The data available for Math 221.
| Date | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| May 8, 2024 | Access to Drinking Water | Data on drinking water access around the world |
| May 8, 2024 | Climate Change: Antarctica | The amount of sea ice in Antarctica over time |
| May 8, 2024 | Climate Change: Ocean | Ocean heat content is measured relative to the 1971–2000 average, which is set at zero for reference. It is measured in 10²² joules. For reference, 10²² joules are equal to approximately 17 times the amount of energy used globally every year. |
| May 2, 2024 | Biggest Loser | A dataset containing information on Biggest Loser contestants. |
| May 2, 2024 | Cardiac Arrest Health | A group of researchers led by Jared Bunch studied the long-term effects suffered by patients who experienced a cardiac arrest outside a hospital. Using the Short-Form General Health Survey (SF-36), n = 50 patients assessed their general health at the time of their last follow-up visit. The SF-36 is normalized so the mean score in the general population is 50 and the standard deviation is 10. |
| May 2, 2024 | 2015 Census | Documentation on this dataset is scarce, so tread lightly. Dataset contains summary statistics from a 2015 census in the U.S. It is grouped by county. |
| May 2, 2024 | COPD Rehab | The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute gives the following explanation of COPD: COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary (PULL-mun-ary) disease, is a progressive disease that makes it hard to breathe. “Progressive” means the disease gets worse over time. COPD can cause coughing that produces large amounts of mucus (a slimy substance), wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other symptoms. Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of COPD. Most people who have COPD smoke or used to smoke. Long-term exposure to other lung irritants, such as air pollution, chemical fumes, or dust, also may contribute to COPD. A study was conducted in the United Kingdom to determine if there is a difference in the effectiveness of community-based rehabilitation program compared to hospital-based rehabilitation. Because hospital-based rehabilitation tends to be more expensive, the researchers wanted to assess if there is a significant difference in the patients’ improvement under the two programs. If not, then it makes sense to refer patients to the less expensive treatment option. Patients suffering from COPD were randomly assigned to either the community or hospital group. Twice a week for six weeks, they participated in two-hour educational and exercise sessions. Patients were also encouraged to exercise between sessions. The effectiveness of the program was measured based on the total distance patients could walk at one time at a particular pace. This is called the endurance shuttle walking test (ESWT). This was measured at the beginning of the study and again at the end of the six-week rehabilitation period. Negative values indicate that the distance decreased. |
| May 2, 2024 | Movies | A large dataset containing movies. There are some unknown columns, but some may potentially be of interest. |
| May 2, 2024 | Singer Heights | The heights of singers by their group (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass) |
| May 2, 2024 | Soccer Shoes | Nike, a company that makes sporting goods including shoes, funded a study to compare five soccer shoe designs. The objective of the research was to assess if footwear could affect the accuracy of a soccer player. The researchers asked trained soccer players to kick a ball at a target. The target was placed 115 cm above the ground and at a distance of 10 m from the players. Using electronic equipment, the researchers recorded the distance from the center of the target to the point where the ball hit. The subjects wore five different soccer shoes, and for one treatment they kicked the ball in stocking feet. Due to the proprietary nature of the data, the shoes are only labeled “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” and “E” in the article. |
| May 2, 2024 | Soviet Accidents | Dr. Wm. Robert Johnston compiled a list of nuclear accidents on Soviet submarines that caused acute radiation casualties, together with information such as how many deaths occurred. This dataset is aggregated, but interesting. |
| May 2, 2024 | Speed of Light by Michelson 1879 | In 1879, Albert Abraham Michelson, an American physicist, published several observations of the speed of light in air. This was early in his quest to measure the speed of light accurately. The speed of light in a vacuum is currently defined as 299 792 458 meters per second. The speed of light through air is about 90 000 meters per second slower. Michelson used some improvised equipment to collect this data set. |
| May 2, 2024 | Speed of Light by Michelson 1882 | A single-column dataframe of Michelson’s speed of light measurements in 1882. Compare this dataset to the one he recorded in 1879. |
| May 2, 2024 | Superbowl Movies | Revenue of films and whether or not they were advertised during the Superbowl or not |
| May 2, 2024 | Twins Diabetes | A group of researchers studied the heights of youths diagnosed with type I diabetes. They wanted to see how diabetes affected height. The researchers compared identical twins, where one twin manifests the disease and the other twin does not. The researchers recorded the heights of the juveniles at the time one of them was diagnosed with type I diabetes. |
