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Contact: Todd Kuffner, email: kuffner@math.wustl.edu

Math 3200 - Spring 2014
Statistics and Data Analysis

Course Description

An introduction to probability and statistics. Discrete and continuous random variables, mean and variance, hypothesis testing and confidence limits, Bayesian inference, nonparametric methods, Student's t-test, contingency table analysis, multifactor analysis of variance, random effects models, mixed models, multiple regression, maximum likelihood and logistic regression.

Prerequisite: Math 233 (multivariable calculus). We will also use some tools from discrete mathematics and (possibly) matrix algebra. Prior experience with these ideas is not essential.

Course Details

Section	Time	Location	Instructor	Office Hours (Cupples I, 203A)
1	MWF 12:00 - 1:00pm	Seigle L006	Todd Kuffner	Mon 10:10 - 11:00am Wed 10:10 - 11:00am Thurs 2:40 - 4:00pm
2	MWF 2:00 - 3:00pm	Brown 118	Todd Kuffner	Mon 10:10 - 11:00am Wed 10:10 - 11:00am Thurs 2:40 - 4:00pm

Students unable to attend office hours should email for an appointment.

Teaching Assistants

Doyeong Yu (Thursdays, 2-3pm)
Yue (Jane) Yuan (Tuesdays, 1:30-2:30pm)

**Update (01/17) Starting next week, the TAs will hold office hours in the Arts & Sciences Computer Lab in Seigle L012. This is a public lab, and we are unable to book the room. Please be respectful and considerate of other students who may need to use the computers. If there is too much demand and/or there are complaints from Arts & Sciences, we will have to make other arrangements.

The teaching assistants will be grading the homework and holding weekly office hours in the computer lab to answer questions regarding SAS and R.

Required Textbook

Statistics and Data Analysis by Ajit C. Tamane and Dorothy D. Dunlop (Prentice Hall)

The website for the textbook is http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/tamhane/ . There you can find a list of errata and the data files in several formats.

Some other useful books:

A First Course in Probability by Sheldon Ross

Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis by J.A. Rice

Exam Information

There will be three evening exams during the semester, E1, E2 and E3, as well as a final exam, E4. These are multiple choice exams. More details about their format will be discussed during lecture.

Exam	Date	Location	Time	Solutions
E1	Tues, 4th Feb	Check here on exam day	7:00-9:00pm	Click here
E2	Tues, 4th Mar	Check here on exam day	7:00-9:00pm	Click here
E3	Tues, 8th Apr	Check here on exam day	7:00-9:00pm	Click here
E4 (final)	Thurs, 1st May	Check here on exam day	3:30-5:30pm	Click here

Exam questions are going to be drawn from both the lectures and the list of suggested problems (third column of the course plan below) after some modifications, so make sure that you have solved those suggested problems prior to a test. These problems may not appear in a given test with exactly the same wording or numerical values as in the book since it is always necessary to restate them in an exam appropriate format, taking into account time limitation and other factors.

Exams typically will consist of multiple choice questions (which may include true/false).

If you know the material well, there will be enough time to work out test problems carefully and without rush. Guessing won't be a good strategy. Although the calculations leading to the result of a test problem won't be graded, it is always a good idea to write them carefully, in a clear and legible way. This not only reduces the chances of making simple mistakes, but will allow you to contest the score if you think there might have been a grading error.

Exam question can be done by hand with the help of a basic scientific calculator. (In particular, you don't need a statistics calculator for this course.) The allowed calculators will be the same that can also be used in Calculus exams. (They shouldn't be graphing calculators.)

Here are a few general items to keep in mind:

You should always bring your Washington University Photo ID to exams. Proctors will check student's IDs.

All exams are closed-notes-and-closed-book. However, a 4" x 6" index card may be used as a "cheat sheet." You may write on both sides and include any information you deem useful.

Calculators are REQUIRED, and should ideally be scientific calculators. You will be required to compute answers to four decimal places of accuracy and your calculator must be able to compute the natural log, exponential, combinations and factorials. All the distribution tables you may need (which appear in the appendices of our textbook) will be provided on the exam, so your calculator need not have any specialized statistics capabilities.

