Resource Library

A cartoon to be used for discussing the selection of the best explanatory variable in a regression model. The cartoon was used in the March 2017 CAUSE Cartoon Caption Contest. The winning caption was submitted by Michele Balik-Meisner, a student at North Carolina State University. The drawing was created by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. A second winning entry, by Michael Posner of Villanova University, may be found at www.causeweb.org/cause/resources/fun/cartoons/variable-wheel-ii Three honorable mentions that rose to the top of the judging in the March competition included "No no no! You randomize AFTER you select your research topic!" by Mickey Dunlap from University of Georgia; "This isn't what I meant by random variable!" by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso; and "We find this method of finding 'significant' predictors to be quicker than using stepwise regression and it is even slightly more reproducible." by Greg Snow from Brigham Young University.

A cartoon to be used for discussing the selection of the best explanatory variable in a regression model. The cartoon was used in the March 2017 CAUSE Cartoon Caption Contest. The winning caption was submitted by Michael Posner, from Villanova University. The drawing was created by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. A second winning entry, by Michele Balik-Meisner, a student at North Carolina State University, may be found at www.causeweb.org/cause/resources/fun/cartoons/variable-wheel-i Three honorable mentions that rose to the top of the judging in the March competition included "No no no! You randomize AFTER you select your research topic!" by Mickey Dunlap from University of Georgia; "This isn't what I meant by random variable!" by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso; and "We find this method of finding 'significant' predictors to be quicker than using stepwise regression and it is even slightly more reproducible." by Greg Snow from Brigham Young University.

This case study starts by the simple comparison of the prices of houses with and without fireplaces and extends the analysis to examine other characteristics of the houses with fireplace that may affect the price as well. The intent is to show the danger of using simple group comparisons to answer a question that involves many variables. The lesson shows the R code for doing this analysis; however, the data and the model could be used with another statistical software.

This NASA-HANDBOOK is published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide a Bayesian foundation for framing probabilistic problems and performing inference on these problems. It is aimed at scientists and engineers and provides an analytical structure for combining data and information from various sources to generate estimates of the parameters of uncertainty distributions used in risk and reliability models. The overall approach taken in this document is to give both a broad perspective on data analysis issues and a narrow focus on the methods required to implement a comprehensive database repository.

Dr. Kuan-Man Xu from the NASA Langley Reserach Center writes, "A new method is proposed to compare statistical differences between summary histograms, which are the histograms summed over a large ensemble of individual histograms. It consists of choosing a distance statistic for measuring the difference between summary histograms and using a bootstrap procedure to calculate the statistical significance level. Bootstrapping is an approach to statistical inference that makes few assumptions about the underlying probability distribution that describes the data. Three distance statistics are compared in this study. They are the Euclidean distance, the Jeffries-Matusita distance and the Kuiper distance. "

This paper comes from researchers at the NASA Langley Research Center and College of William & Mary.  

"The experience of retinex image processing has prompted us to reconsider fundamental aspects of imaging and image processing. Foremost is the idea that a good visual representation requires a non-linear transformation of the recorded (approximately linear) image data. Further, this transformation appears to converge on a specific distribution. Here we investigate the connection between numerical and visual phenomena. Specifically the questions explored are: (1) Is there a well-defined consistent statistical character associated with good visual representations? (2) Does there exist an ideal visual image? And (3) what are its statistical properties?"

This resource was prepared to give the practicing engineer a clear understanding of probability and statistics with special consideration to problems frequently encountered in aerospace engineering. It is conceived to be both a desktop reference and a refresher for aerospace engineers in government and industry. It could also be used as a supplement to standard texts for in-house training courses on the subject. 

These pages explain the following basic statistics concepts: mean, median, mode, variance, standard deviation and correlation coefficient (with example from the Institute on Climate and Planets).

This lesson introduces students to creating spreadsheets for statistical analysis.

This program focuses on the teamwork required to produce a successful mission and the importance of statistics in project design and management. Using the video and a hands-on lesson, students learn about statistical analysis and how people use statistics, such as mean, median, mode and range, to make decisions. Members of the Penske Racing Team and engineers from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne help students investigate the relationship between work, energy and power as they look at race car design, the space shuttle and the International Space Station.