Question 13.8

13.8 Randomness versus distribution.

In this section, we defined a Normal random process as being a process that generates independent observations that are well described by the Normal distribution. Consider daily data on the average waiting time (minutes) for patients at a health clinic over the course of 50 consecutive workdays.

clinic

  1. Use statistical software to make a time plot of these data. From your visual inspection of the plot, what do you conclude about the behavior of the process?
  2. Obtain an ACF for the series. What do you conclude?
  3. Use statistical software to create a histogram and a Normal quantile plot of these data. What do these plots suggest?
  4. Based on what you learned from parts (a), (b), and (c), summarize the overall nature of the clinic waiting-time process.