Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with graphs

Rates of success?

rollick — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:46:36 -0800

Statistics question: is it possible to test sets of cumulative data for significant differences in rate? I have three cumulative percentage graphs, measuring the germination rates of three different seed types. Is there a way to compare them and see if there are any statistically significant differences?

The seed types were planted in triplicate, on three dishes each (nine overall). Every day for the past few weeks I've observed how many seeds on each dish have begun germinating -- so for an individual dish I would have " Day 1: 0 ... Day 7: 14 ... Day 14: 29" etc, with each day's score a cumulative total. (There are 100 seeds on each dish, so it works as a percentage rate as well)

In Excel, I've graphed the average germination rates of the replicates, for a graph that resembles this one. (with three lines plotted, and x-axis = time in days, y-axis = percent germinated).

So is there a way to compare these different rates statistically? I can use Excel, Minitab, SPSS, and R.

Looking for a nystagmus/artcar tracker

tacit_urn — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:14:55 -0800

Help me find online map based tracking tools I'm looking for software that will help me graph both time and physical location. For example, I want to keep track of every time and every place I get nystagmus. Evenings, when I'm at sea-level? Sundays near crowds?

I also envision the same tool being used by a group of friends to pinpoint when and where they spot a certain art car in town.

Maybe something like google maps, with colored pinpoints for time. If anyone has example data of this variety that is graphed in a meaningful way, I'd like a link to that as well.

How do I graph pharmacokinetics?

ladypants — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:42:36 -0800

How can I visualize the pharmacokinetics of a drug? Is there a way to create a graph of the blood plasma levels of a drug including the fluctuations caused by time of administration? To make a long story short, my doctor changed one of my prescriptions and I'm curious how it will affect the plasma level of the drug.

I can find the half life and some other pharmacokinetic info on the drug through the FDA web site and the prescribing information, but I'm having trouble understanding the steady state level of the drug and fluctuations in blood plasma levels due to different time release formulations and times of dosage. I haven't been able to find any blood plasma curves drawn out. Basically, I wanna SEE what's going on.

How can I create a graph of this information using Excel or some other software? Is there some magic software or website designed to do precisely this? Ideally I'd like to be able to input different doses and times of administration to see how they affect blood plasma levels over time. I have access to MatLab if that helps (but no idea how to use it), Excel, SPSS. I haven't done calculus in about a decade but consider myself competent at basic algebra and number crunching. I'd be up for some calc review if it ill help me wrap my head around all this.

Infogasm

troika — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:34:50 -0800

I have some friends collecting movie & music data for the month of August - what are some innovative/interesting things I can do with the results? One friend is a music writer, he gets a couple of albums every day to review. The other just watches a patently absurd amount of movies. Because I just freaking love data compilation, I've given them both charts to keep track of the albums/movies, with categories both normal (title, length, etc) and silly (weirdest instrument used, connect someone in them movie to kevin bacon, etc). At the end of the month I want to present each of them with some sort of visual display of how they spent the month. Do you have any ideas on how best to accomplish this?

Also it's still early enough in August to add categories, if you have any suggestions.

Organizing images and graphs

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:14:00 -0800

Any advice on the best way of organising images and graphs for a PhD student? I'm interested to learn what strategies people use for organizing images, graphs and diagrams over the course of a long research project. I find that I spend a fair amount of time reformatting images for various purposes, such as documents, presentations and posters.

At the moment I am writing a paper using Latex, so I want all my graphs to be .eps and a certain size. But I can't figure out what the best font/image size to use is, or line-weight. Do people use a personal 'style guide' for each case? Are there any standards out there?

I am creating my images from Matlab, R, ArcGIS and Excel.

I'd like to develop a good strategy now so that I can use the diagrams and graphs I have now in a few years time.

Thanks!

I'm looking for a website about/for people that like to collect data about themselves.

SouthCNorthNY — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:49:41 -0800

I'm looking for a website about/for people that like to collect data about themselves. I'm talking about people that like to plug in what they ate, distance walked, money spent, hours slept ect. into a spreadsheet or program and chart their life.

Best way to do graphs in LaTex?

mai — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:38:54 -0800

What the best way to put two-coordinate graphs in a LaTex document? I am keeping a set of course notes for a math class. I am using LaTex (TexMaker on a Mac) for this. I need to create and insert some two-coordinate graphs (linear functions, quadratic functions, etc.) into the notes.

As an undergraduate I did all my math with pencil and paper - I have not done anything like this on the computer since high school. I am a total novice at this and I am figuring it out as a go. What's the best (simplest, least likely to fail) method to do this? Thanks!

