Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg Summer semester 2018

Faculty of Mathematics
Prof. Dr. Rainer Schwabe
Dipl.-Math. oec. Christina Stöhr

Biological Statistics - Exercises

Sheet 2 - Discussion: 11.4. and 12.4.

Problem 3
During an expedition to the deserts of Western Australia n = 23 marsupial moles were
weighed.
Weight in g 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
Number of moles 2 1 3 5 4 2 4 2

Determine the sample mean, variance and the standard deviation.

Problem 4
For events A, B and C the following probabilities are known:
3 7
(i) P (A) = 10 (ii) P (B) = 20
6 1



(iii) P C = 10 (iv) P A ∩ C = 4
1 1
(v) P (A ∩ B) = 10
(vi) P (A ∩ B ∩ C) = 20
.

Find the probabilities of the following events:

(a) A ∪ B (b) A ∪ C
(c) A∩C (d) (A ∩ B) ∪ C.

Problem 5
Let X be the diastolic blood pressure of a randomly chosen person. Consider the
following events:
A = {X < 90}, B = {90 ≤ X < 95}.
Suppose that P (A) = 0.7 and P (B) = 0.1. Find P (X < 95) and P (X ≥ 90).

Problem 6
Suppose that two doctors A and B test all patients coming into a clinic for hypovit-
aminosis D. Consider the following events:
A+ = {Dr. A makes a positive diagnosis}, B + = {Dr. B makes a positive diagnosis}.
Suppose that P (A+ ) = 0.1, P (B + ) = 0.17 and P (A+ ∩ B + ) = 0.08.
Are events A+ and B + independent?

1
Problem 7
A laboratory test, which is designed to detect disease K, from which 10% percent of a
population suffer (prevalence, P(K)), is assumed to have the following effect: If a person
suffers from the disease K, the test will show a positive reaction with probability 0.98
(sensitivity, P(Test pos|K))); if a person does not suffer from the disease, the test will
show a negative reaction with probability 0.95 (specificity, P(Test neg|K)). Find the
probability that a randomly selected person from that population

(a) suffers from K, given a negative test result, i.e. P(K|Test neg),

(b) does not suffer from K, given a positive test result, i.e. P(K|Test pos).