Or you could look at the mean and standard deviation (a measure of
the distribution around the mean). One of the problems of trying
to represent complex events by one or two numbers in order to make
things manageable is that part of the story gets left out. In
these cases you have to decide if this is an important part of the
story or not.

Ed Schulz
email: eschulz at gte.net
Phone: (425) 259-6877
Everett, WA

----------
>
> On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Michael Price wrote:
>
> > But this is something I've never quite figured out how to deal
with: data
> > that are waayyy out of pattern: do you include them knowing
they're likely a
> > one-off that's gonna distort whatever means and averages, or do
you ignore
> > them? For example, let's say arbitrarily that this is the
pattern of Barn
> > Swallow arrival, leading to the derived (and equally arbitrary
for purposes
> > of this immediate discussion) average arrival date of April 07
above:
> >
> > 4 12
> > ----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----
> > J F M A M J J A S O N D
> >
> > then along comes 1998, which leaves the record looking like
this:
> >
> >
> > 1 4 12
> > ----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----
> > J F M A M J J A S O N D
> >
> > which then pulls the average arrival date sometime into
mid-March or even
> > late February, clearly not reflecting reality. I'm sure there's
something
> > simple way to absorb that kind of temporary distortion of the
'normal'
> > pattern that I'm overlooking here. Anybody with statistics in
their blood
> > (ie, related to that famous Gaul, Vitalstatistix '-) who knows
how to fix this?
> >
> > Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
> > Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and
change;
> > mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better
days.
> > Aphra Behn
(1640-1689)
> >
> >
>