Stats 20 Homework 2

Thomas Maierhofer

UCLA Department of Statistics & Data Science

General Guidelines

Please use R Markdown for your submission. The files you submit will be:

1. 123456789_stats20_hw2_First_Last.Rmd
Take the provided template R Markdown file and make the necessary edits so that it will generate the
requested output. You will also need to go through the rest of the file and insert your answers to any
questions. Submit this file to Canvas/BruinLearn.
2. 123456789_stats20_hw2_First_Last.pdf
Your output PDF file. This is the primary file that will be graded. Make sure all requested output is
visible in the output file. Submit this file to Gradescope.

Name your .Rmd file with the convention 123456789_stats20_hw0_First_Last.Rmd, where 123456789 is
replaced with your UID, hw0 is updated to the actual homework number, and First_Last with your actual
first and last name. When you knit to PDF, the PDF file will inherit the same naming convention.
The knitted document should be clear, well-formatted, and contain all relevant R code, output, and expla-
nations. R code style should follow the Tidyverse style guide: https://style.tidyverse.org/.
Any and all course material, including these homework questions, may not be posted online or
shared with anyone at any time without explicit written permission by the instructor (Thomas
Maierhofer), even after the quarter is over. Failure to comply is a breach of academic integrity.
Note: All questions on this homework should be done using only functions or syntax discussed
in Chapters 1–2 of the lecture notes or Homeworks 1–2. No credit will be given for use of
outside functions.

1
Basic Questions
Collaboration on basic questions must adhere to Level 0 collaboration described in the Stats
20 Collaboration Policy.

The following code is used in Questions 1 and 2.

Consider the following code:

mixed1 <- c(TRUE, FALSE, FALSE, TRUE, 4, 0, 3)

mixed1

[1] 1 0 0 1 4 0 3

mixed2 <- c(TRUE, FALSE, FALSE, TRUE, 4, 0, "3")

mixed2

[1] "TRUE" "FALSE" "FALSE" "TRUE" "4" "0" "3"

mixed3 <- c(c(TRUE, FALSE, FALSE, TRUE, 4, 0), "3")

mixed3

[1] "1" "0" "0" "1" "4" "0" "3"

2
Question 1

The objective of this question is to help further your understanding of the mode hierarchy and the order in
which commands are evaluated.

(a)

Explain why mixed2 and mixed3 produce different results.

(b)

Use the same input values of TRUE, FALSE, FALSE, TRUE, 4, 0, "3" with the c() function to create the
following vector:

[1] "TRUE" "FALSE" "0" "1" "4" "0" "3"

Question 2

The objective of this question is to introduce the concept of type casting.

Type Casting: The as.logical(), as.numeric(), and as.character() functions allow us to coerce (or
cast) a vector into one of a different mode.
For example:

as.logical(c("TRUE", "FALSE", "TRUE"))

[1] TRUE FALSE TRUE

as.numeric(c("4", "0", "3"))

[1] 4 0 3

as.character(c(TRUE, FALSE, TRUE))

[1] "TRUE" "FALSE" "TRUE"

(a)

Run the commands as.numeric(mixed2) and as.numeric(mixed3) and explain why they produce different
results.

(b)

Run the commands as.logical(mixed2) and as.logical(mixed3) and explain why they produce different
results.

(c)

Use type casting functions to coerce mixed3 into a meaningful logical vector (i.e., with no NA values).

3
Question 3
The objective of this question is to give practice with the seq() and rep() functions and understand their
use and limitations.
Note: For all parts of this problem, sequences should be written in such a way that they would be general-
izable if the desired pattern was longer. For example, c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) should be written as seq(1, 5),
and c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1) should be written as rep(1, 5). Extending these patterns to 1000 values would be
prohibitively cumbersome without using seq(1, 1000) and rep(1, 1000).

(a)

Generate the following sequence in four ways: using (i) the seq() function, (ii) the colon : operator,
(iii) the seq_len() function, and (iv) the seq_along() function.

[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

(b)

Using seq() and rep() as needed, create the following vectors in R.

(i)

[1] 8.0 7.5 7.0 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0

(ii)

[1] -1 0 3 5 -1 0 3 5 -1 0 3 5 -1 0 3 5 -1 0 3 5

(iii)

[1] 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1

(iv)

[1] 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

(v)

[1] 10 9 9 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6

(c)

Explain why the following sequence cannot be generated using only the seq() and rep() functions in the
same way as the sequences in (b). What makes this pattern different from the patterns in (b)? How can you
generate this sequence?