| May 2, 2024 | Vertebral Heights | When an x-ray or lateral radiograph of the spine is taken, it is not immediately clear whether a vertebra is fractured. Experts may disagree on their interpretations, and in order for the dimensions of the vertebrae to be used, they need a standard against which they can be compared. A group of researchers wanted to try a new approach to define what this standard of normal vertebral dimensions could be. Using lateral spinal radiographs, the heights of the vertebrae of 2992 women between the ages of 65 and 70 were recorded. Anterior, middle, and posterior measurements were taken. The data in the file represent the middle measurements. All the vertebrae were measured, but only the data on the T4 vertebra are represented. Note: Due to SPSS student version limitations, a random sample of 1000 values (rather than 2992) was selected). |
| May 2, 2024 | World Cup Heart Attacks | Count of heart attacks during world cup and not during world cup |
| May 2, 2024 | Wrong Site, Wrong Patient | On rare occasions, a medical procedure is performed on the wrong body part of the body or on the wrong patient. These are called wrong-site and wrong-patient mistakes. Such errors occur hundreds of times each year across the country. It is not always required to report these mistakes, so not every instance is counted. In a small percentage of these cases, the patient files a lawsuit against the hospital. The medical community is trying to eliminate these errors but have had difficulty reducing their frequency. Philip Stahel et al. conducted a study on these mistakes and the lawsuits that follow. Costs to hospitals resulting from wrong-site and wrong-patient lawsuits were collected. |
| May 2, 2024 | Zinc for Colds | Note that this dataset was extracted from a figure in a report. As a possible treatment for common colds, we tested zinc gluconate lozenges in a double-blind, placebo controlled, clinical trial. One 23-mg zinc lozenge or matched placebo was dissolved in the mouth every 2 wakeful hours after an initial double dose. |
| May 1, 2024 | NASDAQ Price and Volume | Price and volume of NASDAQ shares |
| May 1, 2024 | NBA Players | A large dataset of NBA players that spans decades. It has some useful columns and a slew of weird columns of unknown purpose. |
| May 1, 2024 | Nicotine Test | Cigarette labels warn pregnant women against smoking. Does nicotine actually reach the fetus, crossing the protective placental barrier? Researchers selected consecutive pregnant women delivering at an Egyptian hospital and categorized them as 1) either active smoker 2) passive smokers or 3) nonsmokers. They then analyzed the newborns’ meconium for cotinine content, the metabolized form of nicotine. Meconium is a newborn’s first stool right after birth, composed of materials ingested by the fetus in utero, and is a good biological marker for fetal exposure to drugs or other chemical agents. Researchers want to know if the mean levels of cotinine in the meconium are different fromnewborns of mothers between the three groups listed above. |
| May 1, 2024 | Nosocomial Infections | Data representing the total number of days patients were hospitalized. Patients were matched based on having a similar condition and other physical characteristics. The data gives the number of days each patient spent in the hospital. Infected = patient had a nosocomial infection. NotInfected = patient did not have a nosocomial infection. |
| May 1, 2024 | Old Faithful | Waiting time between eruptions and the duration of the eruption for the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA. Researchers observed 272 eruptions of this geyser. The researchers recorded the duration of each eruption (in minutes) and the waiting time until the next eruption (in minutes). |
| May 1, 2024 | Double Stuf Oreos | A group of statistics students wanted to test the claim that Double Stuf Oreo cookies have twice as much filling (“Stuf”) as the traditional Oreo cookies. The students purchased traditional and Double Stuf Oreo cookies from local grocery stores. The students were separated into traditional and Double Stuf groups based on their last names. Each student chose a cookie from their group’s package. They carefully scraped the white filling from the cookies and weighed it to the nearest tenth of a gram on small balance scales. |
| May 1, 2024 | Patient Satisfaction: Doctor vs. Nurse | 1033 patients with no regular health care provider were randomly assigned to receive treatment from either a doctor or a nurse practitioner for primary and follow-up care after an emergency room or urgent care facility visit. Patients were interviewed 6 months later to assess their overall level of satisfaction with the care they had received. There were 389 patients assigned to see a doctor and 644 patients assigned to see a nurse practitioner. The satisfaction scores are based on a 5-point scale, where 5 is the most positive responses. The variable “Group” indicates whether a patient was assigned to see a doctor (Group = 1) or Nurse (Group = 2). The variable “Satisfaction” gives the satisfaction scores reported by the patients. Is there a difference in the mean satisfaction rating given by patients treated by doctors versus nurse practioners? |
