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The table shown on the right can be used in a two-sample t-test to estimate the sample sizes of an experimental group and a control group that are of equal size, that is, the total number of individuals in the trial is twice that of the number given, and the desired significance level is 0.05. [4]
The simplest case of a normal distribution is known as the standard normal distribution or unit normal distribution. This is a special case when μ = 0 {\textstyle \mu =0} and σ 2 = 1 {\textstyle \sigma ^{2}=1} , and it is described by this probability density function (or density): φ ( z ) = e − z 2 2 2 π . {\displaystyle \varphi (z ...
Since probability tables cannot be printed for every normal distribution, as there are an infinite variety of normal distributions, it is common practice to convert a normal to a standard normal (known as a z-score) and then use the standard normal table to find probabilities.
Considerations of the shape of a distribution arise in statistical data analysis, where simple quantitative descriptive statistics and plotting techniques such as histograms can lead on to the selection of a particular family of distributions for modelling purposes. The normal distribution, often called the "bell curve" Exponential distribution
Diagram showing the cumulative distribution function for the normal distribution with mean (μ) 0 and variance (σ 2) 1. These numerical values "68%, 95%, 99.7%" come from the cumulative distribution function of the normal distribution. The prediction interval for any standard score z corresponds numerically to (1 − (1 − Φ μ,σ 2 (z)) · 2).
For highly communicable epidemics, such as SARS in 2003, if public intervention control policies are involved, the number of hospitalized cases is shown to satisfy the log-normal distribution with no free parameters if an entropy is assumed and the standard deviation is determined by the principle of maximum rate of entropy production. [67]
The distribution of these means, or averages, is called the "sampling distribution of the sample mean". This distribution is normal (, /) (n is the sample size) since the underlying population is normal, although sampling distributions may also often be close to normal even when the population distribution is not (see central limit theorem).
and Φ −1 is the standard normal quantile function. If the data are consistent with a sample from a normal distribution, the points should lie close to a straight line. As a reference, a straight line can be fit to the points. The further the points vary from this line, the greater the indication of departure from normality.