Stats 0200 (Fall 2009)

Torsten Jochem

Practice Examples to T-Distribution (Chapter 17, pp. 443-470)

ANSWERS START ON PAGE 3 TRY TO SOLVE THEM FIRST BY YOURSELF!

17.28 Calcium and blood pressure. In a randomized comparative experiment on the effect of calcium in the diet on blood pressure, researchers divided 54 healthy white males at random into two groups. One group received calcium; the other, a placebo. At the beginning of the study, the researchers measured many variables on the subjects. The paper reporting the study gives a sample mean of 114.9 and a sample standard deviation of 9.3 for the seated systolic blood pressure of the 27 members of the placebo group. a. Give a 95% confidence interval for the mean blood pressure in the population from which the subjects were recruited. b. What conditions for the population and the study are required by the procedure you used in (a)? Which of these conditions are important for the validity of the procedure in this case?

17.37 Growing trees faster. The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is increasing rapidly due to our use of fossil fuels. Because plants use CO2 to fuel photosynthesis, more CO2 may cause trees and other plants to grow faster. An elaborte apparatus allows researchers to pipe extra CO2 to a 30 meter circle of forest. They selected two nearby circles in each of three parts of a pine forest and randomly chose one of each pair to receive extra CO2. The response variable is the mean increase in base area for 30 to 40 trees in a circle during a growing season. We measure this in percent increase per year. The following are one years data. Pair 1 2 3 Treated Plot 10.587 9.244 8.675 Control Plot 9.752 7.263 5.742 Diff 0.835 1.981 2.933 Sample mean = 1.916 Sample std dev = 1.05

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Stats 0200 (Fall 2009)

Torsten Jochem

(a) State the null and alternative hypothesis. Explain clearly why the investigators used a one-sided alternative. (b) Carry out a test and report your conclusion in simple language. (c) The investigators used the test you just carried out. Any use of the t procedures with samples this size is risky. Why?

17.46 Comparing two drugs. Makers of a generic drugs must show that they do not differ significantly from the reference drugs that they imitate. One aspect in which drugs might differ is their extent of absorption in the blood. The next table gives data taken from 20 healthy nonsmoking male subjects for one pair of drugs. This is a matched pairs design. Numbers 1 to 20 were assigned at random to the subjects. Subjects 1 to 10 received the generic drug first, and Subjects 11-20 received the reference drug first. In all cases, a washout period separated the two drugs so that the first had disappeared from the blood before the subject took the second. Do the drugs differ significantly in absorption? Subject ID 15 3 9 13 12 8 18 20 17 2 Reference Drug 4108 2526 2778 3852 1833 2463 2059 1709 1829 2594 Generic Drug 1755 1138 1613 2254 1310 2120 1851 1878 1682 2613 Subject ID 4 16 6 1 5 7 14 11 1 19 Reference Drug 2344 1864 1022 2256 938 1339 1262 1438 1735 1020 Generic Drug 2738 2302 1284 3052 1287 1930 1964 2549 3340 3050

Answers start on next page!

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Stats 0200 (Fall 2009)

Torsten Jochem

ANSWERS
17.28 Calcium and blood pressure. a. 95% confidence interval = sample mean +/- (critical t-value with df=26) * s/sqrt(n) = 114.9 +/- 2.056 * 9.3/27^0.5 [111.22, 118.58] b. Requirements: (1) We have a SRS from the population (2) There are no strong outliers/the sample distribution should not be strongly skewed. (3) Treatment and control group should not be systematically different in a relative manner (e.g. one group is more obese, which impacts the blood pressure).

17.37 Growing trees faster. a. H0: Treated = Control Treated - Control = 0 HA: Treated > Control Treated - Control > 0 The investigators have a theory that trees ought to grow more due to CO2 due to photosynthesis which is aided by CO2. Growing less due to CO2 (which would be part of a 2sided test) is not part of their theory. Hence, if they did a 2-sided test and found that CO2 had some effect (positive or negative) on the growth of the tree, then their theory was not tested as the test becomes also significant if trees grow less due to CO2 (contradicting the theory). b. t = (1.916-0)/(1.05/sqrt(3)) = 3.161 t*-critical for df=2: 2.91 for 90% confidence level - 4.30 for 95% confidence level

95% confidence interval: -0.692, 4.524)

P-value: between 0.05 and 0.10. (Minitab gives 0.087.) c. The sample size is 3, which is very very small; we have too little data to see if the data is normal and if we have some outlier among them.

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Stats 0200 (Fall 2009)

Torsten Jochem

17.46 Comparing two drugs. Null Hypothesis H0 : reference drug = generic drug reference drug - generic drug = 0

Alternative Hypothesis HA: reference drug generic drug reference drug - generic drug 0 Computed: 1. The sample mean of the difference of reference drug and generic drug is -37. 2. The sample std deviation of the difference of reference and generic drug is 1071. t =(-37-0)/(1071/20^.5) = -0.1545 which gives a P-Value (Minitab) of 0.879. Hence we cannot reject the null that both drugs are absorbing the same way.

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