| May 1, 2024 | Pine Beetle | These data represent observed counts of the number of lodgepole pines per hectare in tree stands before and seven years after a mountain pine beetle outbreak. |
| May 1, 2024 | Protein Requirement Campbell | The protein requirement of an individual is the amount of protein they must consume daily to stay in equilibrium. This number varies from individual to individual. Nutritionists often give the protein requirement in terms of grams of good quality protein per kilogram of body weight per day (g P * kg-1 * d-1). It is very difficult and expensive to measure the protein requirement in humans, but research into this area is very important. For example, how much protein should you give to a patient in a health care facility who must be fed enterally (i.e., through a feeding tube)? There are several ways in which nutritionists have tried to measure the protein requirement. Traditionally, they have used a method called Nitrogen Balance. In a nitrogen balance experiment, researchers provide a carefully controlled diet containing prescribed amounts of protein to each subject for an extended period of time. They then collect data on the amount of protein utilized by the body. This includes collecting and analyzing samples of urine, feces, blood, sweat, tears, exfoliated skin, etc. Most researchers collect urine and fecal samples and estimate other losses. The protein requirement is estimated as the level of intake required so that the amount of protein consumed is exactly equal to the losses. Because of the difficulty of measuring protein losses, and since protein is essentially the only source for dietary nitrogen, nitrogen is used as a marker for protein. A nitrogen balance experiment was conducted to determine if there is a difference in the mean protein requirement of individuals in four groups: 1. Old men (age 63-81) 2. Old women (age 63-81) 3. Young men (age 21-46) 4. Young women (age 21-46) Subjects were provided with a controlled diet for three months and were required to comply with study protocol. The data set gives the measured protein requirements for each of the subjects. |
| May 1, 2024 | Reading Practice | These data represent the number of days each week that children with developmental problems (the DEV group) and children without developmental problems (the GEN group) participate in reading at home. Data based on Table 3 in the following article: Arlene M. Butz, Michael Crocetti, Richard E. Thompson, and Paul H. Lipkin. Promoting reading in children: Do reading practices differ in children with developmental problems? |
| May 1, 2024 | REE Classical Music | Obesity is a growing problem worldwide. Many scientists are seeking creative solutions to trim down this epidemic. Reduced energy expenditure is a potential cause of obesity. Resting energy expenditure (REE) is defined as the amount of energy a person would use if resting for 24 hours. In essence, this is the amount of energy that a person’s body will consume if they do not do any physical activity. REE is measured in terms of kilojoules per day (kJ/d). REE accounts for approximately 70 to 80% of all energy that a person will expend in a day. If researchers can find simple, enjoyable activities that will increase REE, it may be possible to minimize the spread of obesity around the world. Ebba Carlsson and other researchers in Sweden investigated the effect of listening to stressful classical music on a person’s REE. The REE was measured by indirect calorimetry using the Deltatrac II Metabolic Monitor. Each subject’s REE was measured during silence and again while listening to stressful classical music. The “stressful” classical music included: Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4 : Prestissimo, con sordino Igor Stravinsky’s “Infernal Dance of all Kashchei’s Subjects” from The Firebird Hans Werner Henze’s “Dies Irae,” second movement from Requiem: Nine Sacred Concertos for Piano, Trumpet Concertante and Chamber Orchestra Dataset consists of simulated data matching reported summary statistics. |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Mahon | A group of researchers including Annie Mahon investigated the weight loss of middle-aged women when they followed a reduced-calorie diet for 9 weeks. The weights of the women were measured in kilograms at the beginning of the study and again at the end. |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Hot Dog Health | Researchers for Consumer Reports wanted to determine how nutritional content varied between different types of hot dogs. They conducted a laboratory analysis of three types: (beef, poultry, and meat (mostly pork and beef with up to 15% poultry). |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Hubble’s Constant: Supernovas | Recession velocity and distance for 36 supernovas were recorded using the Hubble Space Telescope. |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Illinois Birth Weights | The birth weights of babies in Illinois were taken, grouped by race and origin of the mother. |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Insulin Resistance, Depression | This dataset is simulated matching reported summary statistics. Type II diabetes is a medical condition involving insulin resistance. Insulin resistance means that the insulin in a person’s body is less effective at lowering blood sugars than it should be. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) is a screening test for depression. It involves 20 questions about how a person has felt in the last week, and its scores range from 0 to 60, where higher values indicate more depressive symptoms. A group of researchers wanted to investigate how insulin resistance may relate to depression. The subjects were classified into these three groups by the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test: Normal Glucose Tolerance (NGT) Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT) Type II Diabetes Each subject took the CES-D test, and their scores were recorded. |
