We had a short intro to functions and understand that a function works with variables defined inside or outside it. Now, let’s write a function to help with data analysis. I needed to analyse data from 3 people who had a stroke. The way these data are structured can be typical of experimental studies (on humans): each subject has a
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We last saw how to write a function in Python. Let’s take a step back to consider how a function works with variables provided to it. Functions can accept input values and return new values. In Python, input values are passed into the function using local variables inserted in the parentheses (). For example, the fahr_to_kelvin() function below receives the
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A function is a named block of code that is used to perform computations. Python provides many in-built functions such as print() and zip(), but functions can also be created by users. Why create functions? Functions provide a way to package code so it is easy to reuse when the same action needs to be performed repeatedly. This means there
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Bar and line graphs with standard deviation (SD) or standard error (SE) error bars are often used to visually present continuous data from laboratory studies with small sample sizes. Last year the journal PloS Biology published a paper showing that presenting such data this way is problematic for the following reasons: bar and line graphs conceal how data are distributed
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A recent Nature commentary highlighted a statement by the American Statistical Association on principles to guide the use of p values for interpretation of research findings. The statement was issued out of concern for the lack of understanding of p values and what they imply. Specifically, the 6 principles of the statement are: P values can indicate how incompatible the
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Python has a number of in-built data structures. Two of the most common structures are lists and dictionaries. In Python, a list is a sequence of values and is constructed with square brackets, e.g. [1, 5, ‘abc’, 34.8]. The values in a list can be numbers or strings. A dictionary is a sequence of keys associated with values and is
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Scientifically Sound 