Postgraduate students from non-statistical disciplines often have trouble designing their first experiment, survey or observational study, particularly if their supervisor does not have a statistical background. Such students often present their results to a statistical consultant hoping that a suitable analysis will rescue a poorly designed study. Unfortunately, it is often too late by that stage. A statistical consultant is best able to help a student who has some grasp of statistics. It is appropriate to use the Web to deliver training when required and that is the mechanism used in this project to encourage postgraduate students to develop statistical thinking in their research. Statistical Thinking is taught in terms of the PPDSA cycle and students are encouraged to use other Web resources and books to expand their knowledge of statistical concepts and techniques.
The possible explanations for heterosis and heterozygous advantage have included the hypothesis that the metabolic versatility of heterozygotes for functional alleles of structural genes would enhance resistance to environmental insult, i.e. would result in enhanced developmental homeostasis. Evidence on this hypothesis is conflicting. The paper presents additional evidence, based on four human polymorphisms and 9 quantitative traits in a sample of mother-offspring data from Sweden. These data do not support the hypothesis of interest. Reasons for the conflicting results are discussed.
This paper outlines one of a series of tutorials developed as part of an introductory statistics course for Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences students. Here we compare two methods of sampling from an aerial photograph to obtain an estimate of the proportion of a particular type of vegetation. One method, transect sampling, is traditionally used by field ecologists, while the other is simple random sampling in a plane. Preparation details and possible extensions to the tutorial are described.
The genetics of human family size is not readily susceptible to analysis. Some of the problems in its investigation are discussed, together with methods for overcoming them. In particular, the problem of obtaining a satisfactory model which will account for both the low heritability of family size and its over-dispersed distribution is examined in detail.
Heritability is well known to be a poor indicator of genetical variation in fitness. We show here that it is also an inadequate measure of genetical variation in fecundity.
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