| Apr 30, 2024 | JSE Hats | The dimensions of various hats |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Lead Exposure and Behavior | Researchers investigated whether exposure to lead affected the behavior in poor children between the ages of 1 and 3 years old. The researchers measured the blood lead level of each child in the study. Children with blood lead levels between 0 and 0.48 µmol/L were classified as “Nonexposed,” and those with lead levels between 0.48 and 1.20 µmol/L were classified as “Exposed.” Other researchers gave the children a behavior assessment, called the Behavior Rating Scale (BRS). The scores on the BRS are percentiles. Higher numbers are more desirable, since they indicate fewer problematic behaviors. |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Manatees | Manatees are curious, peaceful sea creatures that like to sun themselves just below the ocean’s surface. Sadly, this puts them in direct contact with powerboat propellers. This has been a serious problem off the coast of Florida for many years. The number of Florida powerboat registrations and the number of manatees killed by powerboats were recorded for the years 1977-2006. |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Math Self Efficacy | Shane Goodwin and other researchers studied factors that affect a student’s confidence on a multiple-choice Mathematics exam. A group of n = 139 students in an Intermediate Algebra course at BYU-Idaho participated in the study. The exam consisted of 30 multiple-choice problems worth a total of 100 points. The students’ scores out of 100 points are given in the variable “Scores.” For each test question, the students evaluated their confidence in their response on a scale of 1 to 6. Confidence Rating Scale: 1 - Random guess (no clue) 2 - Very unsure 3 - Somewhat unsure 4 - Somewhat sure 5 - Very sure 6 - Certain (absolutely sure) Confidence ratings were not relayed to the instructor, and they did not affect the grade on the exam. The mean confidence rating marked by each student is given in the variable “ConfidenceRatingMean.” |
| Apr 30, 2024 | Music Height (Long) | The heights of singers in various sections (Alto, Bass, Soprano, Tenor) |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Diving Elephant Seals | Researchers Jessica U. Meir and Paul J. Ponganis measured the body temperatures of a sample of diving elephant seals. A thermistor was placed at a specific location on each seal to measure its body temperature. They showed that the body temperature of seals tends to decrease as they dive. The researchers estimated the typical body temperature of each seal at the time they initiate a dive and called this the ‘representative temperature’ of the seal. The researchers deployed each seal and took measurements on body temperature as well as diving depth and duration. Masses, dive counts, and deployment durations were also recorded. |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Vietnam War Draft | An aggregated dataset that totals the amount of people drafted for the Vietnam War over time |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Estuarine Crocodiles | Head and Body length of estuarine crocodiles These data were collected in order to estimate the length of the Sarcosuchus imperator, nicknamed “SuperCroc.” Sarcosuchus is a large creature that lived about 112 million years ago. It seems to resemble modern crocodiles, even though it is currently believed that Sarcosuchus is not an ancestor of extant crocodiles. A complete skeleton of Sarcosuchus has not yet been discovered, but a remarkably complete skull and other bones from a large specimen of this species were found in Niger, Africa. These fossils are in the collections of the Musée National du Niger (MNN). This is the largest verified Sarcosuchus skull. Unfortunately, many of the tail bones have not been recovered, making a positive determination of the length of Sarcosuchus impossible. Because the skull length of Sarchosuchus is known, the researchers wanted to use the head-to-body length ratios of modern crocodiles to estimate the body length of Sarcosuchus. The skull shape is similar to Gavialis gangeticus and Crocodylus porosus, so those species were used for estimation. Additional Information: 96-minute National Geographic SuperCroc video can be found at snagfilms.com: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/supercroc/ or at AOL Video: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/supercroc/36028815056645860 Bones are illustrated at http://www.supercroc.org/supercroc/anatomy.htm Original article