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EMESE TÚRY-ANGYAL DEFENDED HER DOCTORAL THESES
May 2024
Congratulations to Emese Túry-Angyal, instructor of the Department of Statistics, who defended her doctoral dissertation!
The doctoral dissertation titled ‘Measuring political activity how online and offline political activities connect’ was publicly defended at Corvinus University of Budapest under the supervision of László Lőrincz. Congratulations from the bottom of our hearts!
OUR INSTRUCTORS AT THE CSDI WORKSHOP IN BERLIN
March 2024
Dávid Simon and Blanka Szeitl, instructors of the Department of Statistics, performed in Berlin on 18-20 March 2024 in the framework of the 21st Comparative Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI) Workshop. The conference has been organized by the University of Michigan, a leader in methodological research in the social sciences, for 21 years. The event was attended by nearly 100 methodological researchers from Europe and the United States.
Blanka Szeitl gave a lecture entitled ‘Sampling innovations and data collection challenges in probability panels’ on the results of the methodological experiment related to the international data collection of the European Social Survey.
Dávid Simon (co-authored by Jamie Burnett) gave a lecture entitled ‘Modified adaptive cluster sampling for improved field data collection’ about the sampling innovation he introduced during the Roma Survey 2020-21 (EU Agency for Fundamental Rights).
During the three-day conference, an additional presentation by Dávid Simon (Jamie Burnett - David Simon: ‘A new approach to mapping a minority population’) was presented by the first author.
The programme of the conference can be found here.
MOBILITY PROJECT COURSE ON SOCIOLOGY BA
February 2024
Three project courses started in the semester on the BA Sociology in English. Emese Túry-Angyal, instructor of Department of Statistics, and our teaching colleague Ábel Csathó teach the Mobility project course.
RESEARCH FUNDED BY ELTE'S UNIVERSITY EXCELLENCE FUND IS BEING LAUNCHED AT THE DEPARTMENT
February 2024
The ELTE University Excellence Fund for Innovative Use finances the survey methodology research of Blanka Szeitl and Tamás Rudas in 2024. The 12-month research investigates that what extent the accuracy of political forecasts based on survey data can be improved with a new post-stratification (data correction) procedure. The method divides the respondents into groups based on how difficult they are to reach, i.e. particularly "valuable". In the course of the project, special survey data collection and forecasts are also carried out. The project is professionally very exciting in the year of the European Parliament and local government elections.
BLANKA SZEITL IS A MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL SURVEY (ESS) SAMPLING AND WEIGHTING EXPERT PANEL
February 2024
Congratulations to Blanka Szeitl, instructor at Department of Statistics, who became a member of the European Social Survey (ESS) Sampling and Weighting Expert Panel. The task of the group is to compile and monitor the application of the sampling and post-stratification strategy of the countries participating in the ESS data collection. Blanka Szeitl is also involved in the writing of survey methodology analyses under the leadership of Peter Lynn. Other survey methodology research also take place in our department within the framework of the Survey Methods Room Budapest research group led by Blanka. Details here.
SUCCESSES IN ELTE E-LEARNING COURSE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
February 2024
Three courses of the Department of Statistics are among the courses awarded by ELTE E-learning Course Development Programme! The award-winning instructors and lecturers: Jakab Buda, Ábel Csathó, Jenő Fáró, Zita Fellner, Ákos Német, Renáta Németh, Dávid Simon, Annamária Tátrai, the award-winning courses: Statistics (Sociology BA), Comparative Social Science Research (Sociology BA, data-oriented social science specialization) and Social Statistics (International Studies BA). More information here (only in Hungarian). Congratulations to the award winners!
OUR GRADUATE AS A SPECIALIST IN DATA MANAGEMENT OF BUDAPEST!
