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1 COURSE TIMETABLE
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
VADEMECUM OF STATISTICS 2011-12
Prof. M. Romanazzi
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Course Timetable
The course is taught in the second semester.
• third period: from january 30th, 2012 to march 10th,
• fourth period: from march 19th to may 5th.
The first class is on february 1st. The course schedule is given below (classroom in parentheses).
Class
Lab
Office Hours
Third Period
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
3 : 45 − 5 : 15 p. m. (10B)
8 : 45 − 10 : 15 a. m. (10B) 12 : 15 − 1 : 45 a. m.
8.45 − 10.15 a. m. (10B)
Fourth Period
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
8.45 − 10.15 a. m. (9B)
8.45 − 10.15 a. m. (9B)
8.45 − 10.15 a. m. (9B)
11 − 12 a. m.
11 − 12 a. m.
11 − 12 a. m.
11 − 12 a. m.
Laboratories (labs) are devoted to more practical topics: exercises, case studies and computer applications. I would recommend downloading the computer program R, freely available at http://www.r-project.org/.
During office hours students can obtain supplementary explanations on class topics, obtain support
to solve the exercises and check exercise solutions. No appointment is required. Please use e-mail
(romanaz@unive.it) judiciously, for assistance on very specific problems.
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Textbooks
The reference textbook is
Rice, John A., Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis, 3rd edition, Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2007.
For specific topics the following supplementary textbook will be used
Ross, Sheldon M., Introductory Statistics, 2nd edition, Elsevier Academic Press, 2005.
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Course Topics
Statistics deals with knowledge extraction from observational or experimental data. This process involves
three main activities, each one requiring specific tools.
Data exploration, representation and summarization (Ross, Ch. 1-3, Rice, Ch. 10)
• Sample surveys
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4 EXAM
• Frequency tables, stem-and-leaf and histograms
• Order statistics and quantiles, boxplot, ECDF
• Location and dispersion summaries
• Exploring relationships with scatter plots; linear correlation coefficient
Probabilistic modelling (Rice, Ch. 1-6)
• Probability
• Probability distributions of random numbers and expected values
• Limit theorems
• Distributions derived from the normal distribution
Generalization of the results and predictions (Rice, Ch. 7-10, Ch. 14)
• Survey sampling
• Parameter Estimation
• Testing hypotheses
• Summarizing data
• Regression models
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Exam
The exam is unique (no partial tests) and the participants are required to have already passed Mathematics.
The exam includes a written test (theoretical questions and practical exercises) and an oral discussion.
To pass the test it is necessary to have a score of 18 points or more (the total score is 30 points). The
oral discussion is obligatory when the written test score is between 18 and 21; in the other cases it is
optional.
The timetable of the exams is given below.
June - July 2012
September 2012
January - February 2012