can be accessed here: https://adam.byui.edu/cgi-bin/remoteauth-byui.pl?url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5546/151 For PDF format: https://adam.byui.edu/cgi-bin/remoteauth-byui.pl?url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/294/5546/1516.pdf |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Euro Weight | The weight of 2,000 euro coins, measured in laboratory conditions. Researcher Herman Callaert (Hasselt University, Belgium) suggested that the weights of Euro coins might not be as normally distributed as one would think. The introduction of the Euro had a significant impact on the people of Belgium, and educators wanted more real data, so these data were collected to use in schools. |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Forced Expiratory Volume | Forced expiratory volume is the amount of air a person can exhale during a forced breath. This dataset includes the forced expiratory volume of various youths under 20 years of age. Bear in mind that the age of the younger children throw off some analysis if not taken into account. |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Freshman Dinner | The number of times freshman students from Colorado and Utah cooked their own dinner in a month |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Gharial Crocodiles | Head and Body length of gharial crocodiles. These data were collected in order to estimate the length of the Sarcosuchus imperator, nicknamed ‘SuperCroc.’ Sarcosuchus is a large creature that lived about 112 million years ago. It seems to resemble modern crocodiles, even though it is currently believed that Sarcosuchus is not an ancestor of extant crocodiles. A complete skeleton of Sarcosuchus has not yet been discovered, but a remarkably complete skull and other bones from a large specimen of this species were found in Niger, Africa. These fossils are in the collections of the Musée National du Niger (MNN). This is the largest verified Sarcosuchus skull. Unfortunately, many of the tail bones have not been recovered, making a positive determination of the length of Sarcosuchus impossible. Because the skull length of Sarchosuchus is known, the researchers wanted to use the head-to-body length ratios of modern crocodiles to estimate the body length of Sarcosuchus. The skull shape is similar to Gavialis gangeticus and Crocodylus porosus, so those species were used for estimation. Additional Information: 96-minute National Geographic SuperCroc video can be found at snagfilms.com: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/supercroc/ or at AOL Video: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/supercroc/36028815056645860 Bones are illustrated at http://www.supercroc.org/supercroc/anatomy.htm Original article can be accessed here: https://adam.byui.edu/cgi-bin/remoteauth-byui.pl?url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5546/151 For PDF format: https://adam.byui.edu/cgi-bin/remoteauth-byui.pl?url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/294/5546/1516.pdf |
| Apr 29, 2024 | BYUI GPAs | The GPAs of various BYUI students |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Gratitude | In a study, people were asked to journal on either things they were grateful for, hassles, or events. They were given a happiness score based on a survey. In 2003 Professors Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough scientifically ‘examine[d] the influence of grateful thinking on psychological well-being in daily life.’ The researchers wanted to know if being grateful would cause a difference in perceptions of life as a whole. The researchers randomly assigned 192 undergraduate participants into three experimental groups. Each student was asked to complete a weekly journal in which they recorded five specific things and then answered some questions about their feelings about life in general. The groups were as follows: Group 1 (Gratitude): The participants in this group were asked to record five things each week for which they were grateful or thankful. Group 2 (Hassles): The volunteers in this group recorded five irritants that had occurred to them in the previous week. Group 3 (Events—Control group): The people in the events group recorded five things that occurred in the past week that had an impact on them. |
| Apr 29, 2024 | Madison County Real Estate | Note that these data are from 2010, and no longer relevant unless you’re interested in ancient history. Real estate prices are very variable, and they depend on a variety of factors. To analyze some of the effects different attributes of houses may have on the price, these data were collected. A search for homes in Madison County on snakerivermls.com was conducted, and the data were recorded. |
| Apr 27, 2024 | DART Expert DOW 6-month ANOVA | Percent return of the 3 stock picking options (DARTS, DJIA, PROS) |
| Apr 27, 2024 | DASL Cheese | As cheese ages, various chemical processes take place that determine the taste of the final product. Concentrations of various chemicals were measured in 30 samples of mature cheddar cheese, and a subjective measure of taste from several tasters was recorded for each sample. |
