The Tukey test in statistics
No, not turkey, Tukey, although they are pronounced very similar (depending on who you ask I guess? I’ve seen people pronounce it “two-key”). Any way, today we’re saving our job and the wrath that comes with failure. The mad scientist boss of ours tasked us with testing mind control devices and determining statistically which one (if any) worked. After the last failure, we now had four new devices to test, so we couldn’t use the same method as before. However, an assistant’s work is never done, we didn’t finish the job! That’s what we’re going to do today.
(more…)The ANOVA in statistics
Our mad scientist is back and this time they are not taking any chances! After statistical failure in the last example, they created not just one, but four mind control prototypes! We’ve been tasked with determining if they are working or face certain DOOOOOOOM! Sure, working for a mad scientist can be stressful, but we can do this… right? I’ve been dreading this post and you’ll see why, there’s a lot to cover before we solve the mystery, so let’s dive into it!
(more…)Significance in statistics
That feeling when your p-value is lower than your alpha, aww yeah! But what does it really mean? It’s one thing to say there is significance and on the surface it means the two things are different “enough” to be considered two things, but I think there’s a simpler way to explain it. So today we’re going to talk about what significance actually means in the practical sense. Maybe it’s super obvious, but it never hurts to state it anyway.
(more…)The f-test in statistics
Yep, we’re getting right back into it. I’m still working out things from yesterday, so we can just talk more statistics. This will be an interesting one and hopefully it will be pretty straightforward. The f-test, which in this case is really the f-test to compare two variances. You may have guessed, but the t-test uses the t-distribution (sort of like the normal), well the f-test uses the f-distribution, which is nothing like the normal! Let’s dive in, shall we?
(more…)A roadblock
I haven’t spoken with my Co-PI about this yet because I’m angry. Like fist balled, white knuckled, want to scream into some endless void angry. This was not the post for today, but I’ve learned a long time ago that I should get things out instead of bottling it up and letting it eat me alive. It’s the reason I’m still here today and one minor step to my success in not falling into the abyss that is depression. I am angry and I need to chose my next words carefully, because as you’ll see, I have no power here.
(more…)A meeting with my two PI’s
If I could make a comedy TV show about my life, I would call it my two PI’s and I would get into hilarious situations while trying to make both of them happy. Mostly you would see me get a lack of sleep and sort of feel like I’m running on a treadmill, going as fast as I can, but getting nowhere. It’s not all bad and I respect my two PI’s, but there’s a saying about having too many hands in the cookie jar and sometimes it feels like that’s what is happening. It’s a lot like the old game “telephone” where I’m given information to pass along between the two, so we’re all going to meet… *cue dramatic music*
(more…)First project deadline!
I didn’t have anything particularly lined up for today to add to the “in statistics” posts I’ve been doing, so today I thought it may be better to outline what I’m doing in the statistics course I’m taking. At the very least it may help me get it done, because as usual around here, the project is due… today. Yep, it’s yet another mad dash to the finish. Will I make it? Will I ever figure out what statistics is? Will I learn to stop asking questions in this format? Find out all this and more!
(more…)Confidence intervals in statistics
Well since our mad scientist from yesterday’s post is on a short break, today we’re going to fill in some of the gaps that post brought into view. First up is the confidence interval. There are some subtle points here, so this should help clarify a few things that may not have been clear yesterday. We’re going to do a somewhat deep dive into what the heck we’re doing when we talk confidence interval and why the standard deviation of our data is important in determining the values.
(more…)The t-test in statistics
Welcome fellow mad scientist enthusiasts, the last time we talked statistics, we found ourselves in an interesting situation and we need to figure out if the mind control device that was developed is actually working. We introduced the idea of a two population problem and today we’re going to use something called a t-test to determine if our mad scientist succeeded.
(more…)Two populations in statistics
As a mad scientist, or maybe just a grumpy scientist, you want to test a new mind control technique! To do this you decide that you want to test this works by having people select one of two objects set in front of them. *Insert evil laugh* Using your mind control technique you want your unwitting participants pick the object on the left. You don’t get 100% success, but suspect it’s working, how do we know for sure?
