Homework #6 BES 301 Autumn 2005

Reading Assignment:

• For Nov 14 and 16, read Valiela Ch 3: pp 49-55; and 59-75 (“skip error propagation”)
• For Wed, Nov 16, read the paper by Ioannidis on E-reserve for the class.
  
  

Take notes in your class journal. Be prepared to participate or take the lead in a class discussion on aspects of these readings.

Workgroup Written Assignment for Wed, Nov 23. (a single collaborative product for each workgroup)

Write a 1-3 page essay addressing the following question:

Consider the paper by Ioannidis. It is, of course, not expected that you will understand all of the arguments presented there. But, it is expected that you should be able to make some sense out of most of his arguments, relating them to what we have read about statistics and what you have learned elsewhere about them. After reading the paper, address each of the following in approximately a single paragraph: Corollary 1, Corollary 2; and Corollary 3. (found on 697-698 of the paper). In each case explain in your own words what is meant by the corollary and how the author has demonstrated it to be true. Use the concepts we have discussed in class, read in Valiela, and Ioannidis own arguments to explain these corollaries. It would be good when possible to express these ideas in terms of hypotheses testing, Type I and Type II errors, power of a test (1-b) the probability of type I error (a, p), etc.

At the end of the essay, I should be convinced that your group has grasped the main points in this paper, has a pretty good idea about why Ioannidis thinks they are true, and can explain what he means by those three Corollaries.

Procedure: A peer review section of the course web site will be set up for you. Each group is to use it to draft and revise this essay. You can also meet off-line, but I expect to find evidence on the peer review web site that you have worked as a group in assembling and revising this document.

The Peer Review assignment will be frozen before class on Wednesday, Nov 23. The assignment name is “Ioannidis Paper”

Research Assignment:

Your literature review source list (Assignment #3 of the research project) is due before class on Nov 21, Monday. Details of the assignment can be found in the assignment handout