| Apr 27, 2024 | DASL Helium Football | Researchers at Ohio State University wanted to determine whether a football filled with helium would fly further than an identical football filled with normal air. The experimenters went to the athletic complex at the university with a novice punter and the two footballs on a windless day. The kicker did not know which football contained helium. The kicker kicked each football 39 times, alternating footballs each time. None of the kicks were thrown out, so there may have been flubbed kicks. |
| Apr 27, 2024 | DASL Hot Dog Nutrition | Calorie and sodium contents of different types of hot dogs |
| Apr 27, 2024 | DASL Stepping | In 1993, students at Ohio State University wanted to determine how heart rate was affected by various stepping exercises. They wanted to consider the relationship between heart rate and stepping frequency as well as the height of the step. They used two step heights and three stepping frequencies, yielding six possible combinations. Subjects and experimenters were split into six groups, referred to as blocks. Two experimenters measured the same subject for the entire test. Each block performed five of the six possible tests. Each exercise lasted 3 minutes. Heart rate was counted by one experimenter for 20 seconds before and after the trial. The subjects rested between each trial to recover their resting heart rates. Pace was kept by synchronizing with an electric metronome. |
| Apr 27, 2024 | DASL Student | In his landmark paper on the t-distribution, William S. Gosset referenced data on the number of additional hours of sleep patients obtained by using the drug laevohysocyamine hydrobromide. If the drug is not effective, then the mean number of addition hours of sleep should be zero. |
| Apr 27, 2024 | DASL Taste Test Scores | In testing food products for palatability, General Foods employed a 7-point scale from -3 (terrible) to +3 (excellent) with 0 representing “average”. Their standard method for testing palatability was to conduct a taste test with 50 persons - 25 men and 25 women. The experiment reported here involved the effects on palatability of a course versus fine screen and of a low versus high concentration of a liquid component. Four groups of 50 consumers each were recruited from local churches and club groups. Persons were assigned randomly to the four treatment groups as they were recruited. The experiment was replicated four times, so that there were 16 groups of 50 consumers each in the entire experiment. |
| Apr 27, 2024 | DASL Waste Run Up | The Levi-Strauss clothing manufacture plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico gets its cloth supplies from other supplying plants. These data were collected in order to determine whether there was a difference in waste management between five supplier plants. The quality control department collects data weekly on percentage waste (run-up). These values are relative to what computer pattern layouts would achieve. Negative values indicate that the employees did better than the computer at minimizing waste. |
| Apr 26, 2024 | Comet Water Production and Magnitude | A comet is a small icy object which orbits the sun. As a comet approaches the sun, water and other particles thaw and detach from the comet. This forms a small temporary atmosphere called a coma, and in some cases, a tail. WaterProduction is a measure of the amount of water that the comet is releasing. It is measured in terms of Log[Q(H2O)]. Higher values indicate that more water is being released. The “Magnitude” of a comet is a measure of how bright it is appears to be. The magnitude depends on several factors, including the distance to the comet. The magnitude reported here is the negative of the “heliocentric” magnitude, or the magnitude of the comet as viewed from the location of the Sun. Magnitude is measured as the negative logarithm of brightness. The AdjustedMagnitude is the negative of the magnitude, so brighter comets have higher positive values. Important Note: Magnitude is measured on a negative logarithmic scale! This means that comets that are very bright have a low value for their magnitude. Faint comets have a high magnitude value. The magnitude data have been adjusted by recording the negative of the magnitude. |
| Apr 26, 2024 | Conjugated Linoleic Acid | Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is found in milk fat from cows. It has recently been discovered that CLA has several health-promoting characteristics, including cancer risk reduction. The principal chemical form in which CLA is found in the milk fat is the “cis-9, trans-11” CLA. Researchers in Alberta, Canada wanted to know if supplementing the diet of cattle with monensin, safflower oil, or both would affect the amount of CLA in the milk fat (measured in percent). Seven cattle were randomly assigned to each diet (including a control group). |
| Apr 26, 2024 | Cuckoo Eggs | The size of eggs that cuckoos lay in the nests of other species |
| Apr 25, 2024 | Body Temperature | Data on body temperature extracted from a figure. Note that this data is representative. |
| Apr 25, 2024 | Bone Mineral Density | Kudzu is a plant that was imported to the United States from Japan and now covers over seven million acres in the South. The plant contains chemicals called isoflavones that have been shown to have beneficial effects on bones. One study used three groups of rats to compare a control group with rats that were fed either a low dose or a high dose of isoflavones from kudzu. One of the outcomes examined was the bone mineral density in the femur (in grams per square centimeter). Researchers would like to test if the mean bone mineral density is different for the three different groups. |
