Question: In 1993 the British Medical Journal published

> All NICs have a unique identifier called a(n)______________ .

> Most Ethernet networks have a central box called a(n)_________ .

> Most Ethernet networks use copper UTP wiring, but a(n) _________ enables much greater distance between two hosts.

> The most common Ethernet topology is__________ .

> Ethernet cables typically use a(n) _________ connector.

> A single piece of installed horizontal cabling is called a(n)______________ .

> The _______ version of Ethernet runs at 100 Mbps.

> A(n) ______________ handles the video processing chores in modern systems.

> A virus that changes its signature to prevent detection is called a(n)_______________ .

> Mary’s company routinely labels data according to its sensitivity or potential danger to the company if someone outside accesses the data. This is an example of_____________.

> Aaron, who we met in Exercise 28, tends to be optimistic about business conditions. What is his maximax strategy that would maximize his results?

> Shawn Overgrowth, whom we met in Exercise 27, is an entrepreneur who is optimistic about the growing season. What choice should he make to maximize his return? His assistant, Lance Broadleaf, is very conservative, and argues that KickGrass should minimiz

> Demand and price are related; raising prices typically lowers demand. Many companies understand that if they can segment their market and offer different prices to different segments, they can often capture more revenue. Aaron’sAir is a small commuter ai

> KickGrass Lawncare is a service that cares for lawns in a large, affluent community. Shawn Overgrowth, the owner, is considering the purchase of new zero-turn riding lawn tractors, which would allow him to expand his business. The tractors cost $6300 eac

> The company in Exercises 14, 22, and 24 could send a team to Saudi Arabia to obtain additional information about the probabilities that oil will increase or decrease in price. They hope that the fact-finding trip would choose between the two alternatives

> The company from Exercises 13, 21, and 23 has the option of hiring an economics consulting firm to predict consumer confidence. The company has already considered that the probability of rising consumer confidence could be as high as 0.70 or as low as 0.

> For the energy investment of Exercise 22 and using both of the probabilities considered in that exercise, find the Expected Value of Perfect Information.

> a) For the advertising strategies of Exercise 21 and using the probability of 0.70 for rising consumer confidence, what is the Expected Value of Perfect Information (EVPI)? b) What is the EVPI if the probability of rising consumer confidence is only 0.40

> a) For the payoff table in Exercise 14, find the investment strategy under the assumption that the probability that the price of oil goes substantially higher is 0.4 and that the probability that it goes substantially lower is 0.2. b) What if those two p

> For the payoff table in Exercise 13, find the action with the highest expected value. a) If forecasters think the probability of rising consumer confidence is 0.70, what is its expected value? b) What action would have the highest expected value if they

> What affects marketing managers’ hourly wages? To find out, mean hourly wages were retrieved from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for two managerial occupations in marketing (Sales managers, Advertising managers) for a random sample

> For the product launch decision of Exercise 12, the economy isn’t looking that good. Your very cautious boss says that he thinks there’s a 60% chance of low sales, and a 30% chance of moderate sales. Which course should the company follow?

> For the decision of Exercise 11, you’ve just learned that you are on the short list and now estimate the chance that you’ll be called for an interview is 0.70. Does that change your choice of actions?

> An analyst for the company in Exercise 12 thinks the probabilities of high, moderate, and low sales are 0.2, 0.5, and 0.3, respectively. In this case calculate the expected value of each action. Which is the best action in this case?

> If you think the probability of being called for an interview is 0.30, calculate the expected value of each action in Exercise 15. Which is the better action in this case?

> Construct a decision tree for the payoff table in Exercise 12.

> Construct a decision tree for the payoff table in Exercise 11.

> An investment bank is thinking of investing in a start-up alternative energy company. They can become a major investor for $6M, a moderate investor for $3M, or a small investor for $1.5M. The worth of their investment in 12 months will depend on how the

> After a series of extensive meetings, several of the key decision-makers for a small marketing firm have produced the following payoff table (expected profit per customer) for various advertising strategies and two possible states of the economy. Cons

> A small company has the technology to develop a new personal data assistant (PDA), but it worries about sales in the crowded market. They estimate that it will cost $600,000 to develop, launch, and market the product. Analysts have produced revenue estim

> You are planning a trip home at the end of the semester and need to make plane reservations soon. However, you’ve just had a preliminary interview with a consulting firm that seemed to go very well. There’s a chance that they will want you to stay for a

