AMS 007 - Spring 2009

 

Description

 

This course is an introduction to statistical methods as practiced in the biological, environmental, and health sciences. Descriptive methods, experimental design, probability, interval estimation, hypothesis testing, one- and two-sample problems, power and sample size calculations, simple correlation and simple linear regression, one-way analysis of variance, categorical data analysis.

 

 

General Class Information

 

Lecture times:

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 02:00pm to 03:45pm at Thim Lecture 3.

Instructor:

Name: Abel Rodriguez,  abel at ams dot ucsc dot edu.

Office: Baskin Engineering, 147.

Instructor Office Hours:

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 04:00pm to 05:00pm.

Teaching Assistants:

Ziwei Wang, zwang4 at soe dot ucsc dot edu, JBE 146. Office hours:  Tuesdays, 09:00am to 11:00am.

Waley Liang, wliang at soe dot ucsc dot edu, JBE 146. Office hours:  Wednesdays, 8:45am-10:45am.

Saheli Datta, saheli at soe dot ucsc dot edu, JBE 146. Office hours:  Thursdays, 12:30pm to 1:30pm.

 

 

Bibliography

 

The required textbook for this class is “Biostatistics for the Biological and Health Sciences” by M. M. Triola and M. F. Triola, 2006.  Pearson, Addison Wesley. Other books that will be used in this class will be ”How to lie with statistics” by Darrell Huff and “Struck by Lightning” by J. S. Rosenthal. Disclaimer:  the links are provided only as a reference and are not meant as an endorsement of any bookseller.

 

 

iClickers and calculators

 

In this class we will be using the iClicker system.  You are responsible for bringing your own iClicker to the classroom; not doing so is equivalent to missing the class in terms of review quizzes and participation credit (see below).  Using someone else’s iClicker is a violation of the code of ethics equivalent to plagiarism and will be punished accordingly.  To register you iClicker, press here!

You will need a calculator for all classes, exams and quizzes.  It is important that the calculator has a square root key and logarithms in addition to the usual arithmetic operations.  You will not be allowed to borrow somebody else’s calculator during exams or quizzes.

 

Evaluation

 

Homeworks:

There will be 9 homeworks, which are due weekly on Thursday each week starting on week 2 (see schedule bellow).  Homework will be checked but will not be graded.  However, you will receive participation credit for turning it in, and questions for quizzes (as well as part of the midterm and final exams) will be taken from them.  In addition, a few problems from each homework will be selected to be discussed in during sessions.

Quizzes (20% total):

Four written quizzes will be assigned along the term (dates will be random, but they will happen during regular lecture hours).  Only the best three scores will be retained, and each will be worth 5% of the total grade.

In addition, at the beginning of the each class there will be a review quiz that will use the iClicker and will be worth a total of 5%.  The quiz will be made up of two to three questions based on the material covered in previous classes.  Only the best 90% of the questions will be given credit.

Midterm (30% total):

Tuesday, May 05 on regular class hours

Final (45% total):

Thursday, June 11 from 8:00 am to 11:00 am.

Participation (5% total):

The participation credit will be assigned based on homework turn in and use of the iClicker to answer instructor questions during the lecture.

Extra-credit:

There will be two extra credit assignments, worth 6 points (out of a hundred) each.  The first extra credit, which is due on the date of the midterm exam, consists of reading the book “How to lie with statistics” and compiling four current examples (typically, newspaper clippings, but could also be videos publicly available, for example, in YouTube or some news site) of the concepts illustrated in the book (deceitful graphs, faulty “scientific” statements, etc).  You also need to add a short (one paragraph) explanation of why each of these examples illustrates a concept explained in the book.

The second extra credit, which is due on the date of the final, consists on reading the book “Struck by lightning”.  A couple of multiple-choice questions taken almost directly from the book will be included in the final exam.

 

 

Laboratories (AMS-7L)

 

Enrollment in AMS-7L is a co-requisite.  Material will be linked but administratively AMS7-L is a distinct course and you will receive a separate letter grade for it.  However, if you fail either AMS-7 or AMS-7L, you fail both classes.  Each lab will consist of a self-paced worksheet with a cover sheet.  You should work through the lab, with personnel available for assistance as needed.  There will be several questions marked with a special symbol.  After completing all questions up to and including that question, you should raise your hand and get your answers for that section checked.  If your answers are sufficient, the course assistant will initial your cover sheet for that question.  Otherwise, they will let you know what needs to be fixed before you can be signed off.  At the end of the lab, you turn in your fully initialed cover sheet, and keep the rest of your lab.  A fully initialed cover sheet gets you full credit for the lab.  The schedule for the laboratories is as follows:

 

AMS-7L-01

Mondays,  02:00pm-04:00pm

Social Sciences I, 135

Ziwei Wang

AMS-7L-02

Tuesdays,  11:00am-01:00pm

Social Sciences I, 135

TBA

AMS-7L-03

Wednesdays,  01:00pm-03:00pm

Social Sciences I, 135

Waley Liang

AMS-7L-04

Thursdays,  09:30am-11:30am

Social Sciences I, 135

Ziwei Wang

AMS-7L-05

Thursdays,  04:00pm-06:00pm

Social Sciences I, 135

Saheli Datta

 

 

Attendance

 

Attendance to the class is required, and will be evaluated through the participation credit and the quizzes.  Roughly, it is expected that you will attend at least 90% of the lectures, and the grading policy is such that if you miss two lectures or less your grade will not be affected.

