Math 151 , Day 5 Monday, Sept.4, Fall 2006 Hit reload to get most current versionAfter class

HW Day 5
Reading:   pp.47-50- standard deviation, Check 2.19, 20, 21, 22:
PLEASE read ahead  in Ch.3,  64-9 density curves, & ahead Normal Distributions 70-84:  There's a lot there, and I will cover a good chunk  Friday
Hand in
A.  You are driving on the thruway from Syracuse to Rochester and keep track of how many vehicles you pass and how many pass you.  You find that these 2 numbers are the same.  Your speed on the thruway is: (a) the Mean spead of the cars, (b) the Median speed of the cars, (c) the Modal speed of the cars.  Choose one, and justify your choice.
Standard deviation  **Where it says to use  SPSS, you may use SPSS(Didn't get handout? Link), or a statistical calculator if you have one, or the Applet, One Variable Statistical Calculator, on the web http://www.whfreeman.com/bps or on the CD in your book.
B.  Find the mean and standard deviation of 2, 2, 4, 8 by hand.
p. 50, 2.9 Blood phosphate Do a and b by hand.  Use SPSS
** to  do c.  Write your answers from screen to paper.  Also (re)make a dotplot of the data, mark the mean with a wedge, and indicate the standard deviation s with <----> lines from the mean to both sides, s long. (like the sketch below)

p. 51, 2.10   xbar=7.50, s = 2.03 the same for both dist's. Don't do the calculations--just make stemplots & compare their shapes!
ALSO, type the data for Dataset B into SPSS
**, excluding the outlier of 12.50.  Find and write down the mean and s.d. now.  Compare to xbar=7.50, s = 2.03 .

p.55, 2.12 Rainforest logging.  Use the 4-step process, see below, p. 53-5&/or inside front cover.  Note that "state",  the first step, is usually "done"=the textbook statement of the problem.  The data are probably suitable for mean& standard deviation, but we don't have the SPSS power to do them easily yet, so use your hand methods.  This is one where working together with others can have real benefits, since it's pretty open-ended.
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Postpone to Friday: Complete Handout on Densities (get from outside my door if you missed class) 

Read, to discuss 


Optional

p. 62, 2.40, 2.43  Play with  summary numbers. Use the Applet, One variable statistical calculator; type data in at the Data tab.
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+Next time (Wednesday) meet in Mac 101. SPSS Bring Text, + whatever you store files on..
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Quartiles, five number summary, boxplot, IQR
    (
Optional: Mechanical way to "decide" to boxplot an outlierDay 4
HW Questions?

Summaries of Middle & Spread continued--"Systems:"
-- (Midrange, Range  Very sensitive to outliers--they use only the max and min!)
-- Median, IQR  (+ Quartiles Q1, Q3,5-number summary), based on percentiles (j'th percentile is > j% of the data)
-- Mean, StandardDeviation "y-bar" (or "x-bar"), "s"  (good for symmetric unimodal, no outliers)

Standard deviation (measure of Spread that goes with mean)
    Variance s2:  (almost) average of squared deviations from the mean.
                 (Divide by (n-1) "degrees of freedom")
    s : Standard deviation  is the square root of the variance.
            Computation:  I will require you to know how to do it by hand for 4 or 5 observations
                      (see BPS4e p. 48-9 for formula & computation example. 
Demo:  1,1,2,4, mean = 2, sum of squared deviations = 6, variance = 2, s = 1.41
1,1,2,4,12, mean = 4, sum of squared deviations = 86, variance = 21.5, s = 4.64.
(Midcomputation check:  Sum of deviations from the mean (before squaring each) always = 0 )

--Always > 0  (0 only if all observations are =)
--s units the same as those of the observations (squared and squarerooted).
        Physics: angular momemtum (spinning ice skater)

         Not so weird: High school geometry?
        Remember Pythagorean theorem: c2 = a2  + b2:
                hypotenuse of right triangle is also square root of a sum of squares.
Very sensitive to outliers (the outliers  contribute much more than their share to the Sum of Squared Deviations from the Mean)

Mean and Standard Deviation are for Symmetric Unimodal  distributions without big outliers.
   (ideally "Bell-shaped" = Normal)
Got to here, more or less

SPSS, for simple computation: Handout

Organizing a statistical problem: Four-step process (pp. 53-5, & inside front cover) 
State: the issue to be explored, question to be addressed (real-world)  (In hw problems, often already stated.)
Formulate:  What statistical tools, measures, analyses should we use to answer the question?
Solve:  Carry out the process.  (May need to back up.  Decide on mean, s.d., but stemplot shows badly skewed:  go back and decide on 5#summary instead.)
Conclude:  Give the conclusion as it addresses the real-world question/issue.
Begin p. 55, 2.12 in class in pairs.  Decide what analyses to do; start doing them (make a copy for each)
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Start here Friday.  Will quickly review the above, then. Go to Day 7
Density curves
, BPS4e pp.64-69
GET  handout HW sheet: "Density curves"

Spinner. Use 248x310 pixels    (When values can take on any of a continuous interval of numbers)
Example:  Spinner:  Label edge with continuous values from 0 to 1. Spinning should produce 1/10 of all spins in each colored sector.  Simulations of 500, 3000 spins show roughly true. More spins would get closer.

Abstraction, idealized histogram ("Mathematical model") = Density curve. Describes a theoretical distribution of data.

Any density curve:  is a curve
   --always on or above the horizontal axis
   --has area exactly 1 underneath it.
Many, many density curves are possible, modeling many phenomena.
  • For the spinner, the density curve is "Uniform on 0 to 1".
  • If you have two spinners like this, spin both at once and add the results--the corresponding density curve is "triangular, symmetric, on 0 to 2"
  • A more complicated mechanism will produce data corresponding to the density curve I have called "trapezoid, -1 to 2"
  • A very important one is the "normal" distribution family.
  • Median, mean, percentiles, standard deviation are defined for a density curve in analogy to those for a histogram.
    -- median has half of area below and half above.
    -- mean is balance point.  On the long-tail side of median if distribution is skewed. Same as median if symmetric.
    --First quartile has 1/4 of area below, 3/4 above. Etc. for others.

    Many densities have tables to describe them.  Especially tables showing area to the left of (below) a given value.

  • You will make and use tables for the simple distributions on the handout.  These are similar to the table we will use to describe the normal distribution.


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