(more…)A fair coin in statistics
It has been a busy day, but the show must go on so to speak and I’m here today to tell you I have a nice shiny new coin for us to flip! The catch you may ask? Well it could be a fair coin or I may have just swapped it out for a coin that was not fair! Our goal is to see if I’m being sneaky and to do that we’re going to need some statistics!
(more…)The central limit theorem in statistics
Today we’re gonna push it to the limit! The central limit theorem that is. It’s a cornerstone in statistics and the short and dry version is that it lets us turn any distribution we have into a normal distribution. If it wasn’t for the central limit theorem statistics would hurt far worse than it does now (speaking as someone taking a stats class now). For the longer version we need to discuss why a normal distribution is needed, why we prefer to work with them!
(more…)Effect size in statistics
We’ve been talking statistics for the past few days and today we’re talking effect size. The short explanation is effect size is the difference between two conditions! The bigger the effect size, the easier it is to tell the two conditions apart, easy… right? There’s a lot that goes into determining effect size, after all it’s hard to know what your effect size is without having some prior knowledge about what you’re groups look like, so let’s go into some detail.
(more…)Errors in statistics
Everyone makes mistakes, that’s okay! In day to day life there are a lot of different ways you and I could make mistakes. In statistics however, there are just two ways for you to make a mistake. That may sound like a good deal, but trust me when I say two ways to make a mistake is two too many. To think, you spent all that time picking the right statistical test, did the experiment, analyzed the data, just to make an error in the end. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us, but knowing what they are will help you prevent them!
(more…)The hypothesis in statistics
As promised today we’re talking statistics for experiments! It’s more interesting than it sounds… okay it’s exactly as exciting as it sounds. Depending on who you are that’s a lot or not at all. No matter where on the spectrum you fall, knowing how it works is useful. So we’re starting at the beginning and discussing what a hypothesis is and how we test it.
(more…)The last PhD requirement
We’re already at the end of the month, how the hell did that happen? It’s been close to a month and a half since the term started and it feels like it’s flying by. I realized that when I first started this project I covered a lot of the stuff I was learning at the time. In fact one of my previous class notes posts was in my top 10 highest viewed blog posts for 2020. Somewhere along the line I stopped doing that, so today we’re going to talk about what I’m taking this term, why I’m taking it, and why I’ll probably be adding a few step by step instructions for how you can do what I’m learning too in some of my upcoming posts.
(more…)Great expectations
What did you want to be when you grew up? Sometimes the question ends in hilarity, a dinosaur, a unicorn, or maybe some other type of animal. Sometimes it leads to dreams of a sci-fi future, deep space traveller, Mars colonist, maybe a superhero. Whatever the answer is, they all have something in common. No one dreams of being average, but the average exists because so many people fall into it. Most of us have our dreams die as the reality of our existence becomes clear. I say fuck that, dream big until your last breath, why not?
(more…)A look ahead
With the weather trying to kill everyone, the pandemic trying to kill everyone, and just life in general I feel like things are moving…. slooooow. I have a weekly meeting with my main-PI who reminded me that I’m behind and while he agreed it was probably due in part to the pandemic, it’s time to try and catch up. There is a lot going externally and internally, but I’m hoping that by covering a few things here I will have a nice little list I can refer back on and keep me on track. That’s the idea anyway.
(more…)What is good outreach?
Yet another outreach event in the books! I have two more events this week and I believe that’s the last for my skype a scientist commitment. Since this term I was assigned classes practically all at once, I may re-volunteer to get a few extra classes in this term. Normally requests for my specific field don’t happen, but they’ve become more frequent, which is interesting to see because biomedical engineering, or my subset neuroengineering, isn’t a widely known field, but it is growing. All this recent outreach has gotten me thinking about what makes a good presentation, so let’s talk about it.