 

 

Additional resources

 

If you qualify for classroom accommodations because of a disability, please submit your Accommodation Authorization from the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to me during my office hours in a timely manner, preferably within the first two weeks of the quarter.  Contact DRC at 459-2089 (voice), 459-4806 (TTY).

Some hours of individual tutoring will be available for those who most need it.  You should get the great majority of your help in this course by coming to class, discussion sections, labs, and the office hours that the TA(s) and I will give; it’s best to regard the modest availability of individual tutoring as a last resort after these other resources prove insufficient.  If you feel that you would benefit from individual tutoring, please see me to request it.

 

 

Tentative class schedule

 

A compilation of the slides that will be used for this class can be found here.  Come back often, there will be frequent updates.

 

Tu 03/31 – Course Info.  Data types and experiments.  Chapters 1.1 to 1.3.

Th 04/02 – Graphical summaries.  Measures of central tendency. Chapters 2.1 to 2.4.

Session – No Session.

Lab – No Lab.

Homework – No homework due.

 

Tu 04/07 – Measures of dispersion.  Exploratory data analysis.  Definition of probability. Chapters 2.5 to 2.7 and 3.1 to 3.2.

Th 04/09 – Probability.  Chapter 3.3 to 3.4.

Session1.2:  17,18 / 1.3: 27, 30 / 2.2: 3,11

LabData types and introduction to JMP.

Homework1.2:  1,5,7,15,17,19 / 1.3: 1,3,5,7,21,23,27,31 / 2.2: 3,7,11,15 / 2.3: 16 / 2.4: 1, 5(a-c).

 

Tu 04/14 – Conditional probability and Bayes rule.  Chapter 3.5 to 3.7.

Th 04/16 – Discrete distributions:  Binomial and Poisson.  Chapter 4.1 to 4.5.  Out of town.

Session2.5: 7 / 2.7: 12 / 3.2: 5 / 3.3: 14,15,16 / 3.4: 10 / 3.5: 18

LabExploratory data analysis.  butterfly.jmp  cereal.txt

Homework2.5: 1,3,9 / 2.6: 7,9 / 2.7: 1,3 / 3.2: 3,5,17 / 3.3: 9,11,13,15,17 / 3.4: 2,9,11 / 3.5: 7,11,13,17,21,25,26.

 

Tu 04/21 – Continuous distributions:  Exponential and Normal.  Chapter 5.1 to 5.4.

Th 04/23 – Sampling distributions.  Central limit theorem.  Chapter 5.5 to 5.7.

Session4.3: 9,12 / 4.4: 5,12 / 4.5: 6

LabProbability and discrete distributions.

Homework4.3: 3,5,11,13 / 4.4: 5,11,13 / 4.5: 5a,9.

 

Tu 04/28 – Estimation population proportions and population means. Chapter 6.1 to 6.4.

Th 04/30 – Review.  Out of town.

Session5.3: 4,7 / 5.5: 4,7 / 5.6: 13

LabMid quarter review.  cereal.txt

Homework5.3: 1,3,7,11,13,17 / 5.5: 1,3,5,7,11 / 5.6: 13,15,23.

 

Tu 05/05 – Midterm (30%).  Practice midterm.

Th 05/07 – Estimating population proportions and population means.   Hypothesis testing.  Chapter 6.1 to 6.4 and 7.1 to 7.2.

Session6.2: 28, 32 / 6.3:  22 / 6.4: 14, 24

LabCentral limit theorem.

Homework6.2: 27,31,35 / 6.3: 21,23 / 6.4: 13,17,19.

 

Tu 05/12 – Hypothesis testing.  Two-sampling hypothesis testing. Chapter 7.3 to 7.5 and 8.1.

Th 05/14 – More on two-sample tests.  Chapter 8.1-8.3

Session7.2:  5,8,10,11,33,35,38,40 / 7.3: 6,10 / 7.4: 9

LabInterval estimation.

Homework7.2: 5,7,37,39,41 / 7.3: 5,17 / 7.4: 9,11.

 

Tu 05/19 – Correlation and regression.  Chapter 8.4 and 9.1 to 9.3.

Th 05/21 – Multiple regression.  Chapter 9.4 to 9.5.

Session7.5: 2,3,7,12,19 / 8.2: 4,7 / 8.3: 11,23 / 8.4: 9

LabHypothesis testing.  mercury.txt

Homework7.5: 17,21,25 / 8.2: 5,7,9,17,19 / 8.3: 11,15,21,23 / 8.4: 5,7,9

 

Tu 05/26 – Chi square tests.  Chapter 10.1 to 10.3.

Th 05/28 – Analysis of variance.  Chapter 11.1 to 11.2.

Session9.2: 4,11 / 9.3: 2,4,8 / 9.4: 9 / 9.5: 3,5,9

LabLinear regression.  anscombe.txt  mercury.txt

Homework9.2: 5,11,23 / 9.3: 1,3,5,9,13 / 9.4: 9,13 / 9.5: 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9.

 

Tu 06/02 – Analysis of variance.  Chapter 11.3.

Th 06/04 – Review.

Session10.2: 5,11 / 10.3: 3,5,11 / 11.2: 4,8 / 11.3: 5,8,11

LabGoodness-of-fit, regression and ANOVA.  icecream.txt  hotdogs.txt

Homework10.2: 1,6,7,11,13 / 10.3: 3,4,11,15 / 11.2: 1,3,4,9 / 11.3: 8,9,10,11,12.

 

Th 06/11 - Final exam (45%).  Practice final.  Solutions to the practice final.