statistical Conference.
  3. Part of the Organising Committee for the 20th International Workshop for Statistical Modelling, held in Sydney, Australia, 11--15 July, 2005.
  4. Organized the inaugural Queensland Statistics Conference, held at USQ from 1–3 October 2003.
  5. Organized an R Workshop as part of the Queensland Statistics Conference at USQ, 1 October 2003.
  6. Organized and conducted an R Workshop at USQ, 20 November 2002. Link to notes
  7. Organized, with Dr Joachim Ribbe, the USQ Climate Forum at USQ, Toowoomba, on 20 November, 2001.

Seminars

  1. Time flies: An ADL review February 27, 2006
  2. Power-variance models for modelling monthly and annual Australian rainfall, June 30, 2005, USQ
  3. There must be a better way to mix application output and text in study materials, November 20, 2003, USQ
  4. Generalised linear models for continuous data with exact zeros, July 20, 2002, USQ
  5. Tweedie generalized linear models (with interludes, sidetracks and photos), 2001, USQ
  6. Using Matlab demonstrations to teach calculus and statistics, 2000, USQ
  7. Evaluation of Tweedie family densities using inversion, acceleration and interpolation, 2000, USQ
  8. My secret life as a climatologist (or: when it rains, it pours), 1998, USQ
  9. GLMLAB: generalised linear models using Matlab, 1995, USQ
  10. Randomised quantile residuals, 1995, USQ

Students

  1. Taryn Swan: PhD (Principal supervisor: Prof John Eccleston at the University of Queensland): Current
  2. Anita Pelecanos: Honours (with Christine McDonald): Spotted microarray analysis: multiple testing method comparison. Current.
  3. Andries Potgieter: PhD: An integration of remote sensing and regional commodity forecasting systems for determining wheat production estimates. Co-supervisor with Dr Armando Apan, FOES. Current.
  4. Colin Carmichael Master of Philosophy: Modelling student completion and achievement in a tertiary preparatory mathematics course Completed 2007. Worked with the Office of Economic and Statistical Research, then as a lecturer at the Learning and Teaching Support Unit at USQ; now studying a PhD.
  5. Taryn Swan: Honours: Generalized estimating equations for Tweedie glms. Completed 2006. Now a statistics lecturer at USQ and studying a PhD.
  6. Andrew Powierski Honours dissertation: An independent analysis of the NovAtel (Beeline) and Trimble Guidance Systems: A statistician's perspective. Completed 2004. Now with the Australian institute of Health and Welfare.
  7. Nathan Toombs: Climatology Honours: (Principal supervisor: Dr Joachim Ribbe) Completed 2004. Now with the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries
  8. Daniel Burrell: Honours dissertation: Quantile Deviance. Completed 2003. Now a biometrician with the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries
  9. Sarah Lennox: Honours dissertation: A Statistical Analysis of Rainfall Modelling. Completed 2003. Now a scientist with the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries
  10. Laurie Kanizaj: Honours dissertation: A Study of Generalized Linear Models with an Application to Modelling Soccer Scores. Completed 2001. Now with the Department of Communities
  11. I was also an associate supervisor for Dana Cook's undergraduate Science project in 2000.

Software

  1. An R package for implementing Tweedie distributions (Dunn and Smyth, 2005, 2007):
    Dunn, Peter K. (2007), tweedie: Tweedie exponential family models, R package. Available from CRAN
  2. An R package for implementing quantile residuals (Dunn and Smyth, 1996):
    Smyth, Gordon K. (2004), statmod: Statistical Modeling. R package. Available from CRAN
  3. An Matlab package for implementing a gui for generalized linear models (Dunn, 1999b):
    glmlab Homepage Note: I no longer use glmlab or Matlab.

Reports and Other Publications

  1. Maron, Martine, Koch, Paul, Freeman, Jerry, Schultz, Steffen, Dunn, Peter K and Apan, Armando (2007). Modelling and planning to increase future habitats of the Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo, including the endangered Buloke Woodland, Report prepared for the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority.
  2. Dunn, Peter K. (2005). The quantile deviance concept: a measure of discrepancy for generalised linear models with exact distribution when the dispersion parameter is known, Faculty of Sciences Working Paper Series, SC-MC-0505.
  3. Dunn, Peter K (2005). SWOT analysis on a draft report of a Evaporation Control Program. Commissioned report for the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) at USQ.
  4. Powierski, Andrew P and Dunn, Peter K (2005). Statistical evaluation of data from tractor guidance systems, Faculty of Sciences Working Paper Series, SC-MC-0502.
  5. Dunn, Peter K (2004). What happens with all that maths? Reflections: The Journal of the Mathematical Association of New South Wales, Inc.. 29(4), 10--16.
  6. Dunn, Peter K (2004). What happens with all that maths? (Part 2) Teaching Mathematics. (The Journal of the Queensland Association of Mathematics Teachers). 29(1), 18--24.
  7. Dunn, Peter K and Darnell, Ross E (2003) (editors) Proceedings of the First Queensland Statistics Conference, the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba.
  8. Dunn, Peter K (2003) (editor) R Workshop Notes: Proceedings of the First Queensland Statistics Conference, the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba.
  9. Dunn, Peter K (2003). What happens with all that maths? (Part 1) Teaching Mathematics. (The Journal of the Queensland Association of Mathematics Teachers). 28(4), 29--34.
  10. Dunn, Peter K. (2003). Precipitation occurrence and amount can be modelled simultaneously. Faculty of Sciences Working Paper Series, SC-MC-0305.
  11. Dunn, P., McDonald, C. and Fahey, P. (2003). Data analysis for Goondir Health Service's Asthma Innovative Management Project, confidential report commissioned by Goondir Health Service.
  12. Dunn, P. K. (2003). Book review: "Computational Statistics Handbook with Matlab" by W. L. Martinez and A. R. Martinez, in Biometrics, volume 58, number 2 (June).
  13. Plank, A. and Dunn, P. (2002). Measurement of Leafgrade on the Rapid Tester confidential report commissioned by Queensland Cotton.
  14. Dunn, Peter K. and Smyth, Gordon K. (2002). Series evaluation of Tweedie exponential dispersion models, Faculty of Sciences Working Paper Series, SC-MC-0206.
  15. Dunn, Peter K. (2000) Book Review: "Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers" by Jan Gullberg, in Australian Mathematics Society Gazette, volume 27, number 4, October, 181--182.

Funding

  1. 2004: The quantile deviance: a measure of discrepancy with exact distribution for improving statistical modelling with generalized linear models: $5500
  2. 2003: Cotton module sampling: pilot study (with A. W. Plank); Queensland Cotton: $2036
  3. 2001: Calibration of rapid tester (with A. W. Plank); Queensland Cotton: $2714

Refereering

I have refereed papers for the following journals:
  1. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics
  2. Journal of Statistics Education
  3. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis


USQ CRICOS No. 00244B; Created: 22/2/96 Modified: 16 Oct 2007