Medical: Blood Plasma Let x be a random variable that represents the pH of arterial plasma (i.e., acidity of the blood). For healthy adults, the mean of the x distribution is u = 7.4 (Reference: The Merck Manual, a commonly used reference in medical schools and nursing programs). A new drug for arthritis has been developed. However, it is thought that this drug may change blood pH. A random sample of 31 patients with arthritis took the drug for 3 months. Blood tests showed that x = 8.1 with sample standard deviation s = 1.9. Use a 5% level of significance to test the claim that the drug has changed (either way) the mean pH level of the blood.
(a) What is the level of significance? State the null and alternate hypotheses.
(b) What sampling distribution will you use? Explain the rationale for your choice of sampling distribution. Compute the value of the sample test statistic.
(c) Find (or estimate) the P-value. Sketch the sampling distribution and show the area corresponding to the P-value.
(d) Based on your answers in parts (a) to (c), will you reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis? Are the data statistically significant at level a?
(e) Interpret your conclusion in the context of the application. Note: For degrees of freedom d.f. not given in the Student’s t table, use the closest d.f. that is smaller. In some situations, this choice of d.f. may increase the P-value by a small amount and therefore produce a slightly more “conser-vative” answer.
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