Courses
Sociology Courses
205. Family and Social Change. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Examination of sources of change in family and household organization, with major focus on relationships among economic institutions, family structure, and content of family life. Consideration of concepts, theories, and data about kinship. S/U or letter grading.
210A-210B. Intermediate Statistical Methods I, II. (4-4)
Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Requisite: course M18. Intermediate statistical methods using computers: probability theory, sampling distributions, hypothesis testing, interval estimation, multiple regression and correlation, experimental design, analysis of variance and covariance, contingency tables, sampling theory. S/U or letter grading.
210C. Intermediate Statistical Methods III. (4)
Lecture, four hours. Requisite: course 210B. Survey of advanced statistical methods used in social research, with focus on problems for which classical linear regression model is inappropriate, including categorical data, structural equations, longitudinal data, incomplete and erroneous data, and complex samples. S/U or letter grading
212A-212B. Survey Data Analysis. (4-4)
(Not the same as courses 212A-212B prior to Fall Quarter 1998.) Lecture, three hours. Requisites: courses 210A, 210B. Analysis and interpretation of primarily nonexperimental quantitative data, focusing on sample survey and census data. Extensive practice at utilizing statistical methods encountered in previous courses, culminating in term paper in style of American Sociological Review or similar journal article. Topics include simple tabular analysis, log-linear analysis, ordinary least squares regression, robust regression, binomial and multinomial logistic regression, and scale construction. Logic of analysis and problems of statistical inference, including diagnostic procedures and methods for handling complex sample survey designs. In Progress and letter grading.
M213A. Introduction to Demographic Methods. (4)
(Formerly numbered 213A.) (Same as Biostatistics M208 and Community Health Sciences M208.) Lecture, four hours. Preparation: one introductory statistics course. Introduction to methods of demographic analysis. Topics include demographic rates, standardization, decomposition of differences, life tables, survival analysis, cohort analysis, birth interval analysis, models of population growth, stable populations, population projection, and demographic data sources. Letter grading.
213B. Techniques of Demographic and Ecological Analysis. (4)
Requisite: course 210A. Procedures and techniques for collection, evaluation, and analysis of demographic and ecological data; models of population and ecological structure and change; applications to study of social structure and social change.
216A-216B. Survey Research Design. (4-4)
Lecture, 90 minutes; discussion, 90 minutes. Requisite: course 210A. History of survey method; facet metatheory and concept formation; questionnaire and item design; scales, indices typologies; data collection–planning and management; network, snowball, and experience sampling; multistage probability sampling, stratification and clustering. Students participate in survey research project. Letter grading.
226A-226B. Introduction to Theory and Major Empirical Research in Social Demography. (4-4)
Lecture, two hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 210A. Survey and critical examination of population theories and related major empirical research. Emphasis on interrelation of cultural, socioeconomic, and demographic factors. Introduction to elementary demographic methods utilizing microcomputers.
239A-239B. Quantitative Research on Social Stratification and Social Mobility. (4-4)
Lecture, three hours. Requisites: courses 210A, 210B. Introduction to English language research literature on quantitative social stratification and social mobility.
285A-285B. (Special topics) Intergenerational Relationships (4-4)
Lecture, three hours. Introduction to multi-disciplinary theoretical perspectives and empirical strategies for the study of parent-child family relationships across the life course and intra- and intergenerational transfers and ties of obligation in adulthood.
295. Working Group in Sociology. (1 to 4)
Discussion, two hours. Variable topics, including sociology of family; gender; ethnography; social networks; race, ethnicity, immigration; and social demography and stratification. Advanced study and analysis of current topics in specialized areas of sociology. Discussion of current research and literature in research specialty of faculty member teaching course. May be repeated for credit. S/U grading.
CCPR Population Seminar
Economics Courses
200. Mathematical Methods in Economics. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Should be taken prior to enrollment in course 201A. Examination of mathematical methods used in graduate-level courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, and quantitative methods. Topics include real analysis, linear algebra and matrices, calculus of many variables, static optimization, convex analysis, and dynamics and dynamic optimization. S/U grading.
