I like to get to know you and what are your motivations for taking
this class.
Name (preferred name)
Major/Minor
Share - What are your career goals and aspirations? - What are you
research interests (if any)? - What are your interests outside of
college?
Why Probability?
Applied Mathematics
Does a probabilistic sequence converge or diverge?
Bioengineering
What percentage of lyme disease patients would be cured with the
current but experimental treatments?
Chemical Sciences
What proportion of reactants undergo a reaction early in the
reaction?
Computer Science
How many computers in a given network would be affected after a
virus infection?
Mechanical Engineering
What is the probability that two engines of a commercial airplane
fail during flight?
Environmental Science
What is the concentration of carbon monoxide in the ambient
atmosphere in 20 years?
Why Statistics?
Statistics is the science of learning from data.
Statistical knowledge is important in scientific studies:
plan the studies to ensure that the data are collected efficiently
and answer questions relevant to the investigation
analyze data, discover what conclusions can be reached from current
study and what issues need to be investigated further
Various applications:
weather forecasting
drug/vaccination development (effectiveness and safety)
automated question anwering
text classification
language translation
Course Description
This is a calculus-based probability and statistics course.
Students will learn the concepts in probability, discrete and
continuous random variables, expectation, important probability
distributions, sampling, and estimation.
Simulation-based reasoning using R will help students understand how
to apply these ideas to data.
Course Materials
We will be using Teams mth-461a-fa22 as the main real-time communication
tool.
The syllabus, tentative topics schedule, lecture slides,
assignments, mini-project information, and all other class materials are
posted on the course
website - the website can be viewed in Teams.
This class will use the R programming language and the R Studio
Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
Mini-Assignments & Modules
Mini-Assignments: These are written assignments due each
class time at end-of-class or end-of-day (27 mini-assignments in
total).
Modules: These are both written and R assignments due every
three weeks (5 Modules in total).
Mini-Projects: There are 2 mini-projects where we apply
concepts and tools learned in class to understand real world data sets.
These projects involve text data sets and spatio-temporal data
sets.
All assignments and mini-project reports are submitted through Teams
Assignments.