HARARE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENTS:
Pharmaceutical Technology/ Food Processing Technology/Biotechnology

Bachelor of Pharmacy honours degree: Part I

Bachelor of Food Processing Technology: Part II
Bachelor of Biotechnology: Part II

Biostatistics Examination: SPT113

Date: November 2013 Time: 3 hours

INTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

(a) This examination question paper consists of five (5) printed pages (including the cover
page) and has two sections (A and B).

(b) Answer ALL questions in Section A and any THREE questions from Section B.

(c) Section A carries 40 marks while Section B carries 60 marks.

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SECTION A (40 marks)

Candidates may attempt ALL questions being careful to number them A1 to A4.

A1. (a) Define the following terms:

(i) Experiment. [2]
(ii) Mutually exclusive events. [2]
(iii) Independent events. [2]
(b) The number of students arriving at the library every 10 minutes is 5. Given
that the number of arrivals are Poisson distributed with parameter λ, find the
probability that;
(i) No student arrives in 30 minutes. [2]
(ii) At least 3 students arrive in 5 minutes. [4]

A2. Consider the following data on the daily quantities of milk produced (in litres) from a
dairy unit.

Quantity 20 − 29 30 − 39 40 − 49 50 − 59 60 − 69 70 − 79
Number of days 5 3 7 4 6 4

(a) Estimate the median of the data. [3]

(b) Find the variance and standard deviation of the data. [5]

A3. Describe the following sampling techniques.

(a) Stratified random sampling. [4]

(b) Cluster sampling. [4]
(c) Systematic sampling. [4]

A4. A new drug is being compared to an existing one for its effectiveness in curing a disease.
80 subjects which displayed symptoms of this disease are randomly assigned to group
1: existing drug, or group 2: new drug.

Existing drug New drug

n = 40 n = 40
X = 25 X = 35

Based on this data, is the proportion of subjects showing symptoms of recovery using
the new drug significantly different from the proportion of subjects showing symptoms
of recovery using the existing drug? Use α = 0.05. [8]

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SECTION B (60 marks)

Candidates may attempt THREE questions being careful to number them B5 to B8.

B5. Changes in rat cerebral and extracerebral (platelet) serotonin (S-H) after intraperi-
toneal administration of LSD-25 and 1-methyl-d-lysergic acid butanolamide (UML)
were recorded by two researchers and measurements were taken on 8 controls. The
results are shown below:
Controls 340 340 356 386 388 402 402 471
LSD,0.5mg/kg 294 325 325 340 358
UML, 0.5mg/kg 263 309 340 357 394

Do these data provide sufficient evidence to indicate a difference among the three
groups? Use the Kruskal Wallis one way ANOVA, test at α = 0.05. [20]

B6. (a) The following data pertains to a regression experiment in which one independent
variable x is involved. Assume the model of the form yi = βxi + i , i = 1, 2 . . . , n.

x 0 3 5 2 7 9 11 8 5 14
y 0 10 12 6 16 13 23 17 14 31

(i) Fit the above model to the data. [2]

(ii) Construct an ANOVA table and test for the significance of regression. Use
α = 0.05. [7]
(iii) Construct a 95% confidence interval for β. [3]
(b) Using the data in (a) above, a simple linear regression model of the form
yi = β0 + β1 xi + i was assumed. Interpret the following output completely. [8]

Model Summary

Model R R Square Adjusted R Std.Error of the

Square estimate
1 0.954a 0.911 0.900 2.72202
a.Predictors: (Constant), X

ANOVAb
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
1 Regression 604.325 1 604.325 81.562 0.000a
Residual 59.275 8 7.409
Total 663.600 9
a.Predictors: (Constant), X
b.Dependent Variable: Y

Coefficients

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 Unstandardized Standardized 95%Confidence 


 Coefficients Coefficients interval for B 

 
 
 

 Model B Std.Error Beta t Sig. L.bound U.bound 

1 Constant 1.929 1.608 1.200 0.265 −1.780 5.638
 
 
 
 X 1.917 0.212 0.954 9.031 0.000 1.428 2.407 

B7. A certain fraction of antibiotics injected into the bloodstream are ”‘bound”’ to serum
proteins. In one recent study, determinations were made of the binding percentages
characteristic of five widely used antibiotics. Bovine serum was used in each instance,
but the results are comparative to what could be expected in human serum.

Penicillin G Tetracycline Sterepto- Erythro- Chloram-

mycin mycin phenicol
29.6 27.3 5.8 21.6 29.2
24.3 32.6 6.2 17.4 32.8
28.5 30.8 11.0 18.3 25.0
32.0 34.8 8.3 19.0 24.2

(a) Test whether or not the true binding percentages for the five antibiotics are all
equal. Use α = 0.05. [12]
(b) Using the Scheffe procedure, compare the mean binding percentages for Tetracy-
cline and Stereptomycin. [8]

B8. (a) Prior to being randomised to one of two competing therapies, the severity of
participants’ migraines is clinically assessed. The following table displays the
severity classifications for patients assigned to the medical and non-traditional
therapies.

Severity Classification

Therapy minimal moderate severe Total

Medical 90 60 50 200
Non-traditional 50 60 90 200
Total 140 120 140 400

Is there a significant association between severity and assigned therapy? Use

α = 0.05. [10]
(b) Investigators want to use a self-reported measure of pain to evaluate the effective-
ness of a new medication designed to reduce post-operative pain. Before using
the measure, they examine its distributional properties in a sample of patients
recently undergoing knee surgery. Post procedure, each patient is asked to rate
pain on the following scale: no pain, minimal pain, some pain, moderate pain or
severe pain. The investigators hypothesize that the distribution of responses will

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be approximately normal, on the order of 1 to 2 to 4 to 2 to 1 across the response

categories. Use the following data to test the claim at a 5% level of significance.

Pain

None minimal Some Moderate Severe

Number of patients 15 25 46 36 18

[10]

END OF QUESTION PAPER

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