Euler's map of the 7 Bridges of Königsberg

tnygard — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:31:51 -0800

Do you know good sources for historical mathematics images, specifically the Bridges of Königsberg by Leonhard Euler? Hi all, Euler's map of the 7 Bridges of Königsberg, which were all to be crossed once without crossing any twice is considered to be the first directed graph in the history of mathematics. I am trying to find a high quality reproduction of it, preferably on the internet. Does anyone know where to find such a thing? I would especially like to find one that is close to the original, rather than a later redrawing. This is for some writing that I am doing on the history of mathematics. I did some searches on google books, but did not find a wonderful PDF. Unfortunately I am not a mathematician, so I am probably unaware of the best math websites. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Recommendations for making Venn diagrams?

tnygard — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:50:03 -0800

Does anyone have software recommendations for making Venn diagrams? Especially complicated ones? Hi all, I have a set of data that I want to make a Venn diagram for, and I was hoping that you might have software recommendations for doing so.

My data is complicated and has several variables. (It shows how the agricultural sector of the American economy breaks down into grains, fibers, vegetables, etc. as well as where these products end up, such as bread products, pasta, etc.) I am not sure if I will make one big diagram with many circles (perhaps 20) or several smaller diagrams.

Ideally I will need something that can:

* Make the circles different sizes to indicate quantity.
* Control the colors of circles.
* Show different degrees of overlapping circles.
* Include many circles -- not just 3.
* Add labels.
* Produces attractive output that is potentially publishable.

I am happy to pay for a software package. But free software is nice.

Thanks in advance for your tips!

How fat I am. Let me show you.

jacquilynne — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:14:12 -0800

Can you suggest an online weight tracker that meets my requirements? I have a blog in which I examine, in annoying detail, my attempts to change my life. A big part of that is another try at changing my diet, going to the gym, losing weight, etc, and a key aspect of all of it, for me, is the accountability that comes from sharing the info with other people.

I would very much like to include a weight loss graph on the page, but I'm having trouble finding one that really fits my requirements. I currently have a 'ticker' which shows 9lbs down, 210lbs to go sort of information, but that's not really what I want.

Here's what I do want, with some semblance of priority:

Must haves:
-- A graphic presentation that can be embedded into my blog. My blog is a wordpress blog hosted on wordpress.com, which means I can not add much in the way of special code and widgets to it. The 'ticker' I currently have is an image file hosted and updated offsite that I can readily link to. Many similar tickers, and also most of the graphs I've seen are javascript that makes a call to the originating site, and that doesn't work with my blog. (Alternate viable answers: tell me how to make a javascript call from the sidebar of a wordpress blog.)

-- Shows recent weigh-ins as points on a graph, rather than just a description of overall weight loss / gain.

-- It not be a one time thing, but automatically updates as I weigh in on the originating site.

Very nice to haves:

-- Also includes a "hacker's diet"-esque weighted average curve.
-- The graph be appropriately formatted (narrow, vertical) to fit the sidebar of my blog.
-- It be free or very inexpensive.
-- It allows people to select more than one view of the data (ie, shows last 30 days of weigh ins by default, but clicking through to the host site, people can see weigh ins since I started, or weigh ins for the past week, or similar)

Sorta nice to haves:
-- Customizable colours so I can make it look purty on my site.
-- Customizable defaults so I can decide if I want it to show 30, 7, 365, etc days in the default view.

For those familiar with it, the Joe's Goals goal tracker, it has all my must-haves and all but one of my very-nice-to-haves. It's not a weight tracker (though I've thought up an interesting way to bastardize it into become one should I not find anything else that meets my needs) so I'd like something that's oriented to what I really want.

I don't need calorie/nutrition tracking, as I have that covered, but if the tool you suggest is part of a larger calorie/nutrition tracking site, that's fine as long as I can use just the weight chart part.

I've got brain freeze!

miss lynnster — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:42:06 -0800

I need to design some really cool (elegant but very simple and clean) charts and/or graphs for a small brochure... any good resources you can point me to for inspiration? (Preferably websites, not books. I'm working on this tonight.) I'm working on a brochure for a skin care company and I need to include some small charts and graphs. Think Clinique, Origins or Prescriptives. Things need to be minimal, streamlined, sophisticated... right now I'm working with simple gradients. I'm looking for good examples of other approaches besides basic pie charts and stacked boxes. Trying to be uber creative... but my brain is fried. Heeelllllp.

Thanks oodles, my peeps.

Who creates those incredibly beautiful artworks which interpret literature graphically by theme, word usage etc.?

lottie — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:01:49 -0800

Art Filter: Who creates those incredibly beautiful artworks which interpret literature graphically by theme, word usage etc.? The (vague) details from memory: About six months ago, while meandering from place to place to place online, I stumbled across a post about someone's artwork in which they turned statistical data about literature - the themes, word use, that kind of thing- into beautiful coloured graphs. Various kinds of graphs; pie charts, flow charts, time lines. They were presented as artworks, and I think may even have been featured because the artist had released a book full of them.