February 2024
Video (Only in Hungarian)
ANNAMÁRIA TÁTRAI IS AMONG THE WINNERS OF ELTE'S EXCELLENCE PROGRAMME FOR COURSE DESIGN EXPERTS
January 2024
We are pleased to announce that Annamária Tátrai has emerged as one of the winners in the University Excellence Fund's Course Design Expert competition. The strategic aim of the call was to train course design experts who support their colleagues, develop quality-assured teaching materials, and enhance teaching methodologies employed at the university.
SUCCESSFUL FINAL EXAMS
January 2024
The final exams of the Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc took place recently, six graduate students can prepare for the graduation ceremony. The theses were created in the most diverse areas of applied social research, such as the examination of Adorno's culture industry theory through digital data, the computational text analysis of interviews with Holocaust survivors, or a psychological experiment comparing the performance of owl and lark types. In the photo, the successful graduates of a day with the examination board, Márton Rakovics, Renáta Németh and Katalin Melles, instructors of the Department of Statistics.
NEW PUBLICATION
December 2023
A study was published with the joint first authorship of András Spányik (ELTE PPK Doctoral School) and Dávid Simon (ELTE TáTK Department of Statistics) which summarizes the results of a year-long research conducted among Hungarian doctors and healthcare workers during the COVID-epidemic.
INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY IN THE RESEARCH GROUP OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
December 2023
The Data for Good research group at the Department of Statistics offers an internship opportunity within the framework of research dealing with home hospice care. Details here.
MÁRK MAGYAR WON THE ELTE INCLUSION AWARD
December 2023
About one of the courses at the Department of Statistics last year here (only in Hungarian).
NEW PUBLICATION
November 2023
The Labour Market Mirror 2022 has been published, in which you can read a joint article by Annamária Tátrai with András Gábos about poverty in Hungary. The volume is available here (only in Hungarian).
OPEN DAY OF OUR MASTER'S PROGRAMME
November 2023
There was great interest in the presentation of the Survey Statistics and Data Analytics master's programme at the Great Faculty selection hall on November 21st, interested students came from several other institutions, but also a good number of BA’s from our faculty showed up. We would also like to thank the three students, Bernadett Nagy, Botond Egle and Martin Sziráczki, for their help, without whom it would have been difficult for the instructors, András Máth and Márton Rakovics, to withstand the onslaught of interested people until almost 6 in the evening!
CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION OF OUR INSTRUCTORS
November 2023
At the annual meeting of the Hungarian Sociological Association last week, our department was represented by two of our instructors.
Annamária Tátrai participated as co-section leader (Sociology of Trust and Mistrust section) and as a co-author in two lectures (with Melinda Szöllősi: Experiences in the analysis of administrative data in hospice care, and with Heidi Wayment and Elisabeth Linek: Trust and value balance in Europe).
Renáta Németh performed with the co-authorship of Ildikó Barna and Tibor Pólya their work "Experimental combination of NLP with narrative psychological machine analysis - The Treaty of Trianon in the Hungarian online media on the 100th anniversary".
PRESENTATION BY OUR GUEST LECTURER JÚLIA PERCZEL ON THE APPLICATION OF NETWORK ANALYSIS IN ART HISTORY
November 2023
"What is you research, colleague?" – or learn about the research of the instructors of the Department of Statistics. The purpose of the discussion series is to facilitate research collaborations within the department, the institute, and the faculty, to support the integration of our new colleagues, and finally to familiarize our students with the use of the tools they have learned in the context of live scientific research.
This time, we invite our colleagues and the MSc students of Survey Statistics and Data Analytics to a lecture and a discussion afterwards by Júlia Perczel, a guest lecturer at our institute, a colleague who received her doctorate at CEU last year.
The title of the presentation: New capitals, positions and strategies in the field of contemporary art.
Abstract: The focus of my research is the structural transformation of the global art field after 1989. During the presentation, I will talk about the ways in which the network research approach helps to see the changes in the regional center-periphery conditions that determine global art production after 1989. I present a quantitative case and a case investigated with a mixed methodology, which show the ways of the global visibility of Central and Eastern European art in the discussed period, and thus help to the structural description of the transforming system.
