STATISTICS GLOSSARY

Summary of Key Terms

Confidence interval - the mean of an estimate plus and minus the variation in that estimate.
 
Box-Jenkins - a model to forecast a variety of anticipated data points or data ranges including business data and future security prices.
 
Differencing - method of taking out fluctuations in a data series by subtracting the second data point from the first and the third from the second and so on.
 
Exponential smoothing - method of transforming time series data for a better fit by creating a weighted average.
 
Fourier analysis - showing complex or noisy data as a series of trigonometric or exponential functions such as sine waves.
 
Iterative - repeating calculations on the same data to find the best fit.
 
Lag - a receiver that displays a plot of power versus frequency.
 
Least squares - a basic method to calculate a regression line that is the sum of the squared errors is smaller than any other striaght line model.
 
Moving average - a method of using the average of past data to give new data forcasts.
 
Regression - the result of an approximation involving one or more independant variables.
 
Residuals - the difference from sutracting the forcast or fitted values from the actual values.
 
Spectral analysis - showing a set of sequenced data in the form of waves or oscillations.
 
Variable - a number whose value may change in an equation or similar according to its practical use.
 
Variance - the degree of spread in a data set obtained by taking the average of the squared deviations from the mean.

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