Visually they were sparse, simple and used muted, perhaps even pastel colours, and very elegant, minimal typography. They had a clean, mathematical look.

I thought one of the novels treated in this way may have been "To Kill a Mockingbird" and there was a Hemingway example too. Basically, I gawped at them lustfully, realised they were one-of-a-kind artworks, not prints I could purchase, and clicked out of there. I really regret not bookmarking, and now I'd like to take another look at them to see if I can interpret the process for some of my own research work.

I think it may have been at an interior design-loving site like Apartment Therapy or Not Martha, but I can't find them through searches at any of those. Maybe my search terms of "Literature Graphs" isn't cutting it. The artist may have been from Seattle or London. This is not good, I am starting to sound like John Edwards in crossing over... "You had a dog ...or was it a cat? a pet...there was a pet..."

Does anyone know who the artist is? Is there a link? I would really appreciate help from anyone who can remember seeing them.

How to find domain and range on graphing calculator?

meta.mark — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:37:54 -0800

How (if possible) can you find the domain and range of a graph on a graphing calculator (which in my case is a TI-84 Plus)?

Visually exploring and representing survey data.

proj — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:45:08 -0800

Best ways to visually explore a large survey data set? My advisor has advised me to explore my data set visually before diving in statistically. It is a large (N = 180,000+) survey data set comprised of individuals in over 80 countries. Most of the responses are categorical or dichotomous in nature, taking the form "agree/disagree" or "yes/no/maybe." Some of them are Likert-style scales (1-5, Disagree-Agree). Many of the demographic variables are also categorical (for example, rather than asking income, "income level" is asked) but I do have a few continuous variables such as age. My dependent variable of interest is a scale composed of four survey items indexed to 100 (although the actual number of discrete values taken on the scale is rather low owing to the nature of the questions comprising the scale).

What would be some interesting ways to visually explore this data? Obviously, scatterplots (even with jittering) are not the way to go because of the highly redundant and categorical nature of the data. I have a few boxplots that I've generated (usually separating by gender or region). I am open to abstract suggestions or concrete suggestions using R or Stata.

Name that Chart!

arcticwoman — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:49:45 -0800

Excel help: How do I make a chart which displays my values as bars extending above and below a particular line. I am charting the Exp(B) values of a logistic regression: any number above 1 indicates an increase in the likelihood of belonging to the group represented by the dependent variable and any number below 1 indicates a decrease. I want a line at 1 with numbers above 1 showing as bars extending above the line, and numbers below the line extending downwards. I'm sure it would help if I knew the name of such chart, but if I did, I wouldn't have to AskMe, er, You.

Fondness of O.P.P.

arcticwoman — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:04:31 -0800

Can you help me find funny graphs/charts to show in my university level statistics class? They don't have to be technically correct, I just want something to put onscreen while the students are coming into class. Stuff like this is ok, but SFW is preferable.

Easy way to make great-looking charts and graphs?

jbickers — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:28:18 -0800

Elegant and simple way to create nice-looking graphs/charts from raw data? My graphic designer needs to design a lot of charts and graphs (bar, line, pie, etc.) for our monthly magazine. Currently, he's doing it manually in inDesign, using the drawing tools. Which takes forever. But that's the way he needs to do it in order to make them aesthetically pleasing.

Or is it? Is there a (preferably free) tool that will take simple sets of data and spit out colorful, nice-looking, elegant charts/graphs? (Excel's built-in charting feature, for instance, produces things that are too cartoony - we want something high on the aesthetic meter.)

Here's the rub: it's for a print publication, so it has to be able to save at 300 dpi. Does any such thing exist?

What's the easiest way to converting raw numbers into a chart or graph?

JaySunSee — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 06:09:23 -0800

What's the easiest way to convert this ungodly mess to a nice chart or graph? I have bilateral tendonitis and lately it's been painful for me to do anything on the computer. I'm looking for recommendations on how to parse these product names and numbers into a sane looking chart or graph with a minimum of keystrokes.

Standards for false and pseudo-color imagery?

fake — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:05:16 -0800

In data graphing and visualization, are there any existing standards for false-color or pseudo-color images?

How to make pretty economics-style graphs

grimmelm — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:14:55 -0800

What software can I use to make pretty microeconomics-style graphs? I'd like to make a number of elegant explanatory graphs, of the sort that economists draw all the time (like these but more glamorous). What software packages are good for creating this sort of picture? I care about good graphic design, but I'm not a terribly good designer, so I'd like something that has nice-looking defaults or can be tweaked to look nice fairly easily.