> An experiment on laboratory rats finds that rats that are randomly assigned to higher levels of noise take longer to finish a maze than those that try the same maze under less noise. The P-value for the hypothesis of equal means is 60.0001. Are researche

> Major League Baseball (MLB) requires that a ball used in a major league game weigh between 5 and 5.25 oz. (www.MLB.com). Rawlings® is the official supplier of baseballs for MLB. In their production process, do they treat 5 and 5.25 oz. as control or spec

> Instead of one observation outside of 3s from the mean as in Exercise 17, suppose a quality control engineer decides to use only the run chart rule that the system is out of control if 8 observations in a row lie on the same side of the mean. What is the

> Most control charts use three sigmas (standard deviations) to set the upper and lower control limits. For a run chart, what is the probability that an observation would fall beyond 3s from the mean based on random chance variation alone? What assumptions

> In 1980, millions of viewers watched as the number 666 was drawn for the Pick 3 Pennsylvania lottery. Although as likely as any other number, lottery authorities and local bookmakers became suspicious when they noticed that a large number of tickets were

> An observer at the roulette wheel in Monte Carlo notices that there seems to be no pattern to the numbers that come up during an entire evening. Is this an example of special- or common-cause variation? Explain.

> Plastic covers for DVDs must be manufactured with enough precision so that a DVD can properly fit into the cover. Specifically, the diameter of the central plastic piece over which the DVD is placed must not vary more than a certain amount. A manufacture

> The two Gemini observatories (www .gemini.edu) were built and are operated by a partnership of seven countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Chile, Australia, Brazil, and Argentina. Astronomers in each of these countries are able t

> Since 1980, average mortgage interest rates have fluctuated from a low of under 4% to a high of over 14%. Is there a relationship between the amount of money people borrow and the interest rate that’s offered? Here is a scatterplot of T

> The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (www.ofheo.gov) collects data on various aspects of housing costs around the United States. Here is a scatterplot of the Housing Cost Index versus the Median Family Income for each of the 50 states. The

> Here are data relating the carbon footprint (tons of CO2 per year) to the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) highway mileage for 82 family sedans as reported by the U.S. government (www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass.htm). The car with the highest hi

> An observational study finds that the average number of years that people stay married differs by educational level with a P-value 60.0001. The higher the education level, the longer people tend to stay married. Are researchers justified in concluding th

> Here are data that relate Sales at The Home Depot and Housing Starts, for quarters during its period of rapid growth between 1995 and 2004. a) Would Kendall’s t or Pearson correlation be the more appropriate summary? Explain. b) What

> Baseball is big business, and the top salaries have become quite large. The highest salaries (in millions of dollars per season) for each season since 1980 are given in the following table: a) Kendall’s tau for these data is 0.90. Wh

> In a Chance magazine article (Summer 2005), Danielle Vasilescu and Howard Wainer used data from the United Nations Center for Human Settlements to investigate aspects of living conditions for several countries. Among the variables they looked at were the

> A pharmaceutical company tested three formulations of a pain relief medicine for migraine headache sufferers. For the experiment, 27 volunteers were selected and 9 were randomly assigned to one of three drug formulations. The subjects were instructed to

> Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other (host) birds. The eggs are then adopted and hatched by the host birds. But the potential host birds lay eggs of different sizes. Does the cuckoo change the size of her eggs for different foster species? The nu

> The researchers in Exercise 23 also examined the number of people admitted to emergency rooms for vehicular accidents on 12 Friday evenings (6 each on the 6th and 13th). Is Friday the 13th “unlucky”? Hospital emergen

> A local insurance agent was concerned that he might lose customers to online discount insurance sites. To investigate, he randomly selected profiles (type of car, coverage, driving record, etc.) for 10 of his clients and checked online price quotes for t

> When implementing a packaged Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, many companies report that the module they first install is Financial Accounting. Among the measures used to gauge the effectiveness of their ERP system implementation is acceleratio

> A company institutes an exercise break for its workers to see whether this will have any effect on job satisfaction, as measured by a questionnaire that assesses workers’ satisfaction. Scores for 10 randomly selected workers before and

> A student performed an experiment with three different grips to see what effect it might have on the distance of a backhanded Frisbee throw. She tried it with her normal grip, with one finger out, and with the Frisbee inverted. She measured in paces how

> Cornell Professor of Nutrition David Levitsky recruited students from two large sections of an introductory health course to test the validity of the “Freshman 15” theory that students gain 15 pounds their first year.

