What is Statistics ?
Here is a description in German:
Eine Statistik
ist im täglichen Sprachgebrauch eine Zusammenstellung
von Zahlen über Bevölkerungsgruppen, ökonomische Tätigkeiten,
Krankheiten, Wetterlagen oder Umwelteinflüsse. Viele Statistiken
beschreiben in einem weiten Sinn den Zustand des Staates; die Statistik
als Disziplin hat von da ihren Namen.
Mit dieser Art von Statistik befassen sich in erster Linie
das Bundesamt für Statistik
und die statistischen Ämter der Kantone und Städte.
In den heutigen empirischen Wissenschaften werden zu allen denkbaren
Fragestellungen nach Möglichkeit Daten gesammelt. Teilweise geschieht
dies durch
Beobachtung von Phänomenen und Prozessen, die ohne Einfluss von
Forschenden
ablaufen, teilweise werden die Phänomene und Prozesse in eigens geplanten
Experimenten erzeugt und gesteuert.
Die Statistik befasst sich heute neben dem Problem
- Wie sollen welche Daten gewonnen werden?
vor allem mit den Fragen
- Wie soll man Daten beschreiben?
und
- Welche Schlüsse kann man aus Daten ziehen?
Die Fragestellungen sind in verschiedenen
Anwendungsgebieten
unterschiedlich, aber es gibt viele
Methoden der Statistik,
die in allen Gebieten Anwendung finden.
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Application fields
The most important areas of application of statistics imply some typical
statistical problems:
- Exact Sciences
-
Modelling of relationships between different variables, if possible with
causal interpretation:
How does the end product of a chemical reaction depend on the initial
conditions?
Which environmental conditions have an influence on the density of a
population, and how does the quantitative relation look like?
Modelling of chemical reactions, growth, diffusion, and the like.
Further key words are:
Concise descriptions and comparison of ecosystems
Estimation of reserves of mining products
Evaluation of satellite images,
wether forecasts
-
Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences
-
Does a treatment show the desired response? Are there side effects?
How effective or toxic is a chemical compound?
Can deseases be diagnosed automatically on the basis of suitable
measurements?
Are certain deseases triggered by polluted environments or professional
risks?
Modelling the dynamics of pharmacological processes or the
dispersion of epidemic deseases.
-
Agriculture and forestery
-
What production conditions are optimal?
Which bulls have a high breeding value?
How much wood is present in a forest?
-
Production, Engineering
-
What production conditions are optimal?
Is safety at stake?
Is production running normal or are there disturbances?
Key words are
Quality Control, Quality assurance and management, Reliability,
Risk Assessment, Modelling of technical processes and
process control.
-
Economics, Sociology
-
Modelling of micro and macro economics, possibly for forecasting
Market and opinion research
Studies on socioligical relations by surveys.
-
Psychology, Behavioral Sciences
-
Measurement of psychological properties
Modelling and comparison of learning processes
Studies on perception, potentially for gaining insight into the mechanisms
of brain processes
Behavior of animals in reaction to their environment.
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Methods for Statistical Data Analysis
Here is a link to the
Virtual Laboratories in Probability and Statistics
There is a provider of statistical software, StatSoft, who offers a fairly
useful
Textbook
on statistical concepts and methods.
The fact that we add this link does not mean that we recommend the
software that goes with it.
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