Reflection

Ok, so I seem to have completely bungled this class blog concept. I would first like to say that I feel the idea is sound, I'm just not one for posting things online (which is not excuse for the scant number of posts I have made). I have found this course to be very interesting and I feel that I have gained a better understanding of the analyses I have been required to do for other ecology labs. Despite the 8AM timeslot I have found myself looking forward to each lecture/lab rather than with the dread that has preceded those from other subjects (*cough* organic chemistry *cough*). Although, I may not use R with great frequency in the years to come, but I feel it is a good skill to have.

Problems for JV chapter 5

5.2 Roll a pair of dice. Let X be the largest value shown on the two dice. Use sample() to generate 5 values for X.
> sample(1:6,size=2,replace=T) repeat 5 times
[1] 2 2

X-values: 2,4,3,4,5

5.14
If Z is Normal(0,1) find the following:
1) P(Z=<2.2)> pnorm(2.2, mean=0,sd=1)
2) P(-1<2)> diff(pnorm(c(-1,2))) = 0.8185946
3) P(Z>2.5) = 0.006209665
> 1-pnorm(2.5, mean=0, sd=1)
4) b such that P(-b < Z < b)
>qnorm(c(.05, .5, .95)))
b = 1.644854

5.18
given mean=3.20, sd=0.35, what is P(3.5<4)?> pnorm(4, mean=3.20, sd=0.35) - pnorm(3.5, mean=3.20, sd=0.35)
[1] 0.1845475

CDC teaches statistics

This web page has a description of some statistical concepts and then quizzes you on them. I think this is at least a helpful way to practice what we've been learning, as well as a good example of putting statistical concepts into practice.
http://www.cdc.gov/descd/MiniModules/sd_sem/page01.htm

Bar Charts

I've been trying to work through the examples in Chapter 2 of the R book and when using the barplot() function I never get any sort of graph. in the first examples there are three bar graphs shown as a result of all the data entered into the prompts, but I get no such images. Is this because I'm using R on the treat server or because I have to enter an additional command into the prompt? As this won't likely be important until thursday I guess I'll have the oppurtunity to ask about it in class.

First Post

Ok, so this is the first post for my Biostats blog. I hope the information provided will be useful or, at the very least not boring.