> American League baseball teams play their games with the designated hitter rule, meaning that pitchers do not bat. The league believes that replacing the pitcher, traditionally a weak hitter, with another player in the batting order produces more runs an

> The table gives the names, dates first awarded, and heights (inches) of major trophies and awards in sports and entertainment. The America’s Cup, awarded for sailing, claims to be the oldest such award. The first five were created in th

> Just before the peak of the financial crisis, home foreclosures were up 47% in March 2008 compared to the previous year (realestate.msn.com; MSN Real Estate, April 2008). The data show home foreclosure rates (as % change from the previous year) for a sam

> A food company is concerned about recent criticism of the sugar content of their children’s cereals. The data show the sugar content (as a percentage of weight) of several national brands of children’s and adults’ cereals. Are children’s cereals really d

> The owner of a small organic food store was concerned about her sales of a specialty yogurt manufactured in Greece. As a result of increasing fuel costs, she recently had to increase its price. To help boost sales, she decided to place the product on a d

> A company is producing and marketing new reading activities for elementary school children that it believes will improve reading comprehension scores. A researcher randomly assigns third graders to an eight-week program in which some will use these activ

> Whether pasteurized or raw, both the European Economic Council (EEC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) require that milk sold to consumers contain no more than 10 coliform bacteria per mL of milk (www.cdfa.ca.gov). Should dairies take thi

> Pole vault technology has evolved considerably since the times of the ancient Greeks and even more recently as new materials have found their way into pole manufacturing. There are currently no regulations on the composition of poles although for safety

> Baseballs used in the major leagues in the United States must adhere to strict standards. One such standard is that the weight must be between 5 and 5.25 ounces. One could look at this standard as a target weight of 5.125 ounces with a tolerance of +/-0.

> “Oil is big business.” A classic example of this is the Texaco-Pennzoil court case, which appeared in the book Making Hard Decisions5 and in a subsequent case study by T. Reilly and N. Sharpe (2001). In 1984, a merger was hammered out between two oil gia

> Baseballs used in the major leagues in the United States must adhere to strict standards. One such standard is that the circumference must be between 9 and 9.25 inch. One could look at this standard as a target circumference of 9.125 inches with a tolera

> The medical facility in Exercise 27 also keeps track of the number of errors found when transcribing information from patient forms. Last year the average number of errors was 1.26 per day which the facility found acceptable. Here are the past two weeks&

> The following data were collected from the number of patient complaints from a small medical service facility over a two-week period. The past year the average number of complaints was 4.57. The management team would like to use that as a baseline for mo

> In LCD screens, every attempt is made to make sure that all pixels illuminate when they receive a signal, but it is impossible to ensure that every pixel in a large screen will actually work. A screen is determined to be defective if more than 2 pixels f

> MediaChip manufactures computer chips specifically for MP3 players. The process uses sophisticated lasers to imprint several hundred chips on a single silicon “wafer.” While the process is completely automated and set

> The following data are from a production process that makes approximately 250 units each hour. The data were collected over a normal 12-hour shift one day. Historical data shows the proportion of defects to be 6.21%. Either use technology to accommodate

> The following data are from a production process that makes 250 units each hour. The data were collected over a normal 12-hour shift one day. The data are shown in the table at the right. Using the first 10 hours as the calibration period, a) Calculate t

> The same graphite manufacturer from Exercise 21 uses an alternative process to make rolls. For this process the data are separated into 10 lanes—a sample consists of one roll from each lane. The results of 25 samples are shown in the table at the top of

> A graphite manufacturer makes long rolls of flexible graphite to be used to seal components in combustion engines. The specifications state that the mean strength should be 21.2 ounces per square yard with a standard deviation of 0.29. Further specificat

> A company that traditionally made rulers and yardsticks is setting up a manufacturing process to make metersticks. Obviously, accuracy is important for their new product. The company runs a 24-hour production process. Using a calibration set of data they

> Consumers always seem to want thinner and lighter electronic products, and computer laptops are no exception. One of the challenges of producing extremely thin and light laptops is the manufacturing of the touch pads. In particular, touch pads are diffic

> A company that makes basketballs has the motto: “Our basketballs are ready to play.” Therefore, it is important to the company that the basketballs are inflated with the proper amount of air when shipped. Most basketba

> The bike shop owner has now done a bit more research and believes that the demand for high-end bikes has shifted, so that now the low demand is 50% likely and the high demand is only 10% likely. How does this change your responses to Exercise 37? Find th

