Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

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School of Mathematics & Physics

EXAMINATION
Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 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:

This is a Closed Book Examination - specified materials permitted

Part A
During reading time - writing is not permitted at all

Materials Permitted In The Exam Venue: 1

(No electronic aids are permitted e.g. laptops, phones)
2
Calculators - Casio FX82 series or UQ approved (labelled)

An annotated copy of A Portable Introduction to Data Analysis

3
Materials To Be Supplied To Students:

none Part B
Instructions To Students:

There are 50 marks available on this exam from Part A and Part B. 1
Show working where appropriate.
2
Answer ALL questions in Part A.

Answer 4 out of 5 questions in Part B.

3
Write your answers in the spaces provided in this examination paper.

The backs of pages may be used for rough working but these will not be marked. 4
The textbook can have any amount of annotations on pages. Loose sheets of

paper or sticky notes are not permitted. Unannotated page tabs are allowed. 5

Total ________

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Part A (10 marks)

Answer ALL questions in the spaces provided.
1. Explain the difference between and  . (2 marks)

Mu is the population mean while x-bar is the mean of a sample.

2. An expensive piece of equipment in a laboratory is starting to show signs of age.

Currently, the probability that the equipment is working on any day is 0.8, independent
of other days. Let X be the number of days in any week that the equipment is working.
It can be shown that X has the following probability distribution
x 0 1 2 3 4 5
Pr(X=x) 0.00 0.01 0.05 0.2 0.41 0.33

a. Calculate E(X). (2 marks)

E(X)=0*0.00 + 1*0.01 + 2*0.05 + 3*0.2 + 4*0.41 + 5*0.33 = 4

Or, identify X has a binomial distribution, with E(X)=np=5*0.8=4

b. Calculate sd(X). (3 marks)

Var(X) = 0.01*3^2 + 0.05*2^2 + 0.2*1^2 + 0.33*1^2 = 0.82

Sd(X)=sqrt(0.82) = 0.91 (some rounding errors in here)

Or, using properties of binomial distribution, sd(X) = sqrt(np(1-p)) =

sqrt(0.8)=0.89

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

3. Match each of the histograms with the corresponding Normal quantile plot. (3 marks)
a) right skewed i) uniform distribution
Quantile plot

40
1.0

0.8
30
Percent of Total

0.6

20

?
0.4

10

0.2

0 0.0

0 5 10 15 20 -2 -1 0 1 2

? Normal Quantiles

b) left skewed ii) right skewed

Quantile plot

20

30

15
Percent of Total

20
?

10

10
5

0
0

0 5 10 15 -2 -1 0 1 2

? Normal Quantiles

c) uniform distribution iii) left skewed

Quantile plot

20

15

15
Percent of Total

10
?

10

5 5

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 -2 -1 0 1 2

? Normal Quantiles

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Part B [40 marks]

Answer any 4 of the 5 questions available. Each question is worth 10 marks.

Question 1 [10 marks]

Researchers have conducted a study investigating the influence of sexual timing on
relationship outcomes. In other words, does timing of the first sexual encounter between a
couple affect the health of long term married relationships? A total of 2035 heterosexual
married couples completed a questionnaire comprised of over 300 questions designed to
evaluate the strengths and challenges in relationships. These participants were obtained from
a number of sources

Referred by their instructor in a class on maintaining relationships

Referred by a therapist
Referred by clergy
Referred by a friend or family member
Online or print ads
Found questionnaire by searching for it on the web
a) What type of statistical investigation is this (eg experimental, observational)? [2 marks]

Survey (observations are self reported)

b) What is the population of interest? [2 marks]

Long term heterosexual married couples

c) Is it reasonable to assume that the sample used here adequately represents this
population? Why, or why not? [4 marks]

Many of the sources suggest participants are seeking outside support for their

relationship this suggests that the sample may be biased towards people experiencing

marital difficulties, in which case this wouldnt be a representative sample.

d) How could this study be improved? [2 marks]

Remove the sources of participants which are likely to overemphasise couples with
marital issues.

* Whatever suggestions made here need to address a problem, and offer a workable
solution.

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 2 (10 marks)

The neurohormone oxytocin is thought to be associated with emotions related to attachment. A
study was conducted to compare the plasma oxytocin levels (pg/mL) in adult women who
were in a relationship (Yes) to those who werent (No). Density plots of these samples are
shown below.

No
Yes

2.5

2.0

1.5
Density

1.0

0.5

0.0

4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5.0 5.2

Oxytocin

a) Compare the oxytocin levels for these 2 groups of women, in terms of location, variability
and shape. [5 marks]
The peak for women in a relationship is moderately higher than those not in a

relationship (4.7 vs 4.5). The spread of oxytocin levels is wider for those in a relationship.

