Chapter 9.3, Problem 43E

Cushing’s disease is characterized by muscular weakness due to adrenal or pituitary dysfunction. To provide effective treatment, it is important to detect childhood Cushing’s disease as early as possible. Age at onset of symptoms and age at diagnosis (months) for 15 children suffering from the disease were given in the article “Treatment of Cushing’s Disease in Childhood and Adolescence by Transphenoidal Microadenomectomy” (New Engl. J. of Med., 1984: 889). Here are the values of the differences between age at onset of symptoms and age at diagnosis

-24	-12	-55	-15	-30	-60	-14 -21
-48	-12	-25	-53	-61	-69	-80

a. Does the accompanying normal probability plot cast strong doubt on the approximate normality of the population distribution of differences?

  

b. Calculate a lower 95% confidence bound for the population mean difference, and interpret the resulting bound.

c. Suppose the (age at diagnosis) – (age at onset) differences had been calculated. What would be a 95% upper confidence bound for the corresponding population mean difference?