| Apr 25, 2024 | Book of Mormon Wordprint | For several years, researchers have used statistics to try to determine the author of a disputed literary work. These techniques have been applied to the Federalist Papers, disputed Shakespearean plays, and other works including the Book of Mormon. These methods are commonly called wordprinting or stylometry. One technique used in wordprint analysis is to count the frequency with which an author uses non-contextual words. These are words that do not convey meaning but connect the ideas into sentences. It is postulated that an author who is trying to forge a work would not be able to control their subconscious use of these words. So, if Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, we should expect to see his “wordprint” throughout the text, and the frequency of use of non-contextual words is one way to observe this. The most common non-contextual words used in The Book of Mormon are “and,” “of,” “that,” “the,” “to,” and “unto.” Blocks of text were taken from 2 Nephi 4 (Nephi, son of Lehi), Enos 1 (Enos, son of Jacob), 3 Nephi 15 (Jesus Christ), Moroni 9 (Mormon, son of Mormon), and Moroni 10 (Moroni, son of Mormon) |
| Apr 25, 2024 | Movie Revenue | The budget and worldwide revenue of movies released from 1991 to 2015 |
| Apr 25, 2024 | Cause of Death | Researchers used forensic autopsy results to assess the causes of death in several malnourished people in Japan. The ultimate goal of the research is to reduce premature death in this vulnerable population. People were identified as malnourished if their body mass index (BMI) was less than 16. |
| Apr 25, 2024 | Chiropractors | The reasons people go to chiropractors in Europe, Australia, and the United States |
| Apr 22, 2024 | Body Measurements | Estimating percentage of body fat is one method by which the health of a person is assessed. To measure it accurately is often inconvenient or costly (finding density involves underwater weighing), so methods of estimation have been derived using more conveniently obtained measurements. The densities of 252 men were measured, and from that, their percent body fat was determined. Many other body measurements were also taken for comparison and estimation. |
| Mar 16, 2024 | Batting Averages | Athletes’ statistics such as the batting average of a baseball player are regularly publicized and are a topic of discussion among sports enthusiasts. The batting average is computed by dividing the number of successful hits by the number of times the player has been at bat. A “time at bat” is every time the player leaves the home base after receiving pitches, but some exceptions apply. The batting averages of 446 baseball players were downloaded from Sean Lahman’s Baseball Archive at baseball1.com. |
| Mar 13, 2024 | AM/PM Heights | Researcher Peter Stothart noted that “We have known for well over a century that people are taller in the morning, shrink progressively through the day and recover their height overnight while sleeping.” These data can be used to check the validity of that claim. The heights of n = 41 children in a boarding school in India were measured. Values were recorded in mm for each child in the morning and again in the evening. |
| Mar 13, 2024 | Apollo Missions | During the 1960s and early 1970s, the United States was in a race to explore the moon. Seven missions (Apollo 11 through Apollo 17) were launched in an attempt to reach the lunar surface. Each of these successfully landed on the moon, with the exception of Apollo 13. The lunar landing of Apollo 13 was aborted due to a failure of cryogenic oxygen tank 2. Miraculously, all three astronauts returned safely to Earth. Data was collected from records that were recorded for each mission. |
| Mar 13, 2024 | Baby Boom | The Mater Mothers’ Hospital is a busy hospital in Brisbane, Australia. The birth weights and times of all children born on December 18, 1997 in this hospital were recorded. |
| Mar 13, 2024 | BLEU Scores | Computer software is commonly used to translate text from one language to another. As part of his Ph.D. thesis, Philipp Koehn developed a phrase-based translation program called Pharaoh. A good translation system should match a professional human translation. It is important to be able to quantify how good the translations produced by Pharaoh are. The IBM T. J. Watson Research Center developed methods to measure the quality of a translation. One of these is the BiLingual Evaluation Understudy (BLEU). BLEU scores indicate how well a computer translation matches a professional human translation of the same text. BLEU helps companies who develop translation software “to monitor the effect of daily changes to their systems in order to weed out bad ideas from good ideas.” BLEU scores range from 0 to 1, with higher scores corresponding to better translations. To test Pharaoh’s ability to translate, Koehn took 100 blocks of Spanish text, each of which contained 300 sentences, and used Pharaoh to translate each to English. The BLEU score was calculated for each of the 100 blocks. |
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