Stat Labs. Mathematical statistics through applications (Q4497320)

This is an excellent pioneering book intended and suitable as the main text, or as a supplement to a more theoretical text, for a semester course in mathematical statistics. Unlike traditional statistics textbooks, which have several small numerical examples in each chapter to illustrate the theory, this book makes a case study the centerpiece of each chapter. The case studies, or stat labs, raise interesting scientific questions, and figuring out how to answer each one of them is the starting point for developing the relevant statistical theory. The labs are substantial exercises, which have nontrivial solutions. In addition to providing the motivation for studying various topics in mathematical statistics, they help students develop statistical reasoning. The topics common to most mathematical statistics texts can be found in this book as well, including descriptive statistics, experimental design, sampling, estimation, testing, contingency tables, regression, simple linear least squares, analysis of variance, and mulitple linear least squares. Also found in the book are quantile plots, normal approximation, confidence intervals, parametric bootstrap allocation, ecological regression, model checking, and response surface analysis. The contents are the following: Preface; Instructor's guide to Stat Labs; Maternal smoking and infant health; Who plays video games; Minnesota radon levels; Patterns in DNA; Can she taste the difference; HIV infection in hemophiliacs; Dangerous crab growth; Calibrating a snow gauge; Voting behavior; Maternal smoking and infant health (continued); A mouse model for Down syndrome; Helicopter design. There are also three appendices. Writing lab reports; Probability and Tables. The book does not cover all of the special topics of the \(t\) test covered by standard mathematical statistics textbooks but covers more topics related to the linear model. A second difference is the depth of the coverage of theoretical topics. The essential material is covered here but it is brief. Finally, the layout of this book is different. The first four sections of each chapter provide the lab's introduction, data description, background, and suggestions for investigating the problem. The theoretical material comes last, after the problem has been fully developed. I strongly recommend it.