Blogs

The data presented to us was from Karakuri. This data illustrates individuals gender, GPA, Hours studied, and Hours slept per week. To find the correlation between two things like gender vs GPA it could be depicted in a bar graph. Another type of correlation would be between hours studied versus GPA's. After analyzing a portion of the data presented it could be seen that males or females who studied more had a higher GPA, however, there were outliers present. In addition, these individuals also had a lower number of hours slept. 

People with Crohn’s disease have trouble absorbing nutrients because the inflammation of the intestine makes it difficult for the organ to digest and absorb the nutrients from food. The patients low levels of sodium and potassium due to the lack of absorption could be what is causing her diminished sense of touch. Your nerves need a certain amount of potassium to control their function along with muscle function. Potassium and sodium help your nerves send electrical signals, via the sodium potassium pump, that are necessary for nervous system function. The patient's abnormal amounts of the two is causing irregular nerve function that is affecting her sense of touch and causing numbness.

We would make a scatter plot of hours studied vs GPA. On the plot we would include a line of regression for the data of only males, one for the data of only females, and one for everybody overall. This would show the relationship between the hours studied and the GPA, as well as showing if there were any large differences in the relationship between males and females. We would also make a scatterplot of hours of sleep vs GPA, to get an idea of that relationship.

I am currently in Statistics 240 so I have only gone over a small portion of what the class will cover. The first thing we covered in this class was how to define a sample or population, whether it be quantitative, qualitative, continuous or discrete. We also learned different ways to display such data with stem and leaf charts, scatter plots, box graphs, bar graphs pie charts or linear graphs. We learned how to calculate certain values such as mean, median, mode, standard deviation, variance and the regression line. And the class covers how to asses these values with r values and such which show how much the model covers the real data. The last thing we learned was different ways to predict or estimate data and probability for different situations.

Still, the case in question presents a difficult ethical question as the patient is unconscious and his state is quickly deteriorating. With no identification, no legal papers confirming his end of life wishes, and no family to contact, this makes for the perfect storm in patient autonomy ethics. What if doctors were to honor his wishes based off a tattoo, only to find out those were not his true wishes. It is important to note that the patient was found just outside the hospital. But if the doctors do resuscitate the patient and it is against his wishes, are they breaking an ethical (and possibly legal) code?

Still, the case in question presents a difficult ethical question as the patient is unconscious and his state is quickly deteriorating. With no identification, no legal papers confirming his end of life wishes, and no family to contact, this makes for the perfect storm in patient autonomy ethics. What if doctors were to honor his wishes based off a tattoo, only to find out those were not his true wishes. It is important to note that the patient was found just outside the hospital. But if the doctors do resuscitate the patient and it is against his wishes, are they breaking an ethical (and possibly legal) code?

In response to this week's assignment, I took an introductory to statistics course during the Spring of 2015. It was set-up as a team-based learning class therefore towards the end of the semester my team had to complete a large research writing project. This project encompassed all of the concepts we learned throughout the semester. Other than that, basic statistical concepts that I do remember learning were mean, median and mode. I also learned a lot of survey-taking approaches and then how to incorporate the survey raw data into some type of graph. I remember learning about possible graphical skews and biases that might not be noticed at first glance. It was a great learning experience overall, considering how bad I was at AP Statistics in high school. This type of knowledge became very useful in my science classes.

I remember a few things about my semester of intro to stats. In general we learned about certain types of analysis of data. Some key terms that pop into my mind are things like mean, average, p-value, standard deviations, and equations to relate all of the values. I also remember the tests including all of these things as well as another layer of complexity, as they would give us limited information and ask us to produce a conclusion about how likely a certain outcome is. I few other students lived on my floor so studying outside of lecture could clear up any misunderstandings I still had and I did pretty well in the class. Another thing that I remember was that our teacher wanted us to be able to apply our new skills to the real world and realize that certain interpretations of data can be misleading, like when certain claims are made on tv. The difference between correlation and causation was also discussed in a particularly funny class day, when she showed us a bunch of bogus statistics like levels of crime and levels of cheese consumption being correlated across states, meaning of course that cheese causes crime. This is most of what i remember from intro to statistics.

Species of African Cichlid fishes and their evolutionary development are the main focus of Albertson’s lab and understanding how environmental factors like types of food sources and availability can influence traits like jaws to fill different niches across different bodies of water. Craig Albertson’s lab studies aspects of evolutionary development to better understand how genotypes become morphologies. His lab follows species from embryo to maturity, documenting everything along the way. In the past Albertson’s lab has studied many aspects of species like Zebrafish and Cichlids and how their populations in various lakes and bodies of water developed such diverse characteristics. His lab includes many members at various levels of education from undergraduates to postdoctoral researchers has published papers on many topics in the field of evolutionary development, genetic and phenotypic expression, evolutionary mutant models for human disease, and morphological features of Cichlids. Studying how all of these factors come together to create large populations is vital to understanding both the origins of these species and how well they can adapt to change helps us understand how their roles in the ecosystem developed and how they will continue to change because of human interference.

just to review for my upcoming exam, hear are some notes:
There are 2 theories as to how our brain perceives sound. (the brain detects pitch!!!)
1.) Frequency theory: the frequency of auditory neural impulses corresponds to frequency of tone. lower notes vibrate at slower speeds and higher notes vibrate at higher speeds, as pitch increases, nerve impulses of the same frequency are sent to the auditory nerve
EX: a tone with a frequency of 700 Hz will produce 700 nerve impulses per second
- it is speed that determines pitch!
2.) place theory: we can hear different pitches due to sound frequencies on specific parts of the cochlear basiliar membrane, different parts of the cochlea are activated by different frequencies
EX: a sound that is 6000Hz would stimulate the spot along the membrane that passeses a characteristic frequency of 6000 Hz
- the brain detects pitch based on the position of hair cells that transmitted the neural signal

There are 2 theories as to how a "taste is encoded" by taste receptor cells
1.) Labelled-line model: each single TRC can sense all 5 tastes but it will only respond to one, they are innervated by individually tuned nerve fibers
2.) Across-fiber model: has two parts: individual taste receptor cells are tuned to multiple tastes and the same afferent fiber carries info for more than one taste OR that TRCs are tuned to single taste qualities but the same afferent fiber carries info for more than one taste

There are 3 theories/models to the mechanical gating of touch
1.) Indirect/Direct tether model
2.) membrane model
3.) secondary-messenger model