Questions
Year   Commodities%   Services% 1960 0.9 3.4 1961   0.6 1.7 1962 0.9    2.0 1963 0.9 2.0...

Year   Commodities%   Services%
1960 0.9 3.4
1961   0.6 1.7
1962 0.9    2.0
1963 0.9 2.0
1964 1.2 2.0
1965 1.1 2.3
1966 2.6 3.8
1967 1.9 4.3
1968 3.5 5.2
1969 4.7 6.9
1970 4.5 8.0
1971 3.6 5.7
1972 3.0 3.8
1973 7.4 4.4
1974 11.9 9.2
1975 8.8 9.6
1976 4.3 8.3
1977 5.8 7.7
1978 7.2 8.6
1979 11.3 11.0
1980 12.3 15.4
1981 8.4 13.1
1982 4.1 9.0
1983 2.9 3.5
1984 3.4 5.2
1985   2.1 5.1
1986   -0.9 5.0
1987 3.2 4.2
1988 3.5 4.6
1989 4.7 4.9
1990 5.2 5.5
1991 3.1 5.1
1992 2.0 3.9
1993 1.9 3.9
1994 1.7 3.3
1995 1.9 3.4
1996 2.6 3.2
1997 1.4 3.0
1998 0.1 2.7
1999 1.8 2.5
2000 3.3 3.4
2001 1.0 4.1
2002 -0.7 3.1
2003 1.0 3.2
2004 2.3 2.9
2005 3.6 3.3
2006 2.4 3.8

Use Data Set J, U.S. annual Percent Inflation in Prices of Commodities and Services (n=47), on page 536 of your textbook to answer the following questions. Commodities percentage (Commodities %) is the independent, variable and Services percentage (Services%) is the dependent variable. Data are year-to-year percent changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in these two categories. The data file, Inflation, may be found on Canvas under Modules under Chapter 12 Textbook Data Files. Use MINITAB to obtain the simple regression equation, confidence interval, prediction interval, and required graphs. Insert tables and graphs in your report as appropriate. All interpretations should be in terms of the problem (data).

Use Minitab and produce the appropriate output to answer the following questions. Attach the output. Construct a scatter plot. Recalling what scatter plots are used for, write a couple of sentences addressing what you observed from the plot. Be sure to relate your observations to the purpose of using scatter plots in regression. (4 points)

Can we conclude that year-to-year changes in Commodities percentage (Commodities%) helps in predicting year-to year changes in Services percentage (Services%)? Follow and show the 7 steps for hypothesis testing. (12 points)

Find the sample regression equation and interpret the coefficients. Remember your interpretations should be in terms of the problem. (4 points)

Find the coefficient of determination, and interpret its value. (3 points)

Use residual analysis to check the validity of the model and fully explain your findings and conclusions. (6 points)

Estimate with 95% confidence the average year-to-year Services percentage for when all year-to-year Commodities change is 3.0%. Predict with 95% confidence the estimated Services percentage when an individual year’s Commodities change is 3.0%. Write at least one sentence using your confidence interval and at least one sentence using your prediction interval. (8 points)

Verify that the p-value for the F is the same as the slope’s t statistic’s p-value, and show that t2 = F. (3 points)

Attach or include relevant Minitab output to support your results in parts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6). (4 points)

In: Statistics and Probability

What is the difference between a debt/income ratio and a debt serving ratio? What impact on...

What is the difference between a debt/income ratio and a debt serving ratio? What impact on both measures did the monetary policy from the late 1990s to 2004 have?

In: Economics

The population data for a certain country are as follows:

The population data for a certain country are as follows:

Year 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Population (millions) 10 10.9 11.7 12.6 13.8 14.9

 

Obtain a function that describes these data. Plot the function and the data on the same plot. Estimate when the population will be double its 2004 size.

In: Mechanical Engineering

Here is another article for you to discuss. It's a little challenging, so you'll need to...

Here is another article for you to discuss. It's a little challenging, so you'll need to read it carefully. Post your reactions to this thread. What do you think the author is arguing here? Does he make good arguments? Why or why not? And do you agree with him?