Just before each exam, look up your exam room assignment on the web at this link. The room will likely not be your regular classroom, and it may be a different one for each exam. You will be allowed to enter the exam room a few minutes before the starting time to locate your seat and exam booklet.

The Mathematics Department has the following policy in place for the large sections regarding date of the final exam and excused absences:

The exam dates including the final were set by the College office before you registered for this class. You are therefore expected to take the exams at their scheduled times. If you are away because of a university sporting event or field trip, then you may arrange for your coach or professor to administer the exam. Excused absences may be granted in the case of illness or bereavement. All excused absences must be granted by Blake Thornton.

The final exam date cannot be changed for reasons of traveling convenience.

Grading Information

Your final grade will be based on the three exams, E1, E2, E3, the final exam E4, and the homework score, W. I expect there to be a total of 9 assignments. These five scores are scaled so that each is worth a maximum of 100 points. They are then combined according to the following formula:

S = 0.75*(E1 + E2 + E3 + 2*E4 - min(E1, E2, E3, E4))/4 + 0.25*W

The term in parentheses, T=E1 + E2 + E3 + 2*E4 - min(E1, E2, E3, E4), says that the final exam score, E4, replaces the worst score among E1, E2, and E3, if E4 is not the least value (so that E4 effectively counts twice). If E4 is the least score, then all four exams are counted with equal weight. Then the total exam score T/4 and homework W are added up with weights 75% and 25%, respectively, to obtain the total score S.

The value of S will be translated into a letter grade of A, B, C, D, F (with plus and minus) in a way that is at least as generous as the following table (if the grade distribution of the whole class is significantly lower than usual, then "curving" may be considered, but it is unlikely to be needed):

Grade	Letter Grade
[90,100]	A
[78, 90)	B
[65, 78)	C
[50, 65)	D
[0, 50)	F

For example, if the evening exam scores are 89, 60, and 81, the final exam score is 94, and the assignments total is 97, then 94 replaces the 60, and

S=0.75*(89 + 60 + 81 + 2*94 - min(86, 60, 78, 94))/4 +0.25*97 = 91.40.

This gives a grade somewhere in the A range.

In assigning pluses and minuses I will observe the following policy: A+ is reserved for the very top scores, and is given sparingly. I expect that only a very small number of students will received an A+. The ranges of letters B and C will be divided roughly evenly into +, -, and unsigned grade, but the exact ranges will take into account the full set of class scores so as to minimize borderline cases. Therefore, these ranges will not be determined until after the full set of class scores are known at the very end of the course.

Homework

The plan is to have a total of 9 HW assignments, mainly involving computer work using R and SAS.

You are allowed and encouraged to collaborate on your assignments. This is especially useful when dealing with issues related to the software, such as figuring out which R/SAS commands to use to compute this or that statistical function or plotting a desired type of graph. If you worked in a group on a given problem set and feel confident about the solutions agreed on by the group, it will be fine to submit a single copy signed by the group members. This way, the grading work by the undergraduate TAs is reduced (thus freeing them more time that they can use for answering questions and mentoring). The group does not have to be the same for all assignments. The maximum group size is 4.

Assignments are to be turned in on the due date (Fridays) at the beginning of class. Late assignments will not be accepted.

Course Schedule

Visit this course plan regularly to find the latest entry on suggested problems and other useful course information.

Your main course activity, in addition to homework sets, will be solving the suggested problems listed below. Although these problems (all from the textbook) are not collected, they will be a major source of test problems. Make sure that you know how to do them with confidence in preparation for a test. In fact, the best way to get ready for a midterm test or final exam is to carefully solve all those problems on the topics covered in a given exam, in addition to reviewing the theory presented during lectures. Problems marked with an * appear in the lecture slides with a sketch of the solution.

Please keep in mind that the plan given below is somewhat tentative. Sections and problems may occasionally be changed, and more links will become active as the course progresses. Material covered in each test will be detailed in class.

