14 June 2006: Hypothesis Testing

Today we had, as usual, Biostats in the morning, then a brief lecture by a faculty member who shared some tips on reading scientific papers, then a break for lunch. After lunch we had a presentation by a faculty member in Society, Human Development, and Health named Beth Molnar. We ended the day with another Stata class.

In Biostats class we are working on Hypothesis Testing. Looking at data and forming a null hypothesis and a alternative hypothesis. The goal with these hypotheses is to reject the null hypothesis that would then mean the alternative hypothesis is true. The alternative hypothesis usually suggests there is some correlation or association between data. Today we had exercises that suggested higher levels of blood cholesterol meant higher numbers of heart attacks. We worked with the data provided to show that there was clearly an association (p value below .05) and therefore rejected the null hypothesis of there being no association.

Dr. Molnar shared some interesting information regarding her research on Child Abuse and Child Development as it relates to risky adolescent behavior. It seemed that children exposed to various forms of abuse or neglect were much more likely to participate in risky behavior later in life. Other studies showed child sexual assault increasing the number of adult mental disorders. Dr. Molnar has spent many years focusing on the long term effects of child-hood events. Her interest was created when she was working for a study that was tyring to figure out a way to educated runaway and homeless teens about HIV many years ago. She found, just from speaking with the teens, that many of them had expereienced some sort of abuse or neglect earlier in their life. She then saught to find true mathematical associations between the two factors and look more deeply into the lives of children.

After Dr. Molnar, we had our STATA class and what sticks in my mind the most is how incredibly cold the computer lab was. I just don't understand why that is necessary. Regardless, the lab reinforced the processes learned in the biostat class using the computer. Our teacher is a graduate student who is quite interesting. He shared that he is preparing for his wedding and how it is a pain in the butt. He is "excited to get married, but not excited about the wedding."

After classes our group decided to take a trip to the MFA, Boston Museum of Fine Arts. According to various visitor guides, the MFA is the best place to visit in the city. I wasn't really that excited to go and the only thing that really lured me was the fact that Wednesdays are free to the public. Upon entering the museum and looking at the first several exhibits, I was surprised to find so many objects and artifacts. Past art museums have built a strong association in my mind of only paintings. Boston MFA does a wonderful job to collect furniture, vases, mirrors, tapestrys, artwork, and other things associated with many groups of people. I do enjoy classical (and impressionist) artwork from Europe and America, and spent quite a few hours looking at Sargent, Cassat, Renoir and others. I spent sometime looking at Degas work, but am not as interested in more modern pieces. What I probably enjoyed the most was the egyptian exhibition. There were actual mummies and coffins! I spent a lot of time looking at these amazing relics dated around 2500 BC.

Today we also took a trip to the grocery store, trying to cook more and eat out less. I don't mind eating out, I think it is neat to expereience the food here, but I would rather eat in for lunch instead of going to subway or McDonalds. Usually we eat out for dinner, but I try to cook lunch (when it isn't provided) and breakfast in the apartment. I can not believe that we are almost 2 weeks into the program. Time really is flying by!

Project is going well. Yesterday we had a strong introduction to the exact material and methods we will be using. Tomorrow we will spend several hours working with data and trying to begin the analysis of this COGA dataset!