Andrew Westlake MA, MSc: Senior Consultant
Andrew
Westlake has more than forty years experience
contributing to the design, implementation and management of statistical computing
projects in university departments and international research organisations.
He is a Member of the International Statistical Institute and a Fellow of both the Royal Statistical and the British Computer Societies. He has been
deeply involved in software development for survey and statistical applications, and has
gained an international reputation for the application of database methods to statistical
problems. Coupled with an original training in Mathematics and Statistics, his experience
and understanding of computing problems and principles bring a rare insight to the issues
which must be addressed when establishing systems for processing
and disseminating statistical and survey
data (and and other information) using computers
and the internet. While now partly retired (to France)
he remains available for consultation and interesting projects.
His research projects have involved work for statistical, demographic and health
departments in academic, research and government organisations throughout the world, and
have varied in scale from small sample surveys up to national vital registration systems.
His current special interest is in the structural and metadata aspects of
databases for aggregate statistical data and statistical
models, with particular emphasis on extending the use of metadata beyond
exchange and discovery.
Examples include:
- DataBase and reporting system for national collection of AIDS and HIV notifications (more).
- Entry and Analysis system for health centres and clinics on patients’ experiences
and satisfaction.
- Entry and processing system for longitudinal data from medical studies.
- DataBase for national collection of mortality and cancer morbidity registration records,
organised to allow access by arbitrary geographical areas.
- Migration of statistical systems from file to relational database structures.
- DataBase for commercial Media Coverage research.
- DataBase for storage, management and retrieval of statistical graphic images.
- Design of data entry package, and of processing systems for event history data.
- Tabulation system for multi–dimensional contingency tables.
- System for generation and documentation of data transformation programs.
- In–depth Fertility Survey and State Economic DataBase projects in China.
- Processing system for the National Fertility and Family Planning Survey in Pakistan (more).
- Advice to Government Statistical Offices on statistical processing, storage and
dissemination systems.
- Review of the processing system for the British Crime
Survey, Home Office.
- Conceptual design of a statistical database system for the London Area
Transport Survey (more).
- Reviews of Statistical Metadata systems (mostly for
Data Documentation) as part of the
Metanet
project.
- Design of a Statistical Metadata system for the storage
and presentation of Statistical Models, as part of the
Opus project.
He has been responsible for organising and presenting many
training courses on survey
processing systems, statistical analysis and processing, and on relational database
methods in statistics, and is in demand as a conference speaker and tutor.
Technical experience
- Most statistical analysis systems, including SPSS, SAS, S-Plus,
R, and specialised survey
systems such as Blaise, Epi-Info and PC-Edit.
- Wide variety of applications software, particularly for Microsoft Windows.
- Relational database systems, including Microsoft Access,
SQL Server and Oracle.
- Programming in Visual Basic (VB and VBA), Fortran, C, Cobol, plus
application–specific languages, from mainframes up to the latest
versions of Windows.
- Web site development, including database linking using ASP (Active Server
Pages).
- Networking with Windows 95/98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Win
7
(including Small Business Server).
Back to: Top, Home
Last updated on
06 June 2010