## First aid test paper version,the best book in the world review,worm bin winter care - Good Point

Bayesian First Aid is an attempt at implementing reasonable Bayesian alternatives to the classical hypothesis tests in R. A straight forward alternative to the t-test would be to assume normality, add some non-informative priors to the mix and be done with it. All information regarding BEST is given in the paper and the video, here is just a short rundown of the model for the one sample BEST: BEST assumes the data ($x$) is distributed as a t distribution which is more robust than a normal distribution due to its wider tails. The prior on $\nu$ is an exponential distribution with mean 29 shifted 1 to the right keeping $\nu$ away from zero.
There are a couple of reasons for why it is not proper to use a t-test to analyze this data set. So the trend here is also increasing yields, though the parameter estimate is much less precise and the 95% CI includes zero. Every Bayesian First Aid test have corresponding plot, summary, diagnostics and model.code functions. If we believe, for example, that robustness is not such a big issue and would like to assume that the data is normally distributed rather than t distributed we just have to make some small adjustments to this script.
For the rationale behind Bayesian First Aid see the original announcement and the description of the alternative to the binomial test.
However, one of great things with Bayesian data analysis is that it is easy to not assume normality. Kruschke who has developed a Bayesian estimation alternative to the t-test called Bayesian Estimation Supersedes the T-test, or BEST for short. Except for the mean ($\mu$) and the scale ($\sigma$) the t has one additional parameter, the degree-of-freedoms ($\nu$), where the lower $\nu$ is the wider the tails become.

Instead of modeling the distribution of both groups and the paired differences the Bayesian First Aid alternative uses the same trick as the original paired samples t-test: Take the difference between each paired sample and model just the paired differences using the one sample procedure. A t-test does not consider the geographical location of the countries nor is it clear what a€?populationa€? the sample of countries is drawn from. We also get to know that the probability that the mean increase is more than zero is 99.4%. We also get a posterior predictive check in the form of a histogram with a smattering of t-distributions drawn from the posterior.
Note that the number of decimals places in this summary is a bit excessive, due to the posterior being approximated using MCMC the numbers will jump around slightly between runs. In comparison, a€?Bayesiana€? gives 130,000 hits while a€?box plota€? results in only 12,500 hits.
One alternative to the normal distribution, that still will fit normally distributed data well but that is more robust against outliers, is the t distribution. The rationale and the assumptions behind BEST are well explained in a paper published 2013 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology (the paper is also a very pedagogical introduction to Bayesian estimation in general). Thus the alternative to the paired samples t-test is the same as the one sample alternative, the only difference is in how the data is prepared and the how the result is presented.
Roubik argues that bees are important to the coffee harvest despite that the a€?self-pollinating African shrub Coffea arabica, a pillar of tropical agriculture, was considered to gain nothing from insect pollinatorsa€?. If there is a large discrepancy between the model fit and the data then we need to think twice before proceeding. Kruschke and Mike Meredith for an R and JAGS implementation of BEST including power analysis and more.

To be honest, if I had to choose I would most of the time prefer a notched boxplot to a t-test.
Bayesian First Aid is a work in progress and Ia€™m grateful for any suggestion on how to improve it!
While it would be possible to fix $\nu$ to a single value BEST instead estimates $\nu$ allowing the t-distribution to become more or less normal depending on the data. By taking a peek at the data these parameters are set so that the resulting priors are extremely wide. T-testable data was not that easy to get by and I browsed through a lot of papers before I found the examples with the bees.
Right, the t-test uses the t-distribution as the distribution of the sample mean divided by the sample SD, here the trick is to assume it as the distribution of the data. While having a look at the data pre-analysis is generally not considered kosher, in practice this gives the same results as putting $\mathrm{Uniform}(-\infty,\infty)$ distributions on $\mu$ and $\sigma$.
This data shows an increased yield after the introduction of bees and when analyzed using a paired t-test results in p = 0.04. Wea€™ll start with the two most simple; here follows the Bayesian First Aid alternatives to the one sample t-test and the paired samples t-test. This is compared with the increase in yield in old world countries, where the bees been busy buzzing all along, were a paired t-test gives p = 0.232 interpreted as a€?no changea€?.

Rubric: Survival First Aid Kit