200B. Mathematical Methods in Economics II. (4)
Lecture, three hours; laboratory, two hours. Should be taken prior to or concurrent with course 201B. Linear algebra and its application to linear difference equations. Basic real analysis, normed vector space/Banach space, Hahn/Banach theorem, Schauder fixed point theorem, and theory of correspondences. S/U grading.
203A. Probability and Statistics for Econometrics. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Provides statistical tools necessary to understand econometric techniques. Random variables, distribution and density functions, sampling, estimators, estimation techniques, hypothesis testing, and statistical inference. Use of economic problems and examples. S/U or letter grading.
203B. Introduction to Econometrics: Single Equation Models. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Estimation of basic linear regression model, testing hypotheses, generalized least squares, serial correlation, heteroskedasticity, multicollinearity, error-in-variables, distributed lags, qualitative dependent variables, and forecasting. S/U or letter grading.
203C. Introduction to Econometrics: Systems Models. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Multivariate regression, simultaneous equation estimation, identification, and latent variables. S/U or letter grading.
Education Courses
231A. Toolkit for Quantitative Methods Research. (4)
Lecture, four hours. Requisites: courses 230A, 230B, 230C. Elementary probability. Working knowledge with calculus. Mathematical and statistical results useful for advanced quantitative methodology research. Matrix algebra. Random vectors. Multivariate distribution theory. Likelihood and Bayesian estimation and inference. Linear and generalized linear models. Simulation. S/U or letter grading.
M231B. Factor Analysis. (4)
(Formerly numbered 231B.) (Same as Psychology M253.) Lecture, four hours. Requisites: courses 211B, 231A. Exploratory factor analysis, rotations, confirmatory factor analysis, multiple-group analysis. S/U or letter grading.
231BL. Factor Analysis: Computer Laboratory. (1)
Laboratory, one hour. Corequisite: course 231B. Computer data analysis laboratory for exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Instruction in CEFA, LISREL, and other relevant statistical analysis packages. S/U grading.
231C. Analysis of Categorical and Other Nonnormal Data. (4)
Lecture, four hours. Requisites: courses 230B, 230C. Regression analysis with dichotomous and polytomous dependent variables, log-linear modeling, coefficients of association for categorical variables, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. Letter grading.
231D. Advanced Quantitative Models in Nonexperimental Research: Multilevel Analysis. (4)
Lecture, four hours. Requisites: courses 230B, 230C. Examination of conceptual, substantive, and methodological issues in analyzing multilevel data (i.e., on individuals in organizational settings such as schools, corporations, hospitals, communities); consideration of alternative analytical models. Letter grading.
M231E. Statistical Analysis with Latent Variables. (4)
(Same as Statistics M244.) Lecture, three hours. Requisites: courses 231A, 231B. Extends path analysis (causal modeling) by considering models with measurement errors and multiple indicators of latent variables. Confirmatory factor analysis, covariance structure modeling, and multiple-group analysis. Identification, estimation, testing, and model building considerations. Letter grading.
231EL. Latent Variable Modeling: Computer Laboratory. (1)
Laboratory, one hour. Corequisite: course M231E. Computer data analysis laboratory for latent variable modeling. Instruction in LISREL and other relevant statistical analysis packages. S/U grading.
255C. Causality in Social Research.
Public Policy Courses
203. Statistical Methods of Policy Analysis I. (4)
Lecture, three hours; outside study, nine hours. Review of statistical principles useful to policy research and analysis. Topics include descriptive statistics, expectations, univariate distribution, probability, covariance and correlations, statistical independence, random sampling, estimators, unbiasedness and efficiency, statistical inference, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing. Letter grading
M218. Research Design and Methods for Social Policy. (4)
(Same as Urban Planning M204.) Lecture, three hours; outside study, nine hours. Limited to graduate students. How to become more sophisticated consumers and producers of qualitative and quantitative policy research. In first half of course, formal principles of research design; in second half, various data collection methods, including ethnography, interviewing, and survey design. Letter grading.
