Gaetan

Let's say the Plaintiff's losses were much greater than the Small Claims Court $7,500 maximum claim. If the Defendant appeals the judgment in Superior Court, can the Plaintiff make a claim to recover his entire losses.

I found in a forum that the correspondence follows a simple equation:

Snellen Chart denominator = - prescription times 100.

Let's say if you have a - 3.0 Diopter prescription, your vision acuity on the Snellen chart would be 20/300.

However, the forum did not provide any sources or references for this. Thus, I don't know how much credibility it warrants.

Can you provide the most accurate conversion including sources or references and the underlying math if possible?

Thanks in advance.

I have a 91 Honda Accord station wagon. It has only 102,000 miles. Overall, it runs well. But, I think I need to replace the oil pan. How much do you think it should cost for parts and labor?

Usually, one uses the unpaired student t test for unpaired hypothesis testing (checking if two samples come from the same population). In case, the data is not normally distributed, one usually uses the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test or the Mood's Median test.

But, this friend of mine suggested a different nonparametric alternative: the two-sample K-S test.

What do you think are the benefits or drawback of using the K-S test instead of the Mann-Whitney test in such situations.

My daughter will go to UC Davis in the Fall. She will be in the dorms. I'll cover pretty much everything including meal plan. Given that, what do you think she needs. If you know of firsthand data source, please mention them.

Thanks in advance.

I know how to use the MLE method within a Logit Regression framework where the dependent variable is a transformed Logit that gives you a probability between 0 and 1.

But, I am working within a Path Analysis framework. Here the dependent variable is a standardized variable that can have negative values. My Logit Regression MLE framework will not work here because you can't take the log of a negative value.

How do you modify your MLE framework to handle variables with negative values?

I want to build the related model in Excel.

Thanks for any assistance.

See related info at Nansulate.com. Apparently a paint coating based on nanotechnology can substantially improve the thermal insulation of a room. It supposedly can reduce moisture, mold, and heating utility bills. I find those claims by the vendor somewhat challenging to believe. Does anyone have any objective information or experience with this product that would support such claims?

We have a 9 year old female pug. Recently, the steadiness of her hind legs has weakened. After a battery of X-Rays and MRI, the mentioned specialist suggests she may have a combination of an arachnoid cyst and a syrinx in the lower middle back that is blocking spinal fluids. A few days ago, he stated that in such cases surgery does not work well. He recommended a combination of steroids and chemotherapy. A couple of days later, he reversed his opinion and recommended surgery as (all of a sudden) he had very good firsthand experience with those. He also recommended that our pug be on steroids 2 to 3 weeks before the operation to strengthen her. There are two caveats. He is not 100% sure that these are the problems (cyst and syrinx). And, he has never operated when both cyst and syrinx are present. He stated he would expose the spinal cord and remove a portion of the meninges and breakdown any adhesions he found.

What would you do?

I noticed a while back that Wikipedia must have changed its interface. Now, I can't print clearly any article with math notations. The equations and other math symbols get completely distorted in a slanted fashion. The article becomes so unclear as to be unreadable. If you want to learn about math, but you can't clearly read the formulas you are stuck.

Do you know any way to fix this problem?

In the U.S. a few dentists are marketing a completely different type of dentistry that goes under the name of waterlase (standing for the combination of a water stream with a laser beam).

This method supposedly makes the existing teeth drilling combined with painkilling shots obsolete. Waterlase is painless. Patients do not need to be numbed with powerful anesthetic shots anymore. The laser is supposed to be far more precise and delicate than a drill. As a result, much more of the tooth enamel and overall structure is preserved. Also, the FDA supposedly approved of this technique nearly 9 years ago back in 1998.

As a dental patient considering major work on two deteriorating fillings that will have to be replaced with crowns, I have a few underlying questions:

1) How come this technique remains unknown even though it was approved by the FDA long ago?

2) What are its drawbacks if any?

