do you love stats?

ChadyzGroove · Post by **ChadyzGroove** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:20 pm

hello, i am looking for some help from a person who has taken a stats class before, i need a 20 minimum sample group of quanatative stats and some junk with minitab, thats all i know i lost my syllabus for this project and need help fromany one who would have some ideas on what to do for this project. i think i may also need to say the positive a negatives of such project also. okay any help will be appreciated and i will give you a hug when i meet you.

chad.

NerfHerder · Post by **NerfHerder** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 6:25 pm

Uh, I've taken stats.

What the hell is a minitab?

zach · Post by **zach** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:03 am

Me, too. And...

What the hell is a minitab?

ChadyzGroove · Post by **ChadyzGroove** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 5:45 am

its a statistcal input program that makes graphs and junk

Yarn · Post by **Yarn** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 1:07 pm

Hmm, delicious junk?

Betty Felon · Post by **Betty Felon** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 10:33 pm

Hey all you statisticians, can any of you explain p-value to me? I am guessing it's a stats thing, but I was never forced to take stats. (If I'm wrong, and you are a chemist or a physist or otherist and you would like to explain, then please do.)

By p-value I mean the letter used in, say, the following example:

"In a recent study the InLine system was used side-by-side with best available techniques to coagulate tissue during liver resection. Blood loss reduction was on average 82% less in areas treated with the InLine device as compared to the control (p < .00019). Transection times were also reduced with InLine by an average 69% (p < .03) when compared to the control."

Thank you forever, smarties.

nwheather · Post by **nwheather** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:15 am

I honestly have no idea--and HATE stats, by the way--but from context, I'd say it's something along the lines of margin of error.

Post by **grant** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:28 am

p-value was one of the only stats things I understood, but I think it's all gone. If the bits I do recall are correct, it's a measure of variance from expected results, related to margin-of-error.

Lemme see...

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value and http://www.isixsigma.com/dictionary/P-Value-301.htm

The higher the p-value, the more likely it is that thing you're measuring is responsible for the changes in data you're observing... I THINK.

heathalouise · Post by **heathalouise** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:57 am

It's actually the LOWER the p-value, the more likely that your treatment condition has changed the data. Most quantitative studies shoot for a p-value of .05 or lower. .05 is equivalent to a confidence interval of 95%. (As in, "I am 95% confident that my little chickadees' attitudes changed as a result of watching the television show.")

Yeah, I took advanced quant last year, and that is all I remember. Which is why my dissertation will feature qualitative methodology, with nary an ANOVA nor Chi-Square in sight.

Betty Felon · Post by **Betty Felon** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:02 pm

oh great, this is going to be real easy to explain in broken japanese....

I appreciate the efforts though, random internet music fan statistitians! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. (The resources on this board are phenomenal.)

Post by **Liesbeth** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:42 am

so, what you need is a Japanese wikipedia with direct links from an English topic to the Japanese equivalent. Surely something like that exists on the web. Somewhere?

man, p-value meant nothing to me, but the phrase coincidence interval seems to trigger some forgotten memory, last time I took stats is 14 years ago. Chances are slim that I would pass a exam now.

Post by **grant** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:40 am

I think p<.06 is the same in English and Japanese. Or are you explaining this to Japanese non-statisticians?

Betty Felon · Post by **Betty Felon** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:59 pm

Ah, thanks for the suggestions but,

1.) Wikipedia wouldn't help much because I can't read Japanese. Or rather, I can read the two simpler versions of the written language, but not the characters borrowed from the chinese, kanji. When the Japanese write Japanese they use all three combined (the kanji become almost analogous to latin rootwords, with the other syllabaries conjugating, spelling foreign words, particles, etc. kind of.)

2.)They are not staticians. I work for an importer/distributor of surgical supplies. It's my job to research new products they are considering, read the scientific papers, marketing literature, websites, news articles, surgeries, and summarize in simplified english.

My coworkers are very smart, but they aren't doctors or staticians. And medicine and science in Japan is still sort of in an academic unreachable castle in the sky to lay people.... For instance, if you were to ask your Japanese doctor what the prescription he handed you was, you would get an answer like, "Red pills, blue pills, white powder." And this would be a reasonable answer.

Of course, that doesn't mean that my amazing ability to speak native English keeps me from being able to understand....everything written in English in every industry in the world. I am asked questions all day long about insanely detailed industry jargon....complex medical papers, international contract law, finance and brand marketing, etc.

Of course, I love that. (thank god for the internet.)

But it's amazing that the same person who will ask me to explain infringement options will ask me if they have KFC in America. Or the same person who takes it as a given that I understand "emergent total abdominal colectomy for perforated ulcerative colitis" will be incredibly impressed by my ability to use chopsticks.

It's a mystery.