Dear R-help,

I'd like ask for your opinion on choosing the "right" strategy for a
particular dataset.

We conducted 24-hour electric field measurements on 90 subjects. They
are grouped by job (2 categories) and location (3 categories). There are
four exposure metrics assigned to each subject. 

An excerpt from the data:

n       job     location        M       OA      UE      all
0       job1    dist_200        0.297   0.072   0.171   0.297
1       job1    dist_200        0.083   0.529   0.066   0.529
2       job1    dist_200        0.105   0.145   1.072   1.072
3       job1    dist_200        0.096   0.431   0.099   0.431
4       job1    dist_200        0.137   0.077   0.092   0.137
5       job1    dist_20 NA      0.296   0.107   0.296
6       job1    dist_200        NA      1.595   0.293   1.595
7       job1    dist_20 NA      0.085   0.076   0.085
8       job1    dist_20 NA      2.120   0.319   2.120
9       job1    dist_20 NA      0.881   NA      0.881
10      job1    dist_0  NA      0.221   NA      0.221
80      job2    dist_20 0.800   0.342   1.482   1.482
81      job2    dist_20 NA      0.521   0.050   0.521
82      job2    dist_200        NA      0.497   0.502   0.502
83      job2    dist_200        NA      2.777   NA      2.777
84      job2    dist_20 NA      0.127   0.050   0.127
85      job2    dist_200        NA      2.508   0.423   2.508
86      job2    dist_200        0.216   0.350   2.782   2.782
87      job2    dist_200        NA      2.777   1.996   2.777
88      job2    dist_200        2.348   0.890   2.777   2.777
89      job2    dist_200        NA      0.488   NA      0.488

I'd like to know whether the differences between the group means are
significant. Is a pairwise t-test (for location, and a simple t-test for
job) appropriate in this case?

data = read.table("data.txt", header=T, nrows=90)
attach(data)
res1 = pairwise.t.test(all, location, p.adj="bonf")
print(res1)
res2 = pairwise.t.test(M, location, p.adj="bonf")
print(res2)
res3 = pairwise.t.test(OA, location, p.adj="bonf")
print(res3)
res4 = pairwise.t.test(UE, location, p.adj="bonf")
print(res4)
res1 = t.test(all~job)
print(res1)
res2 = t.test(M~job)
print(res2)
res3 = t.test(OA~job)
print(res3)
res4 = t.test(UE~job)
print(res4)

I'd also like to compare the four exposure metrics - how to do that?

One potential problem is that the distribution is not normal for any of
the exposure metrics: it's close to lognormal. (In fact, it's even worse
than that: the measuring instrument has a relatively high lower
detection limit, and all off-scale low points are marked as the det.
limit. In other words, non-detects are censored.)
Doesn't this make t-tests useless?

Thank you in advance:

Péter Juhász

______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

Reply via email to