Judith, Rich, Art, edstat-l list; My thanks to your replies and my apologies for not articulating my question better in my initial post. To be somewhat less vague about my question (I'll probably be still a little vague because of my lack of knowledge), the colleague of mine who asked about "sensitivity analysis" meant the question in regards to population ecology. To try to be more specific about a topic that I know little about, an ecologist might be modelling the risk of extinction. The model will involve several parameters. The use of the term "sensitivity analysis" in this context apparently means determining how "sensitive" the model's predictions are to uncertainty in the estimates of the parameters to help determine what parameters need to be estimated "more carefully". (These last few sentences were paraphrased from http://www.ramas.com/pva.htm, a hit I got from a hastily conducted Google search of "sensitivity analysis ecological model".)
I was sent a list of references by another reader of this newsgroup that I passed on to my colleague that he found satisfactory for his purposes. I suppose I could post that list of references if anyone else is interested. The use of this term "sensitivity analysis" is apparently from the use of the term "sensitivity" in epidemiology (and quite possibly others use of the term). This seems to be one of those situations where the same word means different things to different people. Again, my apologies for the vague request. CJM At 11:27 AM 02/06/2002 -0500, Conn, Judith wrote: >I do know that in epidemiology and medical science the purpose is to find >out how "sensitive" the test is . This ia what I think of when talking >sensitivity analysis. Further info can be obtained from P Armitage & G >Berry, "Statistical Methods in Medical Research", Blackwell Scientific >Publications. Judy Conn > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Rich Ulrich [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 9:55 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Re: Sensitivity Analysis > > > > On 31 Jan 2002 10:06:36 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > (Christopher J. Mecklin) wrote: > > > > > I had a colleague (a biologist) ask me about sensitivity analysis. I am > > > > > not familiar with the technique (above and beyond knowing that the > > > technique exists). What books/articles/websites/etc. would be good > > sources > > > for my colleague to learn about sensitivity analysis. Since he's a > > > biologist and not a statistician, I'm assuming he would prefer a > > treatment > > > geared towards application rather than theory. > > > > I have not seen any reply to this. I suspect that there might be > > too many options that refer to 'sensitivity' and none of us > > are sure what you are interested in, precisely. > > > > What's another keyword? I pair specificity with sensitivity; but > > I don't refer to 'sensitivity analysis', I say 'discriminability.' > > Your question -- and my background thoughts of 1000-generation, > > simulation analyses in genetic model ling -- makes me think of > > something I saw years ago, called 'perturbation analyses'. > > > > Try Google, or try us again with additional detail. > > > > Hope this helps. > > -- > > Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html > > > > > > ================================================================= > > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at > > http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ > > ================================================================= > > >================================================================= >Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the >problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at > http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ >================================================================= Christopher J. Mecklin, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Mathematics and Statistics Murray State University Murray, KY 42071 Phone: 270 762-5437 Fax: 270 762-2314 http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/chris.mecklin/index.htm ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ =================================================================
