Thursday, April 19, 2007

Lab 10



Hartly measured uncertainty with a set of alternatives. He measured these alternatives having the same probability. These is measured in bits.

Shannon's enthropy measures uncertainty as well, but it takes into account the alternatives having different probability. It is measured as the average number of bits needed to represent a symbol.

Friday, April 6, 2007

Lab 9

In lab 9 we did more data analysis. I learned more about the Sumation tool in excel. I learned how to calculate the slop of a line. I also learned how to calculate the y-intercept. We also learned how to calculate the correlation of the line. The main thing that I learned in lab 9 was how to use the data analysis tool. By going to the Tool drop-down, then to add-ins, you can have a new sheet with all calculations that deal with regression. This tool is very useful and saves lots of times.

The lab teaches us about linear regression. Fitting a line to points on a graph can be useful in data analysis. This is called a best-fit line. This line gives you three pieces of information. The slope, which lets you know how the line is increasing or decreasing. It also tells you about the y-intercept, which lets you know what the valuse of y is when x is zero. The last piece of information you can get with calulations of the best-fit line is the correlation of the line. This number is between 0 and 1. It is a percent of how close all of the points are to the best-fit line.