I'm not looking to take existing datasets and visualize them. These pictures are to illustrate a theoretical model, rather than to present the results of empirical research. I just want a few suitably abstract looking curves, labeled points of interest, and maybe some shaded regions. It would be very nice to have some of the curves be mathematically related to others -- e.g. make one curve the derivative of another.

I'm running Mac OS X 10.4, am willing to work with either a graphical or a command-line interface, and would prefer not to break the bank.

Algorithm to display a schedule calendar with specific constraints

Frankieist — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:18:28 -0800

I've charged with adding a feature to a shift scheduler / coverage requestor that displays shift information for a given week. I've been able to display them so as to satisfy the constraints I've been given, but it's got me wondering wondering if there's a more rigorous/mathematical approach to the general problem of organizing the display of any such calendar information. The shifts in question are for employees (consultants) at a college computer lab, and all begin either 0, 15, 30, or 45 minutes past the hour. This weekly schedule calendar will be used for consultants to see their own shifts and to view shifts which are available for coverage. Let's say a consultant is looking at a shift as the current or prospective owner of it. For me, I'd say the pertinent information is

who is being relieved by the shift owner and who is the relief at the end of the shift, and

who are the people with whom the shift owner is going to be working

This places two constraints on the display so that the above information is most readily communicated:

Contiguous shifts should not be in seperate columns (unless one person is being relieved by more than one other person or vice-versa) (i.e. temporally contiguous shifts should be vertically contiguous)

Concurrent shifts should not be seperated by unnecessary blank spaces (i.e. temporally concurrent shifts should be horizontally contiguous)

It's trivial to create an algorithm that satisfied the first condition (which seems most important to me). The problem is, I can't figure out whether it's possible to create an algorithm that guarantees that neither constraint will ever be violated. I haven't run into any examples so far where it's obviously impossible, but I don't doubt that they might exist.

If the second condition can't always be satisfied, how might an optimal algorithm be constructed such that it is always satisfied whenever possible? I'd be very interested into any pointers on how to frame this in a more theoretical manner (for instance, a graph theoretical approach).

Lest I be called out for this, I'd like to say that I'm not asking metafilter to do my job for me. I've already written code that is fine by my superiors, but it got me to wondering whether there isn't a better way to do it. My current approach starts off by finding contiguous shifts that are necessarily joined together (that is, one person relieves one other person). It then goes through the shifts (ordered first by start-time, then length of shift or block-of-contiguous-shifts) and moves them as far to the left as possible. After that it does some hackish rearrangements which seem to give satisfactory results. Here are links to the results of my crack at the problem: 1 2. Like I said though, I'm interested in the more general cases than in the practical one that I've had to deal with here.

Your favorite stats & graph tools

arrhn — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 08:46:00 -0800

Looking for examples of great statistics display interfaces. This is preferably on the web, but I'd also like to know anything you found particularly compelling. I'm working on a project right now that will, amongst other things, track sports statistics. Graphs are great, but so are interesting looking tables. I'm not interested in the content of the data, as much as the how it's presented. Thanks!

Tricks of reading supply and demand graphs

dropkick — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:49:02 -0800

I'm having the darndest time reading and discerning supply and demand graphs in Microeconomics, and I'm looking for suggestions from econ whizzes on how to improve in this area. There is so much that can be read from a simple supply and demand graph: who is getting product and how much, who isn't, price ceilings and price floors etcetera etcetera. I want to get good at it, and I'm asking for any tricks in parsing all this information quickly and accurately. Where do I look first on the graph? What question do I ask first? What do you do to extract all that info from a few straight lines on a page?

3D Charts/Graphs in OSX

AMP583 — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:22:34 -0800

Help me create awesome 3D graphs/charts in OS X. I am part of a small graphic design firm that is looking to create 3D graphs, charts, etc on OS X for use in print, web and other media. Excel doesnt allow enough customization and outputting to Illustrator via bitmap doesnt do me any good since i need a high-resolution graph for print. Illustrator graphs/charts but i need a program that will allow me to create more substantial/complex graphs like surface charts similar to topographical charts, radar graphs, etc. Any suggestions?

Bet-settlin'-filter: Exponential pond scum growth?

everichon — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:36:50 -0800

Mrs. Everichon is convinced that there is a law or principle (as in "Foo's Law") which describes the phenomenon wherein a pond can take weeks to become 50% covered in algae, but then the remaining 50% takes only a day. This isn't about algae or ponds, just the phenomenon.

The only thing I know to describe this is geometric (or exponential) growth. Anyone?