NEW PUBLICATION
November 2023
A new study by the instructors of the Department of Statistics, Blanka Szeitl and Zita Fellner, has been published at socio.hu (only in Hungarian)!
ÚNKP SUCCESSES
October 2023
Three of our students (including one of our departmental colleagues) won this year's competition of the New National Excellence Programme (ÚNKP). We heartily congratulate Jakab Buda (PhD student, instructor), Jenő Fáró (Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc student) and Tímea Tóth Emese (PhD student, Methodology Department instructor)!
LECTURE BY OUR INSTRUCTOR EMESE TÚRY-ANGYAL ON ONLINE AND OFFLINE POLITICAL ACTIONS
October 2023
"What is you research, colleague?" – or learn about the research of the instructors of the Department of Statistics. The purpose of the discussion series is to facilitate research collaborations within the department, the institute, and the faculty, to support the integration of our new colleagues, and finally to familiarize our students with the use of the tools they have learned in the context of live scientific research.
As a first occasion, we invite our colleagues and the Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc student to Emese Túry-Angyal's presentation and the subsequent informal discussion. The topic of the presentation: the relationship between online and offline political action.
Abstract: In my doctoral thesis, I examined the relationship between online and offline political actions from three perspectives, using different methods, in order to better understand the forms of political participation taking place in social media. My results confirm the positive relationship between online and offline political activities, point out that political posts that provoke negative emotional reactions are shared by more people on Facebook, and emphasize the importance of strong connections in the spread of information in social media.
PARTICIPATION AT THE YOUNG STATISTICIANS MEETING
October 2023
For almost 30 years, the Department of Statistics has been participating in the organization of the YSM international youth scientific conference, representing our country. In keeping with our traditions, the author of one of the best of last year's Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc thesis, Bendegúz Zaboretzky, will be a speaker on behalf of the Department of Statistics.
The conference has been organized by the universities of five countries (Austria, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia) since 1996 so that talented, young data scientists and applied mathematicians can receive standard, international feedback on their work. The presentations use similar methods to examine topics that affect several scientific fields, this year, among others, financial and energy market, social sciences, mathematical statistics, statistical methodology and health issues were discussed.
E-LEARNING EXPERIENCE SHARING
September 2023
Organized by the Education Development and Talent Management Department, Annamária Tátrai presented the statistics courses and their e-learning interfaces developed for sociologists to ELTE e-learning experts and colleagues. A very exciting cross-faculty professional dialogue developed on the topic. Thank you to the participants for sharing their experiences and thoughts!
NATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS AMONG OUR STUDENTS
September 2023
At the Faculty Council on September 19, the dean of our faculty presented the diplomas of this year's winners of the National Higher Education Scholarship. Three students of our Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc programme, Otília Biszák, Jenő Fáró and Hanka Lajos, are also among the winners. We are happy to congratulate them!
PRESENTATION BY MÁRTON RAKOVICS ON THE STATISTICAL ASPECTS OF DOPING TESTS
September 2023
Márton Rakovics, an instructor of the Department of Statistics, will give a presentation at the next meeting of the Clinical Biostatistics Society on the statistical issues raised by the doping test.
Topic: Problems of the application practice of the Athlete Biological Passport
The purpose of the WADA Athlete Biological Passport Programme (ABP), which has been running since 2008, is to continuously monitor the biomarkers that determine athletes' performance, so that, through their changes, it is possible to detect prohibited performance-enhancing procedures that cannot – or only in a difficult and expensive way – be detected with specific analytical tests (e.g. autologous blood transfusion). The ABP statistical model assigns probabilities to the observed biomarker values, and if doping is suspected, the entire data set is evaluated by a team of experts. The lecture will present the operation of the system in a specific case and shed light on its problematic points, focusing primarily on the transition between the probabilities estimated by the model and the expert's decision declaring a doping violation.