3) Can this technique truly substitute for standard drilling for the type of work I am considering?

4) Is specific expertise key for a dentist to practice waterlase successfully?

5) If it was your own mouth, would you consider going the waterlase route or not?

Thanks in advance for any information on the above.

Let's say, a home goes through foreclosure. Its related mortgage was pooled and securitized among thousands of others. Now, the home is for sale. The real estate broker incentive is to set a low price to turnover the property quickly. That's because for a broker time is money.

So, who negotiates the price and protect the fragmented owners interest (MBS investors). Is it the servicer of the mortgage? But, because of his own operating cost he also would have an incentive to sell quickly at a low price. How about the securitization bond trustee. Does the trustee step in and negotiate with the broker what price is deemed acceptable to the MBS investors?

You can see it is kind of a gnarly question. If you have a clear understanding of this process, please educate me.

My car is due for its 6 month servicing. I called our local Honda dealership. They said it is most likely the fuel pump relay that transmits fuel and information to the starter. They said it was a common problem among Honda Accords from the early 90s.

They recommended to replace this fuel pump relay. This would cost $190. They indicated they could check if this fuel pump relay works or not. That would cost $130. Given these costs, they suggested I directly get the fuel pump relay replaced for $190.

This makes sense to me. But, I am no car mechanic. Does it make sense to you? Or, do you know of other likely possibilities? What should I do?

Vendors present convincing infomercials disguised as technical articles within magazines that doing so will help reduce moisture, humidity, prevent mold, and buckling of wood floors within your home.

I am not convinced that is the case because the source of humidity is water vapor in the air more than water content within the earth underneath the home.

I am interested in answers demonstrating scientific understanding of the mechanism by which humidity from the outside infiltrates a home.

You have 3 doors (door A, door B, door C). Behind one of the doors there is a car. There is a goat behind the other two.

First trial:

You pick door A. The gamemaster opens door C disclosing a goat. According to Monty Hall’s theorem, you choose to open door B to improve your probabilities from 1/3 to 2/3 to get the car.

So, here we have door A with a probability of 1/3 and door B with probability of 2/3.

Second trial:

You pick door B. The gamemaster opens door C disclosing a goat. According to Monty Hall you now choose to open door A to improve your probability from 1/3 to 2/3 to get the car.

So, here we have door A with probability of 2/3 and door B with probability of 1/3.

So, the Player has influenced the probability of getting the car behind a given door simply by the sequence of his first picking a door.

Can you explain this paradox? Best answer will be awarded to the clearest and most convincing explanation.

I am studying Global Warming. I easily found a pretty good annual time series of global average temperatures going back to 1860. I am trying to do the same for two variables: 1) carbon dioxide concentration and 2) carbon dioxide emission. The best I found was annual data going back to 1956 of carbon dioxide concentration at Mauna Laua (or whatever it is called) a volcano and observation station in Hawaii. But, that is way too short of a time series. Can your guys help?

Colonoscopy cuts out growths of a certain size within your colon. Supposedly, those larger ones are most susceptible of becoming cancerous. Makes good sense. However, would cutting such growths cause an in situ cancer (benign) to spread. I read that when you do biopsy of breast or prostate tissue, one can actually cause a benign cancer to spread and become dangerous. Why would it not work the same for the colon?

In your answer please mention your field of expertise and reference supporting your opinion. These will be considered when selecting the best answer.

In hypothesis testing (in both paired and unpaired situation), when you deal with small samples you cannot use the student t test. Instead, you have to rely on nonparametric tests. They are called nonparametric because unlike the t test, they do not rely on the assumption that the underlying distribution is normal (with a relevant mean and standard deviation).

The question is how small is small? Different sources mention different minimum sample size so you can use the t test. Otherwise, you can't.

So, in your expert opinion what size sample do you need? Make sure to explain why and mention your background and reference. Explanation, credentials, reference will be heavily weighted in my rating the answer.