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Mathematica 7.0 - Wrong Documentation on StudentTCI

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Lawrence Teo

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Nov 20, 2009, 6:43:11 AM11/20/09
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Hi all,

Summary: StudentTCI function's second parameter expects standard
error, rather than standard deviation as stated in the document. The
document has an error.

I just want to report an error in the documentation of StudentTCI
function in Mathematica 7.0.

The document for StudentTCI function reads
StudentTCI[Mu,Sigma, df] gives a confidence interval {min, max} for
the population mean based on the sample mean Mu and sample standard
deviation Sigma.
(refer to HypothesisTesting/ref/StudentTCI)

The truth is StudentTCI function expects Standard Error in the second
parameter, rather than a Standard Deviation.

I was driven crazy by the funny behavior of StudentTCI function for
hours. To make things worse, I didn't suspect it at all and were busy
looking for other mistakes in a rather complex code. I found it in
HypothesisTesting/tutorial/HypothesisTesting. The documentation is
slightly different and clearly points out the second parameter is a
standard error. It was a great relief to me after knowing this
document mistake.

Hope it helps the rest of the Mathematica users.

Darren Glosemeyer

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Nov 21, 2009, 3:34:11 AM11/21/09
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Thanks for pointing this out so we can fix it. As a general rule, bugs
should be reported to our Technical Support department at
sup...@wolfram.com to make sure it goes through the proper channels and
gets addressed. In this case, I have taken care of it so there is no
need for a message to tech support if one has not already been sent.

Darren Glosemeyer
Wolfram Research

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