Week	Lectures	Homework	Suggested Problems
1, Jan 13-17	Lecture 1 Lecture 2 Lecture 3		2.1: 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 2.2: 16, 17, 18, 20, 26, 27* 2.3: 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34
2, Jan 20-24 (no class Mon)	Lecture 4 Lecture 5	HW0 (not collected)	2.4: 35, 36, 39, 40, 42 2.5: 48, 49, 50*, 52, 53, 54 Probability Practice and Solutions
3, Jan 27-31	Lecture 6 Lecture 7 Lecture 8	HW1: due Jan 31 Solutions	2.7: 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 70 2.8: 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 2.9: 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83
4, Feb 3-7	Lecture 9 Lecture 10 Lecture 11	Exam 1: Feb 4 Solutions	3.1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 3.2: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 3.3: 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 3.4: 20, 21, 22, 24, 26
5, Feb 10-14	Lecture 12 Lecture 13 Lecture 14	HW2: due Feb 14 Solutions	4.1: 2, 3, 4 4.2: 5, 6, 8 4.3: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18, 22 4.4: 30, 32, 33, 34, 38
6, Feb 17-21	Lecture 15 Lecture 16 Lecture 17		5.1: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12 5.2: 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23 5.3: 24, 25, 26* 5.4: 29, 30
7, Feb 24-28	Lecture 18 Lecture 19 Lecture 20	HW3: due Mar 7 Solutions	6.1: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 6.2: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 6.3: 17, 18, 21, 22, 26, 28
8, Mar 3-7	Lecture 21 Lecture 22	Exam 2: Mar 4 Solutions	7.1: 1, 6, 8, 10 7.2: 12, 14, 15 7.3: 17, 18*, 19
9, Mar 10-14	NO CLASS	NO CLASS	NO CLASS
10, Mar 17-21	Lecture 23 Lecture 24 Lecture 25		8.1: 1, 2, 3, 4 8.2: 5, 6* 8.3: 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16 8.4: 20, 21, 22 9.1: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7
11, Mar 24-28	Lecture 26 Lecture 27 Lecture 28	HW (not collected)	9.3: 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23 10.1: 1, 2, 3 10.2: 4, 6, 7, 8* 10.3: 10*, 11, 12, 13
12, Mar 31-Apr 4	Lecture 29 Lecture 30	HW4: due Apr 11	10.4: 16*, 19, 23 11.1: no exercises 11.2: 2, 3
13, Apr 7-11	Lecture 31 Lecture 32 Lecture 33	Exam 3: Apr 8 Solutions	11.3: no exercises 11.4: 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19 11.5: 23, 25, 26, 27, 28 11.6: 29, 30
14, Apr 14-18	Lecture 34 Lecture 35 Lecture 36		11.7: no exercises 14.1: no exercises 14.2: no exercises
15, Apr 21-25	Lecture 37 Lecture 38 Lecture 39	HW5 : due Apr 25 cigs.txt States.txt Solutions	14.5: no exercises 14.6: no exercises 15.1: no exercises 15.2: no exercises 15.3: no exercises

Help Resources

There are a number of ways to get help with hard problems or for understanding some material a little better:

Office Hours

My office hours are above. You should feel free to come in during those times without appointment. If you can't make it during those hours, you may call me or send me an email message and, with luck, we may be able to find another time.

The help desk at Cornerstone

Stats Help hours (Walk-In Help) will be listed on the google calendar at Cornerstone: http://cornerstone.wustl.edu/Home/CornerstoneCalendar.aspx or you can find more information at
http://cornerstone.wustl.edu/AcademicPrograms/MathHelp/MathHelpHours.aspx

Check the Cornerstone Calendar for times and locations.

Questions about academic resources for stats students? Contact Lisa Kuehne at lmkuehne@wustl.edu.

Study Groups and Appointments with Mentors can also be arranged by visiting Cornerstone (in Gregg Hall) during regular business hours to talk with an advisor about your needs.