New York Times
July 23, 2006
Conspiracy Theories 101
By STANLEY FISH
Kevin Barrett, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has now taken his place alongside Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado as a college teacher whose views on 9/11 have led politicians and ordinary citizens to demand that he be fired.
Mr. Barrett, who has a one-semester contract to teach a course titled “Islam: Religion and Culture,” acknowledged on a radio talk show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the American government. The predictable uproar ensued, and the equally predictable battle lines were drawn between those who disagree about what the doctrine of academic freedom does and does not allow.
Mr. Barrett’s critics argue that academic freedom has limits and should not be invoked to justify the dissemination of lies and fantasies. Mr. Barrett’s supporters (most of whom are not partisans of his conspiracy theory) insist that it is the very point of an academic institution to entertain all points of view, however unpopular. (This was the position taken by the university’s provost, Patrick Farrell, when he ruled on July 10 that Mr. Barrett would be retained: “We cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas to inhibit the free exchange of ideas.”)
Both sides get it wrong. The problem is that each assumes that academic freedom is about protecting the content of a professor’s speech; one side thinks that no content should be ruled out in advance; while the other would draw the line at propositions (like the denial of the Holocaust or the flatness of the world) considered by almost everyone to be crazy or dangerous.
But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis.
Academic freedom means that if I think that there may be an intellectual payoff to be had by turning an academic lens on material others consider trivial — golf tees, gourmet coffee, lingerie ads, convenience stores, street names, whatever — I should get a chance to try. If I manage to demonstrate to my peers and students that studying this material yields insights into matters of general intellectual interest, there is a new topic under the academic sun and a new subject for classroom discussion.
In short, whether something is an appropriate object of academic study is a matter not of its content — a crackpot theory may have had a history of influence that well rewards scholarly scrutiny — but of its availability to serious analysis. This point was missed by the author of a comment posted to the blog of a University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse: “When is the University of Wisconsin hiring a professor of astrology?” The question is obviously sarcastic; its intention is to equate the 9/11-inside-job theory with believing in the predictive power of astrology, and to imply that since the university wouldn’t think of hiring someone to teach the one, it should have known better than to hire someone to teach the other.
But the truth is that it would not be at all outlandish for a university to hire someone to teach astrology — not to profess astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making (shades of Nancy Reagan), but to teach the history of its very long career. There is, after all, a good argument for saying that Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dante, among others, cannot be fully understood unless one understands astrology.
The distinction I am making — between studying astrology and proselytizing for it — is crucial and can be generalized; it shows us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the political agenda it may be thought to imply.
And this is where we come back to Mr. Barrett, who, in addition to being a college lecturer, is a member of a group calling itself Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization with the decidedly political agenda of persuading Americans that the Bush administration “not only permitted 9/11 to happen but may even have orchestrated these events.”
Is the fact of this group’s growing presence on the Internet a reason for studying it in a course on 9/11? Sure. Is the instructor who discusses the group’s arguments thereby endorsing them? Not at all. It is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without embracing it and urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace and urge it, academic study has ceased and been replaced by partisan advocacy. And that is a moment no college administration should allow to occur.
Provost Farrell doesn’t quite see it that way, because he is too hung up on questions of content and balance. He thinks that the important thing is to assure a diversity of views in the classroom, and so he is reassured when Mr. Barrett promises to surround his “unconventional” ideas and “personal opinions” with readings “representing a variety of viewpoints.”
But the number of viewpoints Mr. Barrett presents to his students is not the measure of his responsibility. There is, in fact, no academic requirement to include more than one view of an academic issue, although it is usually pedagogically useful to do so. The true requirement is that no matter how many (or few) views are presented to the students, they should be offered as objects of analysis rather than as candidates for allegiance.
There is a world of difference, for example, between surveying the pro and con arguments about the Iraq war, a perfectly appropriate academic assignment, and pressing students to come down on your side. Of course the instructor who presides over such a survey is likely to be a partisan of one position or the other — after all, who doesn’t have an opinion on the Iraq war? — but it is part of a teacher’s job to set personal conviction aside for the hour or two when a class is in session and allow the techniques and protocols of academic research full sway.
This restraint should not be too difficult to exercise. After all, we require and expect it of judges, referees and reporters. And while its exercise may not always be total, it is both important and possible to make the effort.
Thus the question Provost Farrell should put to Mr. Barrett is not “Do you hold these views?” (he can hold any views he likes) or “Do you proclaim them in public?” (he has that right no less that the rest of us) or even “Do you surround them with the views of others?”
Rather, the question should be: “Do you separate yourself from your partisan identity when you are in the employ of the citizens of Wisconsin and teach subject matter — whatever it is — rather than urge political action?” If the answer is yes, allowing Mr. Barrett to remain in the classroom is warranted. If the answer is no, (or if a yes answer is followed by classroom behavior that contradicts it) he should be shown the door. Not because he would be teaching the “wrong” things, but because he would have abandoned teaching for indoctrination.
The advantage of this way of thinking about the issue is that it outflanks the sloganeering and posturing both sides indulge in: on the one hand, faculty members who shout “academic freedom” and mean by it an instructor’s right to say or advocate anything at all with impunity; on the other hand, state legislators who shout “not on our dime” and mean by it that they can tell academics what ideas they can and cannot bring into the classroom.
All you have to do is remember that academic freedom is just that: the freedom to do an academic job without external interference. It is not the freedom to do other jobs, jobs you are neither trained for nor paid to perform. While there should be no restrictions on what can be taught — no list of interdicted ideas or topics — there should be an absolute restriction on appropriating the scene of teaching for partisan political ideals. Teachers who use the classroom to indoctrinate make the enterprise of higher education vulnerable to its critics and shortchange students in the guise of showing them the true way.
Stanley Fish is a law professor at Florida International University.

In: Economics

1.As a resident of the United States, if your nominal salary does not increase for three...

1.As a resident of the United States, if your nominal salary does not increase for three years, your real salary is likely to have declined. T or F.

