Lecture 2: Displaying distributions

AR de Leon
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Calgary

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U of Calgary

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At least 1.75 billion reasons to go into statistics

Prof. Susan A. Murphy

Department of Statistics
University of Michigan

Every time we have figured out a new way to collect data, there is
an explosion in both the need for statisticians and great excitement
for what can be done with the data...We have all these new ways to
collect data via wearable sensors, the Internet, genetics, astronomy,
and more, and its creating all kinds of new problems for data
scientists to solve.
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U of Calgary

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Quantifying global international migration flows

Science, March 2014
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On measurement
Definition
We measure a property of a person or thing when we assign a number
to represent the property.
Some instrument is often used to make a measurement.
We can usually choose in what unit to record our measurements.

Definition
A variable is the numerical result of measurement; it takes different values
for people or things that differ in the property we are measuring.

Definition
A variable is a valid measure of a property if it is a relevant/appropriate
representation of that property.
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U of Calgary

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Histograms are not unique!

All 3 histograms are of the same data created with the same width 10
for the classes but with different lower class limits for the first class.
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U of Calgary

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Histogram examples

The right-hand histogram is right-skewed, suggesting that Shakespeares

plays contain many short words (up to six letters) and few very long words.
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U of Calgary

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Distribution of heights of OKCupid users

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U of Calgary

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Lies people tell in online dating (OKTrends, 2010)

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U of Calgary

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Males vs. females in OKCupid (Dataclysm, 2014)

Two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of
women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the
absolute best-rated females.

Women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than

medium.
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U of Calgary

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Its not always pretty!

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U of Calgary

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Outliers

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U of Calgary

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U of Calgary

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A histogram you may find personally interesting...

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U of Calgary

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Displays for categorical data

Bar charts of OKCupid users by categorical variables sex (male of
female) and by sexual orientation (straight, bisexual or gay).

A mosaic plot summarizing OKCupid

users by both sex and sexual
orientation.

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U of Calgary

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Practice exercises

Fall 2015

Exercise 1.36

Exercise 1.41

Exercise 1.38

Exercise 1.43

Exercise 1.39

Exercise 1.46

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