[Catalist] Correlation between school size and illness project

[Leon Harris]

Thanks you to my colleagues who responded to my request for data about 
the number of sick days they experienced in 2015 and the student 
population size of their school.

This is a back-of-the-envelope style pre-investigation and has a number 
of flaws, but within its limitation is quite interesting.

There appears to be no correlation between school size and number of 
sick days.
You can see the results of the project at

https://plot.ly/plot?fid=Harristotle:105#

Further data will be added as it becomes available.

The main limitations to validity of this are :
* small sample size
* self-selection of respondents (can't do anything about this for this 
type of study, except note the possibility that it may introduce biases)

Incidentally, plot.ly is a very valuable research and teaching tool that 
we possible should use more frequently.
It is very capable with big data sets, it was designed for Big Data ^tm 
   B.S ^(C) Bandwagon
and has excellent bindings to languages like python and R. Increasingly  
modern science is using this.

I have used it in the past to upload remote temperature data, for 
example so that you can see what is happening in your compost bin while 
on the train to work.


I did not expect these results at all- they are quite contrary to my 
initial hypothesis.
My next set of thoughts lean to the idea that the handrails on the bus 
and train might be the source of my woe, or alternatively that perhaps I 
just have a c rap immune system and should crawl away somewhere and die 
!! :)

Cheers,
Leon

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