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UCLA Statistics, Neurology, LONI

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STAT 13	*Introduction to Statistical Methods for the Life and Health Science*
Department of Statistics	Instructor: Ivo Dinov
Homework 8 (Term Research Paper)	Due Date: 12PM on Friday, Mar. 18, 2011

See the HW submission rules. Submit by 12PM in MS 8125 (leave with Jason Mesa). On the front page include the following header.

(HW_8) This is a creative paper project that will demonstrate your thinking about carrying out a real scientific study. You have to gather, analyze and present the data, the results and the conclusions that follow from your study. It is completely up to you to come up with an interesting project that you need to submit it by the deadline. Here are the basic requirements your project must satisfy:

Please submit your project nicely typeset, including text/tables/graphs, in the form according to our HW assignment policies. No hand-written reports will be accepted.
Examples of projects (this is not an exclusive list):

Investigate the change of the level of various disinfectants, by-products, contaminants, chemicals, micro-organisms, pesticides, radioactive contaminants or other substances which may be added or naturally occurring in H₂O, across the years (say 1997-2011) in our tap drinking water.
Study the dynamics of the human populations for the past 100 years. Make predictions for the future.
Analyze the prevalence or gender preference of one particular type of cancer.
Study the effects of over fishing.
Crime rates, geographic distributions and severity.
Education changes in the past decade.
Stock market volatility.

Examples of online resources containing interesting data:

SOCR Wiki Data Resource http://wiki.stat.ucla.edu/socr/index.php/SOCR_Data
US EPA http://www.epa.gov/safewater/databases/index.html
Human Development Reports http://hdr.undp.org/en/
National Center for Health Statistics http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/express.htm
Washington State Department of Health http://www.doh.wa.gov/Data/data.htm
Commercial Fisheries http://www.st.nmfs.gov/st1/commercial/landings/annual_landings.html
UCLA Statistics Department Data Archive: http://www.stat.ucla.edu/data/
US Education data http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/
US Census Bureau (econ, population, geographic, health data) http://www.census.gov/
Stock Market http://www.londonstockexchange.com/statistics/markets/markets.htm
Bureau of Justice Statistics http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/
Statistics Resources Online http://www.lesley.edu/library/guides/research/statistics.html
USA Federal Government Data http://www.data.gov
Google Public Datasets http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

Format: Include the regular HW project cover page. Start with a one paragraph abstract, followed by an intro/background of the problem, methods, results, discussion/conclusion and acknowledgments, references, in that order. Clearly state the problem you have chosen to investigate. List the resources you used to come up with the project and reference all sources you used to complete the project.

Clearly state your hypotheses, prior to interrogating the data.
Use statistical techniques from the list of techniques we have discussed in Stats 13 (e.g., normal approximation, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, linear regression, analysis of variance, goodness-of-fit, etc.) to convey whether or not there is statistical evidence in support of your original hypotheses.
Explicitly state your approach to answer your research hypotheses. Write all formulas/tests/statistics you need.
Interpret your statistical (numerical) results in a lay back language. Write conclusions and discussions at the end of your report and acknowledge outside help. Describe how this project can be extended in the future.
One or two people can work on a project as a team. If two people work together both must have equally contributed for the completion and submit separate copies of the project, with their names on top (the names of both students should be on both papers). Needless to say expectations of team projects are higher.

Help and Examples:

The UCLA Undergraduate Science Journal provide many good writing examples.
The SOCR Publications also provide examples of research reports.
UCLA Writing Program.
UCLA Graduate Writing Center.

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