Glossary entry (derived from question below)
English term or phrase:
X, with a bar on top
English answer:
sample mean; sample average
Added to glossary by
Sven Petersson
Mar 2, 2003 09:37
21 yrs ago
English term
X, with a bar on top
English
Medical
medical experiment
At the bottom of a table showing the results of a scientific experiment comparing the relative effectiveness of different dosage levels of two drugs, the following line appears:
X plus or minus SD
There is a short horizontal line above the X.
I assume SD stands for "standard deviation." Please correct me if you think this is not right. My main question is what does this X mean? Thank you very much.
X plus or minus SD
There is a short horizontal line above the X.
I assume SD stands for "standard deviation." Please correct me if you think this is not right. My main question is what does this X mean? Thank you very much.
Responses
| 5 +5 | sample mean; sample average |
Sven Petersson
|
| 4 +2 | average |
luskie
|
| 4 +2 | sample mean or sample average |
Roddy Stegemann
|
Responses
+5
20 mins
Sven Petersson
Sweden
Sweden
Native in English
&
English
Sweden
Medical Translator
Native in: Swedish 
, English
Works in: English to Swedish, Danish to Swedish, German to Swedish, and 13 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
160
Selected
sample mean; sample average
See reference!
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Steffen Pollex (X)
: But is a "sample average" not an "average"? Why do you disagree with the answer above?
4 mins
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All apples are fruit, but not all fruits are apples!
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| agree |
Roddy Stegemann
: Yes, Sven is correct. Please see below for further explanation.
9 mins
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Thank you very much!
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| agree |
Sarah Ponting
1 hr
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Thank you very much!
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| agree |
Attila Piróth
2 hrs
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Thank you very much!
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| agree |
luskie
: obviously, since it would be quite stange in a (medical and not statistic) experimental report/table to speak about the population mean (which if I remember it correcly is the greek µ)- it's not a paper on statistics!
2 hrs
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You remember right!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Thank you all. I have benefited as much by the spirited debate as by the acutal answers. You are true scholars and ture friends. "
+2
8 mins
average
the X with the bar on it is the average value (plus/minus the Standard Deviation)
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Note added at 2003-03-02 09:48:06 (GMT)
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Senza titolo - [ Traduci questa pagina ]
... interest. Calculate the average (X-bar) and the range R of each subgroup.
Plot the averages and ranges on the control charts. Calculate ...
www.orau.gov/pbm/handbook/2p8.html - 4k - Copia cache - Pagine simili
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Note added at 2003-03-02 13:16:35 (GMT)
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Fuad,
as you can see I agree with the answers below. I just want to make you sure that you can/have to totally ignore such details as for your translation. Most rarely someone speaks about population in medical reports, and anyhow noone can put into a table data/values gathered from an entire population. If you have captions explained, you\'ll definitely find average, and not sample average, because there\'s NO need to tell that.
(In fact 9 out of 10 medical experimenters do not even know what µ is - they actually ignore what they\'re doing :) - they rely on stats experts only when referees detect major flaws in their analyses and ask them to resubmit (and even then you can hardly find thier names in the acknowledments ;-)
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2003-03-02 09:48:06 (GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Senza titolo - [ Traduci questa pagina ]
... interest. Calculate the average (X-bar) and the range R of each subgroup.
Plot the averages and ranges on the control charts. Calculate ...
www.orau.gov/pbm/handbook/2p8.html - 4k - Copia cache - Pagine simili
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2003-03-02 13:16:35 (GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Fuad,
as you can see I agree with the answers below. I just want to make you sure that you can/have to totally ignore such details as for your translation. Most rarely someone speaks about population in medical reports, and anyhow noone can put into a table data/values gathered from an entire population. If you have captions explained, you\'ll definitely find average, and not sample average, because there\'s NO need to tell that.
(In fact 9 out of 10 medical experimenters do not even know what µ is - they actually ignore what they\'re doing :) - they rely on stats experts only when referees detect major flaws in their analyses and ask them to resubmit (and even then you can hardly find thier names in the acknowledments ;-)
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Steffen Pollex (X)
: That's right. But why do you agree with the above then?! It's not the same.
6 mins
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the first answer has disappeared, and I only recall it contained 'mean' istead of 'average'... aren't these terms roughly the same?
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| disagree |
Sven Petersson
: Not just any average! Please see below!
12 mins
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no need to specify this at all, in a MEDICAL report (see also below)
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| agree |
Roddy Stegemann
: Luskie is correct. Please see below for explanation.
22 mins
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many thanks, Hamo - statistics almost always deal with samples taken from the (theoretical, in as much as it's not assessable) population! That's the difference between statistics and counting :)
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| agree |
Sarah Ponting
1 hr
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thanks Sarah :)
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+2
26 mins
Roddy Stegemann
United States
United States
Native in English
&
English
United States
Search HKLNA!
Native in: English
Works in: German to English, Japanese to English, French to English, and 3 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
132
sample mean or sample average
Most medical experiments are stochastic in nature -- i.e., a sample is taken from a much larger population whose mean can only be known from the sample average. X-bar is the standard notation used to express that average.
By extension X-bar can be employed as the average for any fixed set of values of a given variable.
Most samples are chosen randonly so as to insure the greatest possible confidence with regard to the underlying population from which the observations are drawn. In social science experiments one cannot trust volunteers, unless all possible doubt with regard to their hidden agendas and motivation can be removed.
By extension X-bar can be employed as the average for any fixed set of values of a given variable.
Most samples are chosen randonly so as to insure the greatest possible confidence with regard to the underlying population from which the observations are drawn. In social science experiments one cannot trust volunteers, unless all possible doubt with regard to their hidden agendas and motivation can be removed.
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
luskie
: not "known" but "estimated", I'd say though :)
1 hr
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In this sense "can only be known" is a delimiter on the level of knowing. Estimate is surely not wrong, but a little redundant. Thanks for your support.
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| agree |
Sarah Ponting
1 hr
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Discussion