Using Excel to Do Statistical Analysis

As appropriate, material from Chap. 7 Using MATLAB for Statistical Analysis and Chap. 8 Using Excel to do Statistical Analysis could be introduced to show and explain how the students can implement the proposed methods. It should be emphasised that this material should not overwhelm the students nor should it become the main emphasis and hence avoid thoughtful and insightful analysis of the resulting data. 

Exploratory methods are used not to test hypotheses but rather to get an overview of data. Various clustering methods and ordination are excellent tools for exploratory analysis of microarray data. These unsupervised methods do not require external class or group information. Clusters are generated purely based on the intrinsic similarity of the gene or sample expression profiles. No null hypothesis can be rejected, and p values are not generated to test statistical significance. Methods that... 

The availability of spreadsheets makes it unnecessary to plot data on graph paper and do hand calculations for the least-squares regression analysis and statistics. We will use the data in Example 3.21 to prepare the plot shown in Figure 3.8, using Excel. 

One of the most popular failure rate databases is the OREDA database (Ref. 4). OREDA stands for "Offshore Reliability Data." This book presents detailed statistical analysis on many types of process equipment. Many engineers use it as a source of failure rate data to perform safety verification calculations. It is an excellent reference for all who do data analysis. 

An excellent review on outlier treatment is given by Beckman and Cook [42], and by Miller [43]. Some scientists do prefer the use of robust statistics instead of outlier detection and rejection [45]. Whether one prefers the use of statistical tests or chooses to use robust statistics, one should be critical of the dataset. Data points should not be eliminated on the basis of statistical significance only. A cause analysis should be performed before discarding outliers. 

Similarly, in Excel 5 and 95, Help gets you to Microsoft Excel Help Topics and to the Answer Wizard. Click on either one, and you will see four tabs Contents, Index, Find, and Answer Wizard. When you select the Answer Wizard, type data analysis in the top window, then select an appropriate item from the list that appears in window 2. In this example, select Tell Me About Analyzing Statistics . Or you type analysis toolpak , and find How Do f Enable the Analysis ToolPak . Even How Do I Use the Analysis ToolPak will get you to the installation instructions. 

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