> A bicycle shop owner is deciding which products to stock. His distributor will give him a deal if he buys more of the same kind of bike. The payoff table shows monthly sales for a high-end bike (selling at $950) or a moderately priced bike (selling at $5

> An investor is considering how to invest her money. She has two options—either a domestic mutual fund that only invests in blue chip stocks or an international aggressive mutual fund that invests in young technical firms. The payoff (pr

> An investor is considering adding a stock to her portfolio. Assuming she buys 100 shares, here is an estimated payoff table for the alternative stocks if she holds onto them for six months. The value of the stock depends on whether or not an acquisition

> Aaron’sAir (see Exercises 28, 30, and 32) could purchase a market survey from a firm that has advised the island tourist and conference bureau. He thinks their projections would help him determine whether the probability of high demand might be as high a

> Shawn, of Exercises 27, 29, and 31, could obtain long-range predictions of the growing conditions for next summer. He thinks that those might show a probability of good growing conditions as low as 50% or as high as 80%. If he doesn’t obtain those predic

> Aaron’sAir (see Exercises 28 and 30) estimates that high-demand periods (which depend on the weather and on bookings for conferences) occur with probability .3 and medium demand periods occur with probability .5. The rest are low-demand periods. a) What’

> Shawn Overgrowth, from Exercise 27, estimates that the probability of a good growing season is 0.70. Based on that: a) Find the EV for his actions. b) Find the standard deviations. c) Compute the RRRs. Which action is preferred based on the RRRs?

> An experiment to test a new gasoline additive, Gasplus, was performed on three different cars: a sports car, a minivan, and a hybrid. Each car was tested with both Gasplus and regular gas on 10 different occasions, and their gas mileage was recorded. Her

> In previous chapters we considered what factors might contribute to the price of a home including living area and, such features as whether the home had a fireplace or more than 2 bedrooms. In those analyses, we used correlation and regression and Studen

> The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration runs crash tests in which stock automobiles are crashed into a wall at 35 mph with dummies in both the passenger and the driver’s seats. The THOR Alpha crash dummy is capable of

> We also have data on the protein content on the 77 cereals in Exercise 27. Does protein content vary by shelf? Here’s a boxplot and an ANOVA table. a) What kind of design or study is this? b) What are the null and alternative hypothe

> Supermarkets often place similar types of cereal on the same supermarket shelf. The shelf placement for 77 cereals was recorded as well their sugar content. Does sugar content vary by shelf? Here’s a boxplot and an ANOVA table. (Data in

> Particulate matter is a serious form of air pollution often arising from industrial production. One way to reduce the pollution is to put a filter, or scrubber, at the end of the smokestack to trap the particulates. An experiment to determine which smoke

> An experiment to determine the effect of several methods of preparing cultures for use in commercial yogurt was conducted by a food science research group. Three batches of yogurt were prepared using each of three methods: traditional, ultrafiltration, a

> One way to improve a process is to eliminate non–value-added activities (e.g., extra movements) and wasted effort (e.g., looking for materials). A consultant was hired to improve the efficiency in a large shop f loor operation. She test

> A manufacturing company that makes dental drills was experiencing problems with a specific part on the production line. Management suspected a machining problem that resulted in the length of the part varying outside of target specification. Two factors

> After complaints about gender discrimination regarding bonus incentive pay, a large multinational firm collected data on bonuses awarded during the previous year (% of base pay). Human Resources (HR) randomly sampled male and female managers from three d

> Some people believe that the stock market shows patterns according to the day of the week or the month of the year (“Sell in May and walk away”). We have the closing price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for every

> To improve the quality of molded parts, companies often test different levels of parameter settings to find the best combinations. Injection molding machines typically have many adjustable parameters. One company used three different mold temperatures (2

> InterCon Travel Health is a Toronto-based company that provides services to health insurers of foreign tourists who travel to the United States and Canada.7 As described in the Guided Example in this chapter, the primary focus of InterCon is to act as an

> Online retailers want customers to trust their websites and want to alleviate any concerns potential customers may have about privacy and security. In a study investigating the factors that affect e-trust, participants were randomly assigned to carry out

> A large financial institution is interested in training its college educated workforce in Six Sigma principles and methods. One part of the training involves basic statistical concepts and tools. Management is considering three approaches: online, tradit

> A pharmaceutical company tested three formulations of a pain relief medicine for migraine headache sufferers. For the experiment, 27 volunteers were selected and 9 were randomly assigned to one of three drug formulations. The subjects were instructed to