Aims

To provide students with a fundamental understanding of the basic statistical techniques (summary statistics, probability distributions, interval estimation and regression analysis) routinely used in the chemical and process industries.

This module addresses a real area of practical applicability in the process and manufacturing industries. One area that has become increasingly important is that of statistics. This course provides the basis for all subsequent statistical modules by introducing the fundamental statistical tools to undertake a preliminary statistical analysis of any data. More specifically the course introduces basic statistical tools that enable data to be presented, described and interpreted in an appropriate and statistically robust manner.

Outline Of Syllabus

Introduction: Descriptive statistics;
Probability: probability theory; probability distributions (continuous and discrete); normal distribution; Statistical Inference and hypothesis testing: Sampling distributions and confidence intervals – One sample problems (mean, standard deviation, paired comparisons) and Two sample problems (comparison of means, ratio of variances);
Regression analysis: method of least squares.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

In-person lectures convey the statistical concepts and theory and their application in process engineering. Tutorial questions will be supplied for students' to work through each week. Drop-in tutorials will be used to address student queries and aid understanding. Short video walkthroughs of Excel will help demonstrate how to use software to carry out data analysis.
Alternative arrangements: should the public health situation require a move away from in-person activities, the lectures will be delivered asynchronously online through short videos. Drop-in tutorials will be delivered through synchronous video calls with mathematical working done on a virtual whiteboard.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The examination enables the assessment of whether the students have understood the methodologies and whether they are sufficiently conversant with the application of the techniques to real world scenarios.

Should the public health situation require a move away from in-person examinations, a take-home alternative will be supplied.