International Health Sciences

University
IHSU

Biostatistics Assignment 1

Lecturer: Mrs. Christine Atuhairwe

Student: Elyanu Patrick Ediku

Due Date: March 26th, 2018

1. A part of drug regulations; the National Drug Authority is testing for drowsiness as a side
effect of a drug, 100 patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups of 50; a group taking
the drug and a group taking the placebo. Then the number of people who fell asleep in the next
1 hour was recorded. The results are as follows:
Drug Placebo
Slept 18 12
Did not sleep 32 38

a) If a patient is chosen at randomly from the 100 patients, what is the probability that he or
she
slept in the following hour?(5marks)
b) Given that a randomly chosen patient was given a placebo, what is the probability that he or
she slept in the following hour?(5marks)
c) Given that a randomly chosen patient slept the following hour, what is the probability that he
or she was given the drug?(5marks)
d) If a patient is chosen at randomly from the 100 patients, what is the probability that he or
she did not sleep within the hour?(5marks)
e) Write a short report of your findings and recommendations to the national drug authority.
(5marks)

Solution
a).
Probability is the measure of the likelihood that an event will occur.
The number of patients who slept in the following hour is 18+12=30
If a patient is chosen randomly from the 100 patients, the probability that he or she slept in the
following hour is 30/100=0.3

b)
The total number of patients given a placebo is 12+38=50 and those who slept were 12. The
probability that a randomly chosen patient was given a placebo and he or she slept in the
following hour will be 12/50=0.24

c)
The number of patients who slept the following hour (sample space) is 18+12=40
The number of patients who were given a drug and slept are 18
Therefore, if randomly chosen patient slept the following hour, the probability that he or she
was given the drug is 18/40=0.45

d)
The number of patients did not sleep within the hour 32+38=70
If a patient is randomly chosen from the 100, the probability that he or she did not sleep within
the hour is 70/100=0.7
e)
Looking at the outcomes within two groups of patients, among those who received the drug
the probability of sleeping the next hour was 18/50=0.36. The probability of sleeping the next
hour among the Placebo group was 12/50=0.24.
The results shows that 36% of those it’s administered to get drowsy and 24% whom a placebo
was administered to. Therefore the use of the drug should be regulated and an alternative be
sought.

2 These are the number of pottery remains in sections of an archaeological site : 14, 17, 5, 12,
16, 8, 9, 7, 14, 16, 9, 10, 5, 18, 17, 17, 13, 8, 2, 15, 14, 6, 14, 9, 4, 16, 8, 17, 11, 8, 14, 9, 15, 14,
16, 5, 13, 12, 17, 17, 6, 15, 10
a) Construct a histogram of the distribution of the pottery remains. (20 marks)
b) Comment on the shape of the distribution (3 marks)
c) Was this the most appropriate methods to assess this data? (2 marks)

Solution
a)
Step1
Determine the number of classes using the guide 2^K>n where
n is the number of observations=43
K is the number of classes
2^6>43 and the range of the observations is 18-2=16. We divide the range by the number of
classes to get the class interval=16/6 which we round to 3
Using a class interval of 3 we create class intervals and tally the number of the pottery remains
into their respective class to get the frequency.
Step2
Compute the class midpoints by getting the average of the class intervals
Step3
Compute each class relative frequency by dividing the class frequency by the total frequency
and obtain results as shown in the table below

Class Class Relative

Interval Frequency Midpoint Frequency
2-4 2 3 0.05
5-7 6 6 0.14
8-10 10 9 0.23
11-13 5 12 0.12
14-16 13 15 0.30
17-19 7 18 0.16
Total 43 1.00
Step4
We now plot the by use of Microsoft excel 2013 I plot a histogram of relative frequency against
class midpoints and relative frequency. The histogram below is the result.