(more…)Outreach as a hobby
It feels like only yesterday I was fighting to stay alive and stay warm, but now like a bad dream it’s gone before it settled. Sure I’m still stiff from sleeping on the floor and the water isn’t on yet, but life has quickly thrown us back into “normal.” I don’t understand how people can shift so suddenly like the last week didn’t happen, but here we are, and here I am getting ready for another round of outreach.
(more…)Full speed ahead
Neither rain, nor sleat, nor pandemic, nor freezing to death stop us from moving forward. I think that’s how the PhD motto goes anyway. Since the past week we’ve been struggling to simply live, we’ve had the whole city sort of on pause. That pause has come to an end, there is no recovery period here, it’s straight back to work. That’s a feature of capitalism, not a bug and it isn’t limited to getting a PhD, but we’re definitely included in the back to work group.
(more…)On the stories we tell
It’s been a busy week, there was so much to do that I was worried it wasn’t going to all get done, but here we are! Things got done, mental health was prioritized, and I figure it’s a good time to talk about words. Or rather the stories they form, it’s a complex topic and this is really more for me than anything, a friendly reminder that I really enjoy writing. After all, while this blog is meant to help others, it’s also a message in a bottle to my future self, a reminder that I was really here and actually did the work. An ever growing time capsule of my thoughts if you will.
(more…)My scicomm video is done!!
I finally finished my video for the outreach project my main-PI tasked me with (this was the last post talking about it). There was a lot of time, effort, frustration, and I will admit, some not so kid appropriate language I was using during the editing process of the video. Mostly because I’m an idiot who had to find the most difficult way to do this project. Today we’ll cover what I did, how I hate myself enough to do it, and the end result. Let’s just say I’m not going to be a movie director or actor anytime soon…
(more…)The road to a PhD program
In hindsight this post should’ve happened a long time ago, like year one and day one of my 365 days of academia project. Things have… evolved in ways I didn’t understand when I started this, originally the project was simply going to be a notebook for my classes, then it turned into my journey as a whole, and even what I do in my spare time. Like anything we create it took on a life of its own and I’m reminded I should touch on the process to getting accepted into a PhD program.
(more…)Paper submission!
This morning I woke up to some good news! I got an email letting me know that the journal paper I’ve been working on has been submitted. It’s not the end, it’s only the beginning really. It needs to be reviewed before we know the outcome, but I’ve spent the past ten months or so writing this damned thing, so this is a huge moment for me.
(more…)The tightrope of mental health
My mental health is like walking on a tightrope, one slip and I’m done. Getting back up could take years for someone like me. The truth is, things are hard on the best of days. Getting out of bed, shaving, cutting my hair at regular intervals, things that would come easy to some require sheer force of will to accomplish. All the small choices through the day eat away at what little energy I have until I’m drained before breakfast. Yet here I am, pushing forward. It’s days like today remind me that for all the progress I’ve made, it’s still just a tightrope I walk.
(more…)Back to outreach
Today was the finish line, like it or not the R21 grant had to be finished. My Co-PI seems happy enough about the outcome, so we’ll have to wait and see what the result is, it could be several months before we know anything. It was a marathon of work, data process, experimenting, and now… nothing. I’m finally done so I can actually focus on other projects, which is the topic of the day!
(more…)R21 Deadline
Today is the FINAL day for me draft before we send the R21 proposal off for internal review. Technically I think we have all day tomorrow too, but I need to get this back to my Co-PI for review and his final edits before we can submit it. The good news is the scientific writer was very thorough with their edits and suggestions, the bad news is I told my Co-PI I would get it back to him tonight before realizing how much there was to do!
(more…)The zero factorial
Today I’m doing some stats homework and was reminded of an odd quark in math, the zero factorial. It’s not very intuitive and I absolutely love weird math, so I thought I would share the fun. I never said I was normal… Anyway today we’re going to go over why 0! (zero factorial) is so interesting!
(more…)A clear path!