ZITA FELLNER DEFENDED HER DOCTORAL THESIS
September 2023
Congratulations to Zita Fellner, instructor at the Department of Statistics, who recently defended her doctoral thesis summa cum laude. The doctoral thesis entitled "Hungarian household borrowing processes" under the supervision of András Sugár was publicly defended at Corvinus University in Budapest. Details here (only in Hungarian).
RESEARCHERS' NIGHT AT THE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
September 2023
Who is poor? Where in Hungary do people live in poverty at a higher-than-average rate? What does material deprivation mean?
The aim of our instructor Annamária Tátrai's research was to draw the poverty map of Hungary, that is, to estimate the proportion of people living in poverty and material deprivation at district level. She was looking for answers to questions such as how many times the difference between districts in the most unfavourable and the most favourable position, where are the most favourable districts in the country, which areas have the highest proportion of people living in poverty, and what are the differences within a county?
At the Researchers' Night, Annamária Tátrai presents the results of her research and invites everyone to a puzzle. We will try to put together the poverty map of Hungary divided into 175 territorial units!
JAKAB BUDA'S RESEARCH SUPPORTED BY ÚNKP
September 2023
Jakab Buda, instructor of the Department of Statistics, is doing research in the academic year 2023/24 with the support of ÚNKP. The topic is partly related to the OTKA research going on at our institute, entitled: The investigation of polarization in the Hungarian public discourse with explainable artificial intelligence.
INTERVIEW WITH RENÁTA NÉMETH
August 2023
Interview (only in Hungarian) with the head of the Department of Statistics, the director of the Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc programme on the occasion of the faculty's 20th birthday.
DEMONSTRATOR OF THE YEAR
July 2023
The ELTE TáTK community traditionally recognizes the best teaching, research, student and educational support results at the graduation ceremony at the end of the academic year. Congratulations to our student, Ákos Német, Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc, who is this year's winner of the Éva Etelaky prize for the best demonstrator of the academic year, established by our institute! Ákos has been working at the Department of Statistics for several years, he already supported our work as an undergraduate student, and performed increasingly serious tasks. Undergraduate students got to know him as a careful, student-friendly and creative instructor. The competition was close here as well, the institute worked with multiple excellent demonstrators in the past year, we thank them for their work too!
THE BEST THESIS OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR ON THE SURVEY STATISTICS AND DATA ANALYTICS MSC
July 2023
Traditionally, at the graduation ceremony at the end of the academic year, the awards for the best theses are presented in each bachelor and master's programmes. This year, in Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc, the thesis of Réka Berbekár won this title based on the votes of the instructors in a very close competition. Using the text mining methods of artificial intelligence research and narrative psychology, the thesis examined the topic and framing of online newspaper articles related to Trianon. The abstract and full text of the thesis is available here (only in Hungarian). (The supervisor is Renáta Németh.)
MEETING WITH DEMONSTRATORS AND TEACHING ASSISTANTS AT THE END OF ACADEMIC YEAR
July 2023
The year was evaluated by the team involved in undergraduate education: instructors, demonstrators, teaching assistants. We discussed how we could further develop our courses, and how we could best help undergraduate students. It was an exciting, productive conversation! We also thanked the assistants for their work with a certificate. We will continue from here in September!
THE DANGER OF SUPERHUMAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
May 2023
On May 25, 2023, mathematician Dávid Matolcsi held an open lecture entitled "The danger of superhuman artificial intelligence", organized by the ELTE TáTK Department of Statistics. The event had a good atmosphere, despite the fact that the speaker talked about the fact that, according to many experts, the development of AI could specifically lead to the destruction of humanity in the not-so-distant future. The purpose of the event is to draw attention to the responsibility of data analysts as a guide for our graduate Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc students.
