Hello everyone, and welcome back after the summer break! We’re about to start another year of EdinbR talks - so get ready.
This month, our lineup includes talks on plotting postcodes on Google Maps, and bioacoustics & sound / speech analysis. The meeting will be held on Wednesday 20th of September, at 5.30pm, in LG.11, David Hume Tower (on the lower ground floor - map below). As usual, the meeting will be followed by drinks and chat in the Potting Shed. Meetings are open for all to attend and newcomers / beginners are very welcome.
Our first speaker is Nevil Hopley, who teaches maths and statistics at George Watson’s College, and has been learning R since January 2017. He will be telling us about:
Plotting Postcodes on Google Maps (slides here)
This will be a short explanation of how to plot postcode location data on Google Maps of the UK. As an example, we shall look at the catchment area of a secondary school in Edinburgh, and where pupils live.
Our second speaker is Dan Ridley-Ellis, from the Centre for Wood Science and Technology, Edinburgh Napier University. He will be discussing:
R - on impulse and excitation (slides here, and sample R code here)
“Impulse excitation”, also known as “impact excitation” and “resonance technique”, is a commonly used method to assess the stiffness of wood in both scientific and industrial settings. One or more modes of vibration are excited by a mechanical impulse and their resonant frequencies measured. When combined with density and dimensions, these frequencies can be used to calculate stiffness - an important property for construction timber. The technique may also be used to assess damping - an important property for wood used in musical instruments.
This presentation is the reflections of a new user on the application of R for this kind of measurement – inspired by an intern student, and with new-found enthusiasm for using R in other areas of work. The code is built on the packages Seewave (created for bioacoustics analysis) and tuneR (created for analysis of music and speech), and new functions specifically tailored to impact excitation. Other R users are invited to improve and build on this R code and its algorithms.
For any newcomers, here’s a map of where we’ll be.
See you there,
EdinbR Team