Statistics Courses
200A. Applied Probability. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 100A or Mathematics 170A. Limited to graduate statistics students. Simulation, renewal theory, martingale, and selected topics from queuing, reliability, speech recognition, computational biology, mathematical finance, epidemiology. S/U or letter grading.
200B. Theoretical Statistics. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Sufficiency, exponential families, least squares, maximum likelihood estimation, Bayesian estimation, Fisher information, Cramér/Rao inequality, Stein’s estimate, empirical Bayes, shrinkage and penalty, confidence intervals. Likelihood ratio test, p-value, false discovery, nonparametrics, semi-parametrics, model selection, dimension reduction. S/U or letter grading.
200C. Large Sample Theory, Including Resampling. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Enforced requisite: course 200B. Asymptotic properties of tests and estimates, consistency and efficiency, likelihood ratio tests, chi-squared tests. S/U or letter grading.
202A. Statistics Programming. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Topics include programming environments/languages such as UNIX, UNIX shell, Python, R, and Processing and data technologies/formats such as relational databases/SQL and XML, with emphasis on complex data types, including large collections of textual data, GPS traces, network logs, and various online sources. S/U or letter grading.
202B. Matrix Algebra and Optimization. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Recommended requisite: course 202A. Survey of computational methods that are especially useful for statistical analysis, with implementations in statistical package R. Topics include matrix analysis, multivariate regression, principal component analysis, multivariate analysis, and deterministic optimization methods. S/U or letter grading.
202C. Monte Carlo Methods for Optimization. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 202B. Monte Carlo methods and numerical integration. Importance and rejection sampling. Sequential importance sampling. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling techniques, with emphasis on Gibbs samplers and Metropolis/Hastings. Simulated annealing. Exact sampling with coupling from past. Permutation testing and bootstrap confidence intervals. S/U or letter grading.
C216. Social Statistics. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Preparation: some knowledge of basic calculus and linear algebra. Requisites: courses 100A and 100B, or 101B and 101C, or one course from 10, 11, 12, 13 and one upper division statistics course using regression. Designed for social sciences graduate students and advanced undergraduate students seeking training in data issues and methods employed in social sciences. Concurrently scheduled with course C116. S/U or letter grading.
218. Statistical Analysis of Networks. (4)
Lecture, three hours. Limited to graduate students. Introduction to analysis of social structure, conceived in terms of social relationships. Major concepts of social network theory and mathematical representation of social concepts such as role and position. Use of graphical representations of network information. S/U or letter grading.
M243. Logic, Causation, and Probability. (4)
(Same as Epidemiology M204.) Lecture, four hours. Preparation: two terms of statistics or probability and statistics. Recommended requisite: Epidemiology 200C. Principles of deductive logic and causal logic using counterfactuals. Principles of probability logic and probabilistic induction. Causal probability logic using directed acyclic graphs. S/U or letter grading.
C273. Applied Geostatistics. (4)
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Geostatistics can be applied to many problems in other disciplines such as hydrology, traffic, air and water pollution, epidemiology, economics, geography, waste management, forestry, oceanography, meteorology, and agriculture and, in general, to every problem where data are observed at geographic locations. Acquisition of knowledge from different areas that can be used to analyze real spatial data problems and to connect geostatistics with geographic information systems (GIS). Concurrently scheduled with course C173. S/U or letter grading.
Biomathematics Courses
M203. Stochastic Models in Biology. (4)
(Same as Human Genetics M203.) Lecture, four hours. Requisite: Mathematics 170A or equivalent experience in probability. Mathematical description of biological relationships, with particular attention to areas where conditions for deterministic models are inadequate. Examples of stochastic models from genetics, physiology, ecology, and variety of other biological and medical disciplines. S/U or letter grading.
