Nicola Romanò @nicolaromano@qoto.org
Senior lecturer at the Zhejiang-Edinburgh Joint Institute (ZJE) and Edinburgh University.
Undergraduate Programme Coordinator, Biomedical Informatics at ZJE.
I teach #imageanalysis & #dataanalysis with #RStats & #python. I study #heterogeneity in #pituitary (and other) cells.
I'm also very interested in #reproducibility and #openscience.
Joined Oct 2022
@rupdecat Yes, mark as spam in Outlook. Not sure whether that trains some algorithm at Microsoft or some in our institution but It doesn't work!
I might try the Cisco thing, Not sure what our uni uses.
@rupdecat oh Anna invites me to neuro talk several times a week, no matter how many times I mark her as spam
And we continue today with our #workshop on #teaching #statistics to #undergraduate students in the #LifeSciences
Here's a photo of the #plenary by Dr Peter Martin "Stories for the world beyond p < 0.05"
Excellent start of the year yesterday with the second edition of the Edinburgh #WinterSchool on #teaching #programming across disciplines!
Lots of exciting talks!
Nicola Romanò
boosted
Journalists really need to stop referring to #ElonMusk's "Department of Government Efficiency" as if it were real. It's not, until and unless Congress creates and funds it. A president can listen to advice from anyone, but that's not the same as building an actual federal agency. Don't perpetuate a fraud. #journalism
Here's my #bash #fireworks script, to wish everyone happy new year! 🎇
https://github.com/nicolaromano/Fireworks/
(inspired by Dave Eddy's Christmas tree)
@AnaVinuela @Ooze @soaproot @11011110 I think things are slowly changing; I'm extremely lucky that my department is definitely not IF driven, and also values teaching as much as research. I've tried to submit papers to journals with more solid and ethical policies.
The problem is that sometimes you simply don't have a "good journal" to send your paper to. Especially for more specialistic topic, you often get into the "this would be a better fit for a more specialised journal" and that journal might often be Elsevier's or Wiley's or, God forbid, MDPI... now you might be in the privileged position of leaving your paper on a preprint server, and that might work for some, but in most cases you're kind of limited in your options
@Ooze @soaproot @11011110 As much as I agree, unfortunately many universities and research institutes rely on faulty measures like impact factor (or, alas, number of papers published) as criteria for promotion/progression/contract renewal/... and the majority of people in academia are on temp contracts...
Nicola Romanò
boosted
Ever wonder about the basis for fear-mongering & conspiracy theories about mRNA vaccine? Wish you had a place to go when someone cites "proof"?
I've got you covered! In my latest post @PLOS, I buckle up for the waves of anti-vax claims likely to come at us in 2025 :
Nicola Romanò
boosted
Do you know of any #rstats teams who could use some help in 2025?
I'm a freelance consultant with 10yrs of experience in #DataSci, #DataEng, #DataOps, and providing #SysAdmin for related tools. I primarily work with R, but I have enough SQL and Python knowledge to get by. I know my way around a linux terminal and docker-compose file. I'm also handy as an interpreter between IT and analytics teams. Open to many types of engagements (project-based, temp staff, etc).
If you have a need or a lead, I'd love to chat!
boosts welcome :-)
Nicola Romanò
boosted
Spotify killed the Car Thing, but they don't have to die! When a company like Spotify decides to generate huge amounts of unnecessary e-waste, the community steps in to save them from the landfill.
Image credits:
DeskThing (Dammit Jeff on YouTube)
GlanceThing (GlanceThing on GitHub)
#spotify #SpotifyWrapped #ifixit #ewaste #trash #hacking #repair #righttorepair
Nicola Romanò
boosted
Today is the day. Welcome to THE charger!
USB-C is officially the common standard for charging electronic devices in the EU.
This means:
🔌The same charger for all new phones, tablets and cameras
⚡ Harmonised fast-charging technology
🔄 Reduced e-waste
🛑 No more “Sorry, I don’t have the right cable”
One charger to rule them all.
Nicola Romanò
boosted
In case you missed it, the hackers who reverse-engineered DRM on Polish trains got sued by the train manufacturer…
…multiple times.
You can donate to their defense fund:
https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2024/das-ist-vollig-entgleist
Context:
Their original talk from last year
https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-12142-breaking_drm_in_polish_trains
My piece about the first lawsuit against them
https://rys.io/en/175.html
Nicola Romanò
boosted
@nicolaromano
I agree, a bad idea to push novelty scores. Making perceived novelty a review/selection/acceptance criterion does disservice to the scientific community and their stakeholders. I firmly believe that scientific quality, study inegrity, ethics and replicability should form the basis of a decision to accept and publish a manuscript, and NOT the perception of flashiness or novelty. For that same reason I also abhor the weight and importance given to a journal's calculated or perceived impact score (or whatever scoring factor is used), whether by submitting authors, tenure review committees, readers and the audience (lay press), etc...
@ColinTheMathmo @rakhichawla I agree in part. I'd rather have a fun and engaging lecture rather than a boring /dry and engaging one.
I start my t-test lecture saying that I'm going to reveal industrial secrets of the Guinness factory, which is fun (well, it hooks the students at least), shows an interesting historical factoid, and shows some practical outcomes of the content of the lecture. Most of the examples of that lecture are Guinness-related... and why not?
I think it's also very important to consider who you're teaching to. I don't teach maths, but do teach a lot of mathematical concepts in statistics and bioinformatics. I bet the way I teach those concepts to biologists is very different to the way someone else might teach to mathematicians. My students don't need to know proofs and theorems they rather need to be able to know which concepts to apply in which situation, and how to apply it (which might simply be: use this R function).
I bet if I started teaching proofs my students would find lectures not engaging, but (I hope!) someone who studies mathematics would want that instead!
Nicola Romanò
boosted
@ColinTheMathmo When I was younger it was all just arithmetic practice drills (which I knew I could've been doing with a calculator...) and then when we moved on to "higher math" there was just never any purpose grounded in reality.
Algebra? I still do not actually know what the point of solving for X is. No one ever told me. They were just like "do this a bunch." I did. A purpose never occurred to me. It is now decades later and I don't know why I had to do that.
Nicola Romanò
boosted
"Fun" is a kind of engagement. It is also subjective. Learning can be enjoyable; that's not identical to "fun".
Learning is better when not unpleasant, let alone miserable. But when you ask a person (of any age) to learn something, for no obviously good reason—other than to avoid punishment—they will find it unpleasant.
Curiosity is specific. Utility a bit more general. But neither work on kids who expect to be celebrities due to magical thinking.
Nicola Romanò
boosted
@ColinTheMathmo @rakhichawla I think that the "fun" stuff can be important for getting people over the initial activation barrier. I.e. those who say they're "just not good at maths" without ever seriously engaging with it. But I agree that fun is not enough in the long term.
Senior lecturer at the Zhejiang-Edinburgh Joint Institute (ZJE) and Edinburgh University.
Undergraduate Programme Coordinator, Biomedical Informatics at ZJE.
I teach #imageanalysis & #dataanalysis with #RStats & #python. I study #heterogeneity in #pituitary (and other) cells.
I'm also very interested in #reproducibility and #openscience.
Joined Oct 2022
