To: stormer
Within a standard deviation? There would be more credibility to your analysis if the data point was within two standard deviations. I' not a statistician but I believe one standard deviation has a 67% confidence interval and two standard deviations has a 95% confidence interval (science uses two standard deviations).
To: wfu_deacons
Given a normal distribution (bell curve), 67% of the sample will fall within 1 standard deviation of the mean, and 97% of the sample will fall within 2 standard deviations of the mean (if I recall). By comparing 2 sets of samples (e.g. 2 different locations, or two different date ranges), one can determine to what degree changes in the second can be explained by changes in the first, and the level of confidence that can be placed in that determination (you’re taking me back here). The Pearson Correlation (R-value) reflects that level. With 10 degrees of freedom (we have 11), the critical value of R needs to be < .576, assuming a P-value of .05 (very strong correlation); in comparing Aug 05 - Jul 06 with Aug 06 - Jul 07, the R-value is .218, indicating that variations between the two years in the number of deaths is statistically insignificant. In other words, there is no down trend other than the seasonally expected one. Whew - does that make sense?
83 posted on
08/02/2007 10:04:50 PM PDT by
stormer
To: wfu_deacons
Make that 68% +/- 1 SD and 95% +/- 2 SD.
86 posted on
08/03/2007 6:22:42 AM PDT by
stormer
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