[1] 10 9 8 7 6 9 8 7 6 5 8 7 6 5 4 7 6 5 4 3 6 5 4 3 2

Hint: Since this sequence cannot be generated using only seq() and rep(), consider another operation in
addition to seq() and rep() to combine simpler sequences into this more complicated pattern. You are
not allowed to use c() in your solution for this question.

4
Question 4

R has built-in trigonometric functions, such as sin(), cos(), tan(), asin(), acos(), and atan(). The
sin() function computes the sine of any numeric input.
Using at most two lines of code, compute sin(kπ), for k = 0, 1, 2, . . . , 100. Explain your result. Does the
output match what you would expect mathematically?

5
Question 5

The objective of this question is to give practice with vectorized operations.

The coefficient of skewness measures how much the distribution of a sample differs from symmetry. A
perfectly symmetric distribution will have a skewness of 0. If the skewness coefficient is significantly greater
than 0, then the distribution is right-skewed. If the skewness coefficient is significantly less than 0, then the
distribution is left-skewed.
The skewness coefficient for a sample of values x1 , x2 , . . . , xn is defined as
√ P
n
n (xi − x̄)3
i=1
skew = 
n
3/2 ,
P
(xi − x̄)2
i=1

1 Pn
where x̄ = xi is the sample mean.
n i=1

(a)

Compute the skewness of Chris Traeger’s running times from the lecture notes. Interpret your answer.

running_times <- c(51, 40, 57, 34, 47, 50, 50, 56, 41, 38)

(b)

Through algebraic manipulation, a one-pass formula for the coefficient of skewness is

√
 n n

P 3
x2i + 2nx̄3
P
n xi − 3x̄
i=1 i=1
skew =  n 3/2 .
P 2 2
xi − nx̄
i=1

Write code that computes the skewness for any numeric input vector x using the one-pass formula. Verify
that your new function gives the same answer as your function from (a).

(c)

Add the constant 106 (1e6) to the running times and compute the skewness on the new vector by reusing
your code from questions (a) and (b). Do your results differ from your answers in (a) and (b)? Explain
intuitively or mathematically why or why not.

(d)

Even though the skewness of Chris Traeger’s running times should appear to be the same value in (a) and
(b), you likely will find that they differ. Explain why they are not identical.

6
Intermediate Questions
Collaboration on intermediate questions must adhere to Level 1 collaboration described in the
Stats 20 Collaboration Policy.
Several exercises throughout this course will ask you to code your own version of basic built-in functions
from scratch. While you will likely not need to rewrite existing functions from scratch when using R in
practice, the thought process of thinking through and writing these functions allows you to build your skills
in breaking down complicated problems into simpler steps and more deeply understanding the fundamental
toolkit you are building throughout the course.
A general strategy for how to think through writing functions from scratch:

1. Come up with small general examples and think about what your function ideally should do for those
examples. Do you notice patterns or using similar logic for every example?
2. Formalize and generalize the logic you used in your small examples to the general case. How should
your function work on the intended input argument(s) in general? Outline or describe the steps your
function needs to do to output the desired result.
3. Consider any edge cases, i.e., valid inputs that your function is supposed to work on but may not use
the same logic as the general case to work. See if the logic you used in general extends to the edge
case. If not, think about whether the general case can be modified to accommodate the edge case.

In Chapter 4, we will consider a flow control statement (an if or if-else statement) that allows
you to use/write entirely separate logic for different cases.

Question 6

Write a code that computes the number of elements of a vector without the length() function. The output
of your code and length(x) should be identical for any vector x. Your code must work for vectors of any
mode and vectors of length 0. Test your code for the following vectors x:

(a) x <- numeric(0)

(b) x <- seq(1, 99, by = 2)

(c) x <- c("waffles", "friends", "work")

Question 7

Write a function code that reverses the order of elements in a vector without the rev() function. The output
of your code and rev(x) should be identical for any vector x. Your code must work for vectors of length 0.
Make sure your code works for the following vectors x:

(a) x <- numeric(0)

(b) x <- seq(1, 99, by = 