I have never taken a statistics class nor read a statistics text, but
I am in dire need of help with a trivial data analysis problem for
which I need to write a report in two hours. I have spent 10,000
hours of study in my field of expertise (high frequency noise-making
plant biology) but I've always thought that statistics is something
that can be mastered on short notice.
Briefly, I have an experiment in which a response variable is
repeatedly measured at 1-day intervals, except that after a plant
becomes sick, it is measured every three days. We forgot to randomize
on one of the important variables (soil pH) and we forgot to measure
the soil pH. Plants that begin to respond to treatment are harvested
and eaten (deep fried if they don't look so good), but we want to make
an inference about long-term responses. In addition, we forgot to
measure the response on some of the days before the plant was
terminated. Some baseline variables were not measured for some
plants, when some of the other variables looked OK. The response
variable is only known to exceed a certain value in some cases, and in
others is only known to be less than a certain value. The response
variable also has a great number of ties at zero, and has extreme high
outliers. The variability of responses seems to depend on whether
there was missing variables for the plant. And halfway through the
experiment we changed instrumentation and personnel. All of these
problems seem trivial when compared to what I have to deal with every
day in measuring plant sounds, so I hope that someone can help me as
soon as possible. I would appreciate receiving a few paragraphs of
description of the analysis that I can include in my report, and I
would like to receive R code to analyze the data no matter which
variables I collect. I do value your time, so you will get my
everlasting thanks.
Note that I will be out of the office from 1:15pm to 1:25pm today.
This information should be valuable to many.
I. Ben Fuld
Technical University of Plant Kinetics
Slapout, Alabama
LEGAL NOTICE\ Unless expressly stated otherwise, this messag...{{dropped}}
On 01-Apr-06 Frank E Harrell Jr wrote:> I have never taken a statistics class nor read a statistics text, but > I am in dire need of help with a trivial data analysis problem for > which I need to write a report in two hours. I have spent 10,000 > hours of study in my field of expertise (high frequency noise-making > plant biology) but I've always thought that statistics is something > that can be mastered on short notice.Dear Ibn Fuld (I apologise for rewriting your name correctly, and I do appreciate the problems of people who do not natively speak English, but I thought that doind so would be useful for the members of the list who have the coverse problem), You have an evidently complex problem there, but apparently a very short time in which to solve it. Happily, I see a very simple solution. Just talk to your plants, ask them how they are, record their acoustic responses, and use your existing expertise to analyse and interpret the latter. I judge that you need to learn nothing new to do this, your institution should posses the required technology, and I suspect that little if any new R code would be required. Good luck, ZB <zaphod.beeblebrox at cosmos.god.disorg>> Briefly, I have an experiment in which a response variable is > repeatedly measured at 1-day intervals, except that after a plant > becomes sick, it is measured every three days. We forgot to randomize > on one of the important variables (soil pH) and we forgot to measure > the soil pH. Plants that begin to respond to treatment are harvested > and eaten (deep fried if they don't look so good), but we want to make > an inference about long-term responses. In addition, we forgot to > measure the response on some of the days before the plant was > terminated. Some baseline variables were not measured for some > plants, when some of the other variables looked OK. The response > variable is only known to exceed a certain value in some cases, and in > others is only known to be less than a certain value. The response > variable also has a great number of ties at zero, and has extreme high > outliers. The variability of responses seems to depend on whether > there was missing variables for the plant. And halfway through the > experiment we changed instrumentation and personnel. All of these > problems seem trivial when compared to what I have to deal with every > day in measuring plant sounds, so I hope that someone can help me as > soon as possible. I would appreciate receiving a few paragraphs of > description of the analysis that I can include in my report, and I > would like to receive R code to analyze the data no matter which > variables I collect. I do value your time, so you will get my > everlasting thanks. > > > Note that I will be out of the office from 1:15pm to 1:25pm today. > This information should be valuable to many. > > I. Ben Fuld > Technical University of Plant Kinetics > Slapout, Alabama > > LEGAL NOTICE\ Unless expressly stated otherwise, this > messag...{{dropped}} > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Apr-06 Time: 15:44:50 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
Oh, and I forgot to add. Please generate some test data for me since I can't possibly take time out to provide such in order to clarify the question. By the way, I did try out R a bit but it did not work and its too much effort to provide the R code I have or to reduce it to a small self contained reproducible example to illustrate the salient point. I am thanking you in advance since I will probably be too busy to acknowledge the help or to summarize the answers for the benefit of others and the list archives. Its not that I don't want to but I probably won't follow up on your answers anyways if they involve reading and thinking about help pages, the manual, the FAQ, the posting guide, statistics, mathematics, programming or other material. By the way, please email me directly since I normally don't read the list. :) On 4/1/06, Frank E Harrell Jr <f.harrell at vanderbilt.edu> wrote:> I have never taken a statistics class nor read a statistics text, but > I am in dire need of help with a trivial data analysis problem for > which I need to write a report in two hours. I have spent 10,000 > hours of study in my field of expertise (high frequency noise-making > plant biology) but I've always thought that statistics is something > that can be mastered on short notice. > > Briefly, I have an experiment in which a response variable is > repeatedly measured at 1-day intervals, except that after a plant > becomes sick, it is measured every three days. We forgot to randomize > on one of the important variables (soil pH) and we forgot to measure > the soil pH. Plants that begin to respond to treatment are harvested > and eaten (deep fried if they don't look so good), but we want to make > an inference about long-term responses. In addition, we forgot to > measure the response on some of the days before the plant was > terminated. Some baseline variables were not measured for some > plants, when some of the other variables looked OK. The response > variable is only known to exceed a certain value in some cases, and in > others is only known to be less than a certain value. The response > variable also has a great number of ties at zero, and has extreme high > outliers. The variability of responses seems to depend on whether > there was missing variables for the plant. And halfway through the > experiment we changed instrumentation and personnel. All of these > problems seem trivial when compared to what I have to deal with every > day in measuring plant sounds, so I hope that someone can help me as > soon as possible. I would appreciate receiving a few paragraphs of > description of the analysis that I can include in my report, and I > would like to receive R code to analyze the data no matter which > variables I collect. I do value your time, so you will get my > everlasting thanks. > > > Note that I will be out of the office from 1:15pm to 1:25pm today. > This information should be valuable to many. > > I. Ben Fuld > Technical University of Plant Kinetics > Slapout, Alabama > > LEGAL NOTICE\ Unless expressly stated otherwise, this messag...{{dropped}} > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >