Sample Mid-semester Examination, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

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School of Mathematics & Physics

EXAMINATION
Sample Mid-semester Examination, 2013

STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

This paper is for St Lucia Campus students.

Examination Duration: 60 minutes For Examiner Use Only

Reading Time: 10 minutes Question Mark

Exam Conditions:
1
This is a Closed Book Examination - specified materials permitted

During reading time - writing is not permitted at all 2

Materials Permitted In The Exam Venue: 3
(No electronic aids are permitted e.g. laptops, phones)
4
Calculators - Casio FX82 series or UQ approved (labelled)

An annotated copy of A Portable Introduction to Data Analysis is permitted. 5
Materials To Be Supplied To Students:

None Total ________
Instructions To Students:

There are 40 marks available on this exam from 5 questions.

Write your answers in the spaces provided in this examination paper.

The backs of pages in may be used for rough working but these will not
be marked.

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Sample Mid-semester Examination, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 1 [8 marks]
Researchers who were interested in current flow in the brain prepared sections from the
brains of adult guinea pigs. Spontaneous currents that flowed into individual brain cells
were then recorded and the peak amplitude of each current measured. A sample of 16
observations of peak current (pico-amperes) are given below:

4.5 4.7 5.6 5.9 6.1 6.4 6.6 7.0 7.2 7.5 7.7 8.8 8.8 10.1 10.3 15.3

a) Give the five number summary for this data. [4 marks]

b) Draw a box plot for this data, flagging any unusual values. [4 marks]

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Sample Mid-semester Examination, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 2 [8 marks]
a) Suppose the ln(odds) of an event is -0.42. What is the probability of that event?
[4 marks]


















b) Suppose the weights of lemons in a large crate have a Normal distribution with
= 146 grams and = 4.3 grams. Consider the random process of picking 5 lemons
independently and putting them in a bag. What is the standard deviation of the total
weight of the bag? [4 marks]

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Sample Mid-semester Examination, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 3 [8 marks]
Suppose a couple decide to have children until they either have a child of each sex or
they have three children.

a) Using G for girl and B for boy, write down the sample space of possible outcomes
that can arise from this process. For example, GGB could be the outcome where the
couple has two girls and then a boy. [2 marks]




b) Define a probability function for this process. [2 marks]





c) Now let the random variable X be the number of girls resulting from this approach
to having children. Write down the sample space for X and give the probability
function for X based on your answer to (b). [2 marks]








d) What is the expected number of girls, E(X)? [1 mark]






e) What is the standard deviation of the number of girls, sd(X)? [1 mark]

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Sample Mid-semester Examination, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 4 [8 marks]
It is estimated that 85% of the fish in a remote lake are carrying a certain bacteria. Upon
testing of a fish for the bacteria there is a 90% chance of detecting that the fish is
carrying the bacteria in case it does. Further there is a 70% chance of concluding that a
fish is not carrying the bacteria in case it does not.

Suppose a fish is pulled out of the lake and the diagnostic procedure indicates that it is
carrying the bacteria. What is the probability that it actually is carrying the bacteria?

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Sample Mid-semester Examination, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 5 [8 marks]
Many patients with Huntingtons disease exhibit disturbances in their daily cycle of sleep
and wake as part of their symptoms. Researchers studied these effects by comparing
wild-type mice to mice with a genetic mutation similar to humans with Huntingtons
disease. Using radio-telemetry they monitored heart rate and body temperature in the
mice over 24 hours. The table below gives the average body temperature recorded for
14 mutant mice and 16 wild-type mice.

Mean Body Temperature (C)

36.57 36.78 36.37 36.12 36.37 36.12 36.93 36.97

Mutant
mice
36.54 36.34 36.50 36.67 36.33 36.60

36.40 36.28 36.32 36.28 36.36 36.17 36.27 36.41

Wild-type
mice
36.16 36.60 36.24 36.32 36.25 36.08 36.15 36.05

The mean of the average body temperatures for the 14 mutant mice is 36.515C with
standard deviation 0.2636C whereas the mean of the average body temperatures for
the 16 wild-type mice is 36.271C with standard deviation 0.1369C.

a) The researchers considered a randomization test for comparing the difference

between the means. If the null hypothesis is true then the allocation of the 30 mean
body temperatures to the two groups would be just due to chance. How many
possible ways could the 30 values be allocated to the two groups? [2 marks]

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Sample Mid-semester Examination, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

b) Since the number of possible allocations to two groups is quite large, the
researchers realised that it would not be practical to calculate the exact
randomization P-value. Instead they used simulation to randomly split the 30 values
into groups of size 14 and 16, recording the resulting difference between the means
each time. Repeating this 100 times gave the following differences between the
means:
0.118 -0.221 -0.001 0.060 0.058 -0.012 0.019 0.257 0.121 0.075

0.052 0.137 -0.103 0.003 -0.158 0.108 -0.082 -0.155 -0.039 0.087

-0.042 0.027 0.025 0.158 -0.074 -0.088 -0.009 0.046 0.166 0.007

0.027 0.106 -0.021 -0.059 0.196 0.024 -0.038 -0.039 0.104 0.027

-0.108 -0.058 -0.110 -0.003 0.060 0.046 0.027 -0.044 0.058 0.129

-0.046 -0.021 0.133 -0.095 -0.092 -0.100 0.050 0.000 0.028 0.011

0.111 -0.042 0.032 -0.011 0.106 0.167 0.035 -0.016 -0.076 0.027

-0.040 -0.044 -0.052 -0.051 -0.107 -0.138 0.025 -0.051 -0.127 -0.173

0.076 -0.052 0.141 -0.060 0.078 0.072 0.095 0.170 -0.138 -0.147

-0.028 -0.139 -0.127 0.283 0.100 -0.076 0.110 -0.099 0.025 0.047
Based on this simulation, what is the estimated P-value for the test of whether
average body temperature tends to be higher for the mutant mice? Explain your
answer and give your conclusion. [6 marks]

END OF EXAMINATION

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