EE 102 - Data Analysis and Interpretation

Course offered in: Autumn 2012

Instructors:

Prof. D. Manjunath

Motivation behind the course: This is the most fundamental course offered in Statistics and data-handling. Primarily dwells in introductory probability while also covering the concepts of Random Variables and their statistical distribution, Parameter estimation, Hypothesis testing and Regression analysis, as a first time introduction.

Course Content:

  • Introduction to Statistical Models- Introduces data sets, grouped data representation- Histograms, Ogives, and Stem and Leaf Plots; Parameters of sampled data- mean, median & mode and Chebyshev’s Inequality.
  • Elements of Probability- Introduction to sample space and the concept of events and their algebra, conditional probability and Bayes’ theorem.
  • Random Variables and their distribution- Introduction to distribution functions and density functions as their continuous/discrete derivatives, expectation of a random variable and its variance, Co-variance of 2 random variables, the concept of moment-generating functions; A special emphasis on important random variables like Bernoulli, Binomial, Poisson, Uniform, Gaussian, Gamma and the Hypergeometric Random Variable and their distributions.
  • The Central Limit Theorem- Convergence to Gaussian and its pre-conditions.
  • Parameter Estimation- Introduction to Maximum likelihood estimators and Confidence Intervals.
  • Hypothesis Testing.
  • Regression Analysis.

Prerequisites: None. This course is offered in the first year. Feedback on Lectures:

The lectures were always kept interesting by Prof. Manjunath. He has a knack of establishing a good rapport with his students. Not that the lectures covered all and everything, but it was the surprise quizzes too that made his lectures very hard to miss.

Feedback on Tutorials, Assignments and Exams:

4 quizzes ( all equally likely to be surprise ones ), a midsem and a heavy endsem would be the examination schedule. There would hitherto be an intriguing problem in the exam but he’d make sure all of it were solvable in the time frame allotted. A word of advice- sincerity in the homeworks would pay off really well during the exams.

Difficulty: (On a scale of 1 being very easy to 5 being very hard): 2 Grading Statistics:

This depends upon your department. For our batch, it was moderately tough; say AB was very much achievable if sincere and sensible enough.

Textbooks & References Introduction to Probability and Statistics for Engineers and Scientists- Sheldon M. Ross, is the bible for this course.

Review by –

Anand Kalvit DD (Micro) III Year anand.kalvit@iitb.ac.in