R course: Advanced modules
Category: Skill course
Credit points: 0.2 per day
1. Concept
This modular seminar addresses everybody who is interested in improving existing R skills.
There will be
- a little theory
- focus on technical aspects (not on interpretation)
- time for questions and answers
- hands-on training based on the requests you write in the comment field of the registration form. Feel free to approach us with your data
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of a language of scientific computing: R, Matlab (exercises will be in R) which are taught in the course 'R - The basics'
Lecturer: Thomas Wutzler
2. Place and time
- When? June 18-20, 2018, start: 9:30 am and 13:30 pm
- Where? MPI for Biogeochemistry, Seminar room B0.004
3. Registration
Register here by June 4, 2018.
4. What you need to prepare
Please make sure that a recent version of R is running on your laptop.
You can download the most recent version here: http://www.r-project.org/
RStudio is a new open-source integrated development environment that runs on all platforms. It nicely combines console, script editor, working directory, plots etc. into a an uncluttered layout that you can easily navigate. You need to have R installed before you can use RStudio as a development environment.
Please also make sure that you can access the internet via WLAN (BGC-users, if you have a BGC-account; BGC-guests, if you don't have an account)
Course material on owncloud (pw international MP research school)
5. Agenda
5.1 The Tidyverse
- get data in the right shape using tidyr (90 min)
- data science using dplyr (85 min)
- working with subsets of data using nest and map (30min)
- graphically explore datasets using ggplot (110 min)
5.2 Programming
- Organizing your code (100 min)
- Writing R-packages
- Documentation using inlinedocs
- Locating bugs: Debugging
5.3 Concepts
- Under the hood of R (100 min)
- Environments
- Frames
- Copy-Reference Semantics
- Intro to Object Orientation in R (95 min)
5.4 Speeding up your computation
- locating bottlenecks
- vectorizing
- linking to low level code (examples C and C++)
- parallel computing with the parallel package
5.5 Selected applications
- selected by interest of the students alternatively,
- optimization: finding parameters with optim
- dynamic modelling using the deSolve package
- Intro to the git revision control system
- ... open for requests if issued early enough
6. Feedback
The survey gives feedback of 6 (out of 12) participants. Statistics and statements should not be taken as an exhaustive or exclusive list.