The distribution is moderately symmetric for women in a relationship, but appears right

skewed for those not, otherwise, both samples follow a bell-shape. There dont appear to

be any outliers.

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

This study also investigated the relationship between oxytocin levels and age. The output
below relates to this relationship, for the women in the study who are in a relationship.

Oxytocin = 7.33-0.12Age

5.0
4.8
Oxytocin ( in pg/mL)

4.6
4.4
4.2

22 23 24 25 26 27

Age (in years)

Pearson correlation coefficient = -0.64

b) Describe and summarise this relationship between oxytocin levels and age. [5 marks]
There is a moderately strong (correlation coefficient -0.64) negative linear association
between oxytocin levels with age. Its interesting to note that there appears to be a
noticeable gap in the data, with almost no oxytocin levels between approx. 4.4 and 4.5
this may suggest there are 2 groups in this sample, which havent been distinguished in
the above plot.

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 3 (10 marks)

A researcher is planning on using a randomised response method to ask the sensitive question
Do you agree with mandatory detention for refugees arriving in Australia on boats? Each
subject will roll a dice. Those who roll a 1 or 2 will answer truthfully, while everyone else will
answer with the opposite of the truth.

Suppose 88 out of 148 responses were yes. Use this to estimate the proportion, p, of the
population that agrees with mandatory detention. Draw a tree diagram as part of your
working. [10 marks]

Answer Y (p)
roll 1,2 (1/3)
Answer N (1-p)

Answer Y (1-p)
roll 3,4,5,6 (2/3)
Answer N (p)

P(yes) = 88/148 = Pr(answered yes truthfully) + pr(answered yes untruthfully)

=1/3*p + 2/3*(1-p) = 2/3-1/3p

88/148-2/3 = -1/3p

-3*(88/148-2/3)=p

p= (approx.) 0.22

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 4 (10 marks)

Can a smile reduce the severity of punishment? A group of researchers conducted a study to
investigate whether an individuals facial expression can affect the severity of the punishment
they receive for a crime. Subjects in the study were asked to assign a punishment for pretend
suspects, based on a description of their crime, and a photo of the suspect exhibiting either a
smile or a neutral facial expression. The punishments were translated into a punishment
score where high values correspond to major punishments, and low values to minor
punishments. The scores are

Smiling suspects 6 70 58 75 45 20 24 10 41 15
Neutral suspects 33 47 52 51 22 63 60 33 50 46

a) Write the null and alternative hypotheses for this experiment. [2 marks]
H0: mu_neutral- mu_smiling = 0 or, theres no difference between mean scores for both

groups of suspects

HA: mu_neutral- mu_smiling > 0, or the mean punishment score is less for smiling

suspects than neutral suspects.

b) Define the appropriate statistic to test the hypothesis and calculate its value. [2 marks]
x-bar_neutral x-bar_smiling = 457/10 - 364/10 = -9.3

Or, simply sum(smiling scores) = 364 (this is the more efficient method we used in class,

derived from the comparison of sample means)

c) We looked at all the possible allocations of the observations to two groups of 10 and
found that there are 29561 allocations which are as large as the value obtained in (b).
What is the p-value for the corresponding randomization test? What do you conclude?
[6 marks]

20C10 = 184756 (total number of possible allocations)

p-value is 29561/184756 = 0.16

Retain H0. There is insufficient evidence to show that smiling reduces the severity of

punishment scores, on average.

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

Question 5 (10 marks)

Assume that the amount of money in university students bank accounts follows a Normal
distribution with mean $1500 and standard deviation $300.

a) For a randomly selected student, what is the probability that their bank account contains
less than $1000? [3 marks]
Draw a diagram.

Pr(X<=1000) =Pr(Z<=(1000-1500)/300)=Pr(Z<=-1.67)

Using tables, this gives Pr(Z<=-1.67)= 0.047

b) How much money would a student need in their account to have more money than 75%
of their peers? [3 marks]
z_0.75 = 0.67(this is the quantile for the Normal distribution)

mu + z*sigma = 1500+0.68*300 = $1704

(note that were using the property where mean=median for the Normal distribution

here)

c) Interest is paid on the balances such that the amount of money in everyones accounts
increases by 3%. What is the new mean and standard deviation? [4 marks]
E(1.03X) = 1.03*E(X) = 1.03*1500 = $1545

sd(1.03X) = 1.03sd(X) = 1.03*300 = $309

END OF EXAMINATION

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Summer Mid-semester Examinations, 2013 STAT1201 Analysis of Scientific Data

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