That was quick! I have an update regarding yesterday’s funding debacle already… it’s good news, but that’s all the hint you’re getting for now! Things are happening fast and frankly they need to I only have a few more days to finish the grant before its due for internal review and I don’t know how my Co-PI is feeling right now, but I’m stressed out!
(more…)Trouble on the horizon
I did not see this one coming… or maybe I did and just wanted to pretend it wasn’t going to be an issue. There’s been a difference of opinion to put it lightly. I received an email this morning from my main-PI asking if we could meet to discuss my funding options and he also casually mentioned that the R21 might not get submitted.
(more…)Scientific figure design
Well I’ve done it… sort of. I edited the grant for the semi-last time. Now we’ve got a working copy that reads the way we want it to read, so it’s off to the scientific writer to read over it and make sure it sounds good. You would think that means my work is done, but no. I need to do arguably the hardest part and create some of the figures we will use in the paper. Writing well takes practice, but making a good figure, well that’s art.
(more…)R21 Grant update
We’re not even two weeks aways away from the deadline for the grant submission that I’m working on with my Co-PI and things are getting close! It feels like there is still so much to do that I don’t see how we would ever make it to the end, but really a lot of it comes down to polishing everything to make it look pretty. Part of writing a grant is telling a story, that story needs to be backed up by science, but without the story the grant will fall flat.
(more…)Book chapter update
It feels like it’s been a while since we talked explicitly about the book chapter I am writing. A lot has happened since that first post, mostly edits and what not. Since the second round of edits was due yesterday (and I hit that goal, thank you!) it won’t hurt to do a bit of a refresh and remind everyone why I took on yet another thing on my long list of to-do tasks.
(more…)Time management as a student
AHHHHH! There’s so much going on right now my head feels like it’s going to explode. Still, I am hopeful that today is the day that I check a few of those things off my list. Let me just say, the more I have to remember the more stressed out I get, mostly because I’m afraid I’ll forget something. The solution is simple, don’t try to remember anything, but that is problematic… right?
(more…)End of the month crunch
It’s the end of the month and that means there are a lot of loose ends I need to tie up before the new month begins. Deadlines I need to hit, plots to make, projects due, heck I even have a book chapter due. There’s just a lot going on and not a lot of time to finish it all. It seems to be a common theme that things are “due” at the end of the month for me. This month is no different, but with school having started, it gets a little more hectic than normal.
(more…)Experiment Results
It’s been a crazy week, more so than usual! The R21 grant I’m writing is due to my Co-PI today, it’s our self imposed deadline. It’s not THE deadline, but it might as well be in my mind. I’ve processed most of the data from the experiments and yesterday I said we would talk about the result from finding an error in my code. Well let’s talk about it!
(more…)The last experiment!
Today’s the day! It’s the last experiment for our R21 grant, we had our first set of experiments last week and today we’re completing the final experiment today. Hopefully we’ll have some good results for our grant, I got done processing some data last night and if I didn’t make an error the results were slightly underwhelming, but we’ll have to see I guess. There’s still a lot of things I need to check so I’m not too worried, okay slightly (very) worried…
(more…)Overloading in education
Get your PhD they said! It will be worth it they said. You’ll have a good time they said! They certainly say a lot don’t they? Well I say things shouldn’t be so freaking hard. I get that getting your PhD requires work and frankly, it should require work, I mean it’s a freaking PhD! That said, it shouldn’t be a four to six year gauntlet of torture to see how many times you break down mentally and physically. It doesn’t build character, or better PhD’s, but it is the system we work in.
(more…)Make a SciComm video, the hardest way possible!
Writing, and filming, and edits… OH MY! I’ve done it, I’ve committed to making this science communication video (SciComm for short, if anyone was wondering about the title). Yesterday I went into the lab to do some filming and realized that I was about to make a great video, or at least I like to think so. But more importantly I was going to do it the hardest and most convoluted way possible. Why? Well, why the heck not?
