[R] In which application areas is R used?

John Maindonald john.maindonald at anu.edu.au
Tue Jan 24 03:24:28 CET 2006


In this context "extensive" might be use of R in at least maybe 2% or 5%
of the published analyses in the area, enough to make waves and stir
awareness.

The immediate subtext is the demand of a book publisher for a list of
journals to which a new edition of a certain book might be sent for
review, and for a list of conferences where it might be given exposure.
For myself, in the medium to longer term, I am more interested in other
subtexts such as you mention, to which the answer might have relevance.

I've wondered what support there'd be for starting a database of
bibliographic information on papers where R was used for the analysis.
Authors might supply the information, or readers of a paper suggest its
addition to the database. Once well populated, this would provide a useful
indication of the range of application areas and journals where R is
finding use.  [Or has someone, somewhere, already started such a
database?]

Finance and biostatistics are obvious areas that I'd omitted.  Other areas
drawn to my attention have been telephony and electronic networks, solid
state etc manufacturing, computer system performance, oceanography and
fisheries research, risk analysis, process engineering and marketing. (I
hope my summaries are acceptably accurate).  I'm not sure what force these
other respondents have given the word "extensive".
John Maindonald
Mathematical Sciences Institute
Australian National University.
john.maindonald at anu.edu.au


Berton Gunter wrote:
> Define "extensive."
>
> I think your answers depend on your definition. I know a bunch of folks
in pharmaceutical preclinical R&D who use R for all sorts of stuff 
(analysis and visualization of tox and efficacy animal studies,
dose/response modeling, PK work, IC50 determination, stability data 
analysis, etc.). Is "bunch" a majority? I strongly doubt that it's near.
Is it 5%, 10%, 30% ?? Dunno. Excel is still the Big Boy in most of  these
arenas I would bet. But I would also bet that there are at  least 1 or 2
folks in dozens of companies who use R in for these things.
>
> Is there a subtext to your query? -- i.e. are you trying to make an
argument for something?
>
> -- Bert
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
>> [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.c




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