National University of Ireland, Galway
School of Mathematics, Statistics & Applied Mathematics

MA278 Engineering Statistics

Spring 2012

Lectures: Mon 12-1pm ENG-G018
          Wed 12-1pm ENG-G018

Labs/Tutorials: Tue 2-3pm ENG-G018 

NOTE: (1) a laptop computer is needed for Labs sessions which will be
held in the main lecture hall (ENG-G018). A separate session will 
be organized in one of the computer labs for those who do not own 
a laptop. (2) The starting date for Labs/Tutorials will be announced 
by the end of the first week of instruction

                
Instructor: Milovan Krnjajic, 205 Aras de Brun, ext. 2327
            milovan [dot] krnjajic [at] nuigalway [dot] ie

All the course material such as lecture notes/slides, homework 
assignments, and handouts will be accessible through the NUIG 
blackboard: https://nuigalway.blackboard.com/


Course Description

MA278 Engineering Statistics 

This course will present basic concepts of probability theory 
along with the standard techniques for statistical analysis 
of data with primary focus on methods and data arising in 
science and engineering. 

Main topics to be covered during regular lectures include: 
sampling spaces, probability of events; 
concepts of independence and conditional probability;
concept of random variable (discrete and continuous);
expectation of random variables; basic probability distributions 
(binomial, Poisson, exponential, normal/Gaussian);
descriptive statistics (mean, variance, standard deviation, quantiles)
Estimation -- point and interval estimates of mean, variance, proportion,
differences in means and proportions; hypothesis testing; 
concepts of association and causation; linear regression;
design of experiments.

In the Labs/Tutorials section of MA278 students will learn to do 
basic data analysis using a statistical software and get hands-on 
computational experience with some of the topics covered in lectures. 
We shall use a statistical package called R. R is an open source 
(free) statistical software package and programming environment for 
data manipulation, graphical display and statistical analysis. 
R runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. Information on R can be found 
at http://cran.r-project.org/.


Recommended texts:

D. Montgomery and G. Runger,
Applied Statistics and Probability for Engineers,
5th edition, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

R. Johnson, 
Statistics: Principles and Methods, 
6th Edition, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

There are many similar textbooks covering introductory
material on probability and statistics. In addition, some 
of the quality material is freely available on the internet:

Probability:

C. Grinstead and L. Snell, Introduction to Probability,
American Mathematical Society.  
www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/probability_book/book.html

Statistics (including chapters on probability)

D. Diez et al., OpenIntro Statistics, First Edition, 
www.openintro.org/stat
(The textbook has been used successfully at Harvard and Princeton 
in three unique courses) 


Grading Policy

Continuous Assessment (CA) will consist of a combination of quizzes 
and homework assignments. 

Final exam may include any and all topics and materials covered in the course.
Your final mark will be based on the final exam (70%) and the CA (30%).

NOTE: You'll need a calculator for all the exams and quizzes.