HACKATHON
May 2023
On May 12, 2023, a Hackathon was organized by the Institute of Empirical Studies, the ELTE Data for Good research group initiated by the Department of Statistics, and K-Monitor. Five teams participated in the hackathon, students from ELTE (mostly Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc) and Corvinus University of Budapest students worked on analyzing important databases for NGOs. Great analyses and visualizations were made, every case made a little progress.
Thank you for the support of the Dutch Embassy, ELTE TáTK and Reprex B.V.!
Detailed report here (in Hungarian).
THE SURVEY METHODS ROOM BUDAPEST RESEARCH GROUP WAS ESTABLISHED
March 2023
The Survey Methods Room Budapest research group was founded under the leadership of the instructors of the Department of Statistics. The profile of the research group is the investigation of survey research methodology with a special emphasis on the emergence and evaluation of new data collection techniques, as well as the relevant presentation of domestic population characteristics. The rapid development of data collection systems and the growth of internet penetration result in significant transformations in survey data collection, which presents challenges to researchers working with traditional mathematical and statistical tools. This not only prompts the international professional environment to continuously examine new methodologies, but also makes research at the local level essential. Details here (in Hungarian).
INTERVIEW WITH ANNAMÁRIA TÁTRAI ABOUT HER DOCTORAL RESEARCH
February 2023
An interview with Annamária Tátrai, instructor of the Department of Statistics about the results of her doctoral research on the application of small-area estimates in domestic poverty research.
The article is available here (in Hungarian).
THE PARTICIPATION OF OUR INSTRUCTOR AND STUDENT AT THE YSM INTERNATIONAL STATISTICS CONFERENCE
December 2022
Between September 30 and October 2, this year's Young Statisticians Meeting, an international statistics student conference that has been alive for more than 20 years, was held this year in Bohinj, Slovenia.
Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia are taking part in this traveling conference, the purpose of which is to promote cooperation between the statistical/data analysis programmes of the five countries concerned, in addition to talent management. It is held annually with 15 speakers and 50-60 participants, organized by a different member country every year – in 2018, the event took place in Hungary.
We are proud that the department has been participating in this series, representing Hungary, from the beginning. The conference creates a unique opportunity for highly talented students from home and neighboring countries participating in statistics programmes to experience the feedback and impact of the international research community on an international level.
In addition to the young speakers, all national representatives of the organizing committee (professors of local statistics programmes) and other accompanying instructors and fellow students also participated in the conference. Our students (freshly graduated in a given year) perform with great success in the strong international field every time.
This year, the member of the international programme committee from the Hungarian side is our colleague Dávid Simon, and one of the three presenting students from Hungary was Petra Parrag, a graduate of the Survey Statistics and Data Analytics MSc, who is already a PhD student at SOTE and presented his thesis "The characteristics of Hungarian lung cancer patients discovered in 2018".
The website of the conference is here.
WINNERS OF ELTE E-LEARNING COURSE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME AT THE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
November 2022
Among the best not only in research, but also in education: 5 of the courses taught by the department last year won ELTE's E-learning course development subsidy.
Congratulations to our instructors!
A total of 55 ELTE courses won support (6 in the faculty), i.e. the department was significantly overrepresented in this programme as well. Trick of the trade: the transition of the department's courses from Coospace to Canvas is already taking place in the background, we will continue on Canvas next year.
More details here (in Hungarian).
WINNERS OF THE UNIVERSITY EXCELLENCE FUND AT THE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
November 2022
The Senate of ELTE established the University Excellence Fund (EKA) in 2022.
In the call for outstanding scientific publications, the Fund supports the authors of a scientific publication published or accepted for publication in a D1/Q1 journal in 2022 or 2021.
The Department of Statistics (significantly overrepresented) with 4 instructors is among the winners of the 2nd round of the University Excellence Fund in November 2022! We congratulate Jakab Buda, Renáta Németh, Tamás Rudas and Dávid Simon for the publication of extremely prestigious publications.
Details here (in Hungarian).