Tutorial 4 – Supplementary Questions

The normal distribution

1. Serum triglyceride. In Serum triglyceride was measured from the cord blood of 282 babies
(Bland M. An Introduction to Statistics. pg 56). The levels ranged from 0.15 up to 1.66 mmol/L.

The mean serum triglyceride level was 0.51 mmol/L and the standard deviation was 0.22
mmol/L.
80
60
Frequency
40
20
0

0 .5 1 1.5 2
Serum triglyceride

Figure 1s_a:- Histogram of serum triglyceride levels (mmol/L) from the cord blood of 282
babies

From inspection of the above histogram (Figure 1s_a) it was decided that the serum triglyceride
levels were not normally distributed and the data were logarithm to the base 10 (log 10 )
transformed. The histogram of the serum triglyceride levels (log 10 units) was bell shaped and
thus normally distributed (see Figure 1s_b).
 50
40 30
Frequency
20 10
0

-.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2

Serum triglyceride (log10 units)

Figure 1s_b:- Histogram of serum triglyceride levels (log 10 units) from the cord blood of 282
babies

a. The mean serum triglyceride level in log 10 units was -0.33 and the standard deviation
was 0.17 (log 10 units). Determine the range of serum triglyceride levels (log 10 units)
where 95% of the babies lie within, assuming the sample mean of -0.33 (log 10 units) and
the sample standard deviation of 0.17 (log 10 units) provide reasonable estimates of the
population parameters (log 10 units).