(more…)A new science outreach project
Today we’re making a movie! Okay, it’s not a movie persay, it’s a virtual outreach project I’ve been tasked with by my main-PI. Unlike most outreach I do, this is going to take some planning, a bit of script writing, a easy to do exercise that can be followed at home, and lastly a little write up on everything going on. So when I say some planning, I mean a LOT of planning!
(more…)Experiments update!
Well a lot has happened this week, maybe not the most interesting of things for my readers, but this week has definitely kept me on my toes. Today we’re going to have to talk in circles because I can’t give away my “super secret” technique I’m researching, but I also have news about that technique. It’s all very hush, hush, top secret, would have to kill you if I told you type stuff for now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about how the experiments I’m doing went!
(more…)Second grant experiment
Ever have one of those days that is so packed full of stuff to do you don’t think you’ll get a chance to eat? Well today is one of those days for me, I’ll be busy from morning to evening today between my experiment and class I don’t get a break! Since that’s the case, I think we should look at what’s on the agenda for the day in a bit more detail and how I plan on managing my time so that (hopefully) I won’t be late for anything.
(more…)More on grant writing
Got the first round of edits back from my Co-PI on the R21 grant I’m writing. At first they didn’t look too bad, but it turns out he reworded quite a bit. Not that big of a deal honestly, but he did suggest that it was close to perfect, so I would hate to see what “not close” looks like. Today I figure we can discuss what I have left, why there’s a rush to get all this done, and why the heck I’m doing soooooo much writing!
(more…)More experiments!
*Cue mad scientist laugh* It’s alive!!! ALLLLIIIIVVVEEE!! No, I’m not reanimating corpses, I just work with human participants so if they weren’t alive it would be awkward. I mean really, really awkward. Thankfully since they are non-invasive experiments the risk of serious injury is almost zero. All this build up to say I’ve got some new experiments starting today, as in MY experiments! *Cue second mad scientist laugh*
(more…)The first week of classes
When you start a PhD program, or a Masters program (I have a BS and MS so I can speak to this) things aren’t as structured as they are in undergrad. Not that undergrad programs aren’t hard or not hectic, it’s just that there are scheduled times for everything so you know when and where you will have work. It’s a lot like highschool in that respect, you get homework, but there’s a clear end to it. Not so much in grad school, your homework takes a year or even years (for a PhD) to finish. Still, it’s the first week of school, so things change, if only slightly.
(more…)My first surgical shadow
With all the COVID excitement going on around here, I haven’t had the chance to share my experience about one of the coolest things I’ve had the chance to do thus far in my career! Since starting my PhD I feel like I’ve had all sorts of interesting experiences and while they haven’t helped me publish anything, I’ve learned a lot. Making a jump across fields like I did (design engineering to neural engineering) has had a steep learning curve from the start, but almost three years in and I’m feeling good about the decision.
(more…)I’m going into surgery… sort of!
Okay well this came out of left field, or rather happened faster than I thought it would. My Co-PI and I had discussed just last week seeing some of how the more clinical stuff gets done in terms of electrophysiology and invasive monitoring. He suggested I shadow some of the doctors while they are performing surgery to see how they do the things they do and now I’m about to get the chance to do just that. Yeah, that’s a lot of doing.
(more…)A day of meetings and emails
It’s a new day with a new and long list of things I need to get done. I’ve already got a ton of bad news about my car issues and the rather large bill that is coming with that, but I’ve also got meeting after meeting scheduled for today on top of a long, long list of emails that need responses from me. Basically today is going to be exhausting and all I will have done is sit in front of a computer, how the hell does that even work?!
(more…)And it’s back to work I go
Today is my last day off. Not quite a day off either, more of a day to get ready. While classes haven’t officially started for me, it’s time to get some work done. So in the spirit of chronicling my life as a PhD candidate, I figure today we can take a look at my todo list and you’ll see why today isn’t a day off. Hint, there’s a lot of prep going into this next week.
(more…)
Lunatic Laboratories 