Data Analysis and Interpretation Assignment 1(Ch-1&2)

Due Date: Oct 07, 2019 (Mon) Instructor: Mustansar Mahmood

Q1.

The file P02_03.xlsx contains data from a survey of 399 people regarding a government environmental
policy.

a. Which of the variables in this data set are categorical? Which of these are nominal; which are
ordinal?
b. For each categorical variable, create a column chart of counts.
c. Recode the data into a new data set, making four transformations: (1) change Gender to list “Male”
or “Female”; (2) change Children to list “No children” or “At least one child”; (3) change Salary
to be categorical with categories “Less than $40K,” “Between $40K and $70K,” “Between $70K
and $100K,” and “Greater than $100K ” (where you can treat the breakpoints however you like);
and (4) change Opinion to be a numerical code from 1 to 5 for Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree.
Then create a column chart of counts for the new Salary variable.
Q2.

The file DJIA Monthly Close.xlsx contains monthly values of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from
1950 through July 2015. It also contains the percentage changes from month to month. (This file is used in
an example later in this chapter.) Create a new column for recoding the percentage changes into six
categories:

Large negative (<−3%), Medium negative (<−1%, ≥ −3%), Small negative (<0%, ≥ −1%), Small positive
(<1%, ≥ 0%), Medium positive (<3%, ≥ 1%), and Large positive (≥ 3%). Then create a column chart of the
counts of this categorical variable. Comment on its shape.

Q3.

The file P02_55.xlsx contains monthly sales (in millions of dollars) of beer, wine, and liquor. The data have
not been seasonally adjusted, so there might be seasonal patterns that can be discovered. For any month in
any year, define that month’s seasonal index as the ratio of its sales value to the average sales value over
all months of that year.

a. Calculate these seasonal indexes, one for each month in the series. Do you see a consistent pattern
from year to year? If so, what is it?
b. To “deseasonalize” the data and get the seasonally-adjusted series often reported, divide each
monthly sales value by the corresponding seasonal index from part a. Then create a time series
graph of both series, the actual sales and the seasonally adjusted sales. Explain how they are
different and why the seasonally adjusted series might be of interest.
Q4.

Recall that the file Supermarket Transactions.xlsx contains data on over 14,000 transactions. There are
two numerical variables, Units Sold and Revenue. The first of these is discrete and the second is continuous.
For each of the following, do whatever it takes to create a bar chart of counts for Units Sold and a histogram
of Revenue for the given subpopulation of purchases.

NUST Business School Tuesday, October 1, 2019

 a. All purchases made during January and February of 2016.
b. All purchase made by married female homeowners.
c. All purchases made in the state of California.
d. All purchases made in the Produce product department.

Case Study:

The file C02_03.xlsx contains an index of home prices and a seasonally adjusted (SA) version of this index
for several large U.S. cities. It also contains a condo price index for several large cities and a national index.
(The data are explained in the Source sheet.) Use the tools in this chapter to explore these data, and write a
report of your findings. Some important questions you can answer are the following: Are there trends over
time? Are there differences across cities? Are there differences across months? Do condo prices mirror
home prices? Why are seasonally adjusted (SA) indexes published?

NUST Business School Tuesday, October 1, 2019