2. The basket used to calculate the Consumer Price Index in the United States contains one unit of every good that is regularly purchased by the average urban consumer. T or F

3. The consumer price index has a value of 125 in the year 2002 and a value of 150 in the year 2010.

In this case, $500 in the year 2002 has the same purchasing power as how many dollars in the year 2010?

Round to the nearest whole number.

4. The price of gas in 1992 was $1.09 per gallon and in 2013 it was $3.51.

The price index in 1992 was 140 and in 2013 it was 233.

Based on this information:

The percentage change in the nominal price of gas was --- %. Enter a number rounded to two decimal places.

In real terms, the price of gas was cheaper in which year? --- Enter 1992 or 2013.

5. If the average wage paid to the worker was $20 in 2002 and $30 in 2012, then the average worker in the year 2012 must have been better off in terms of being able to purchase more goods and services. T or F

In: Economics

Batesian mimicry occurs when a non-toxic or harmless organism looks highly similar to an organism that...

  1. Batesian mimicry occurs when a non-toxic or harmless organism looks highly similar to an organism that is toxic or venomous. An example is the viceroy butterfly which is harmless, but looks extremely similar to the monarch butterfly, which is toxic and bad-tasting when eaten. As a result of the similarity, the harmless organism may be avoided by predators. Bright colors are often advertisements for toxicity, to alert predators to avoid the animal.

    Another familiar example are coral and king snakes. Coral snakes have highly toxic venom, but king snakes are harmless. A common means for distinguishing the two is, "red touches yellow, you're a dead fellow. Red touches black, you're okay, Jack." But is the similarity as useful in the extreme reaches of the snakes' range? If king snakes live in areas where predators have little or no exposure to coral snakes, they are actually in danger, as their bright colors make them more apparent to predators. Researchers investigated the predation rates on king snakes at varying distances from the boundary of coral snakes' range, to determine whether there was an effect.

    Here is a link to a Google Sheet of the dataset.

  2. Dist. From Boundary Proportion of Attacks on Mimics
    -97 0
    -47 0.01
    -33 0
    -23 0
    -72 0.33
    -23 0.5
    152 0.4
    -15 0.67
    97 0.66
    113 0.66
    105 1
    80 1
    138 1
    148 1
    152 1
    49 0.4
    48 0

    "Dist. From Boundary" is the distance in kilometers from the edge of the coral snakes' range; negative numbers mean within the range, positive numbers are outside.

    "Proportion of Attacks on Mimics" is the proportion of attacks on artificial mimic snakes vs. artificial non-mimics by predators.

    Use the data set to perform a linear regression relating distance from the boundary to the proportion of attacks on mimics. Use your regression formula to predict the proportion of attacks on mimics at 62 kilometers from the boundary. Report your answer to two decimal places.

4 points   

QUESTION 19

  1. Using the same data set from the coral and king snake question on linear regression, perform a t test to demonstrate the slope of the line is not equal to zero. Use the regression feature in the Analysis ToolPak add-in for Microsoft Excel to perform the calculation. Report your p value rounded to four decimal places.

2 points   

QUESTION 20

  1. Based on the p value for the t test on the slope of the line concerning king snakes and coral snakes, which of the following are false statements?

    The null hypothesis, stating that the slope of the line is equal to zero should be rejected.

    The null hypothesis stating that the slope of the line is equal to zero should fail to be rejected.

    The calculated t statistic is less than the critical value of t.

    The calculated t statistic is greater than the critical value of t.

In: Statistics and Probability

Transmembrane proteins are often found at the boundary of lipid rafts. Considering the physical properties of...

Transmembrane proteins are often found at the boundary of lipid rafts. Considering the physical properties of the proteins and lipids, involved, what is the best explanation for this arrangement?

Transmembrane domains are usually either a-helical or b-barrel, but not random coil. Why would the random coil conformation be unstable even if all the residues in the segment are hydrophobic?

In: Biology

For the following descriptions, identify a metamorphic rock that would go with them: a. A magma...

For the following descriptions, identify a metamorphic rock that would go with them:

a. A magma chamber that intruded where a swamp used to be.

b. A deposit of clay/mud at a convergent plate boundary.

c. A magma chamber that intruded at an old beach (be sure to include a color).

d. A high grade rock found in a mountain range

In: Other

S(x) is a cubic spline for the function f(x) = sin(pi x/2) + cos(pi x/2) at...

S(x) is a cubic spline for the function f(x) = sin(pi x/2) + cos(pi x/2) at the nodes x0 = 0 , x1 = 1 , x2 = 2

and satisfies the clamped boundary conditions. Determine the coefficient of x3 in S(x) on [0,1] ans. pi/2 -3/2

In: Advanced Math

12. There are many public policy reasons for the adverse possession doctrine. Select three. a. Resolving...

12. There are many public policy reasons for the adverse possession doctrine. Select three.

a. Resolving boundary disputes

b. Resolving title concerns

c. Assuring property is put to productive use

d. Avoiding unnecessary paperwork

e. Moving to electronic record keeping

f. Assisting the poor in obtaining property

In: Accounting