0.35 Histogram Plot of Pottery Remains

0.30

0.25
Relative Frequency

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00
3 6 9 12 15 18

Class Midpoints

b)
Looking at the shape of the histogram the shape of the distribution is skewed to the left. Using
the three measures of central tendency to describe the shapes,
 Skewed to the left (also called negatively skewed) have a longer left tail, mean and median
are to the left of the mode Mean and Median< Mode
 Skewed to the right (also called positively skewed) have a longer right tail, mean and
median are to the right of the mode. Mean and Median>Mode
From the dataset, mean=11.7 median=13 and mode=14 Therefore this also is in line with the
shape as plotted.
c)
This was the most appropriate way of using a combination of measures of central tendency
because mean a relatively reliable, when samples drawn from the same population as they don’t
vary as much as other measures of center and takes every data value into account.
The median is not affected by extreme value
3. The table below shows the frequency distribution of the masses of 52 female students at a
college.
Measurements have been recorded to the nearest kilogram
Mass (kg) 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74
Frequency 3 2 7 18 18 3 1

a) Construct a cumulative frequency table and draw a cumulative frequency curve (12 marks)
b) Estimate the relative frequency and cumulative relative frequency (10 marks)
c) Comment on the shape of the distribution (3 marks)

Solution
3a)
The Cumulative frequency distribution table
Mass (kg) 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74
Upper Class Boundary 44.5 49.5 54.5 59.5 64.5 69.5 74.5
Frequency 3 2 7 18 18 3 1
Cumulative Frequency 3 5 12 30 48 51 52

Cumulative Frequency Curve

60

51 52
50
48
Cumulative Frequency

40

30 30

20

12
10
5
3
0
Upper Class 44.5 49.5 54.5 59.5 64.5 69.5
Boundary
Mass (Kg)
3b)
The relative frequency and cumulative relative frequency table
Mass (kg) 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74
Class Midpoint 42 47 52 57 62 67 72
Frequency 3 2 7 18 18 3 1
Relative Frequency 0.06 0.04 0.13 0.35 0.35 0.06 0.02
Cumulative Relative Frequency 0.06 0.10 0.23 0.58 0.92 0.98 1.00

3c)
The shape of the distribution is bell shaped/ symetrical
4. Porcellini et al., studied 13 HIV positive patients who were treated with highly active
antiretro viral therapy (HAART) for at least 6 months. the CD4 T cell counts (X106/L) at
baseline for the13 subjects are listed below. Use the data provided to compute the following
230 205 313 207 227 245 173 58 103 181 105 301 169
a) the range
b) the variance
c) the standard deviation
d) the coefficient of variation
e) inter quartile range

Solution
4a)
From the dataset the minimum 58 and the maximum is 313 therefore the range is 313-58=255
T cell counts(X106/L)

4b)
The variance of sample denoted by s2 is

 (x – x)
s2 =
n–1

Where x is the sample mean and n is the sample size.

n=13
Our sample mean (x) =(230+205+313+207+227+245+173+58+103+181+105+301+169)/13
=2517/13
=193.6154 T cell counts(X106/L)

X (X-193.6) (X-193.6)^2
58 -135.6 18391.5
103 -90.6 8211.2
105 -88.6 7852.7
169 -24.6 605.9
173 -20.6 425.0
181 -12.6 159.1
205 11.4 129.6
207 13.4 179.1
227 33.4 1114.5
230 36.4 1323.8
245 51.4 2640.4
 301 107.4 11531.5
313 119.4 14252.7
Total=2517 0.0 Total=66817.1

s2=668174/12
=5568.09 T cell counts(X106/L)

c)
The standard deviation is the square root of variance.
S=√s2
=√5568.09
=74.6 T cell counts(X106/L)

d).
The coefficient of variation (CV) is the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean (average)
Therefore (CV)=74.6/193.6
CV=38.5%

4e)
The inter quartile range (IQR) is the difference between the values of the 75th (Q3) and the 25th
(Q1) percentile. When we sort our CD4 T cells results we get the array below

58 103 105 169 173 181 205 207 227 230 245 301 313

From the above array the median value is 205

The 25th percentile (Q1) is the median before the median value= (105+169)/2
Q1=137
The 75th percentile (Q3) is the median after the median value= (230+245)/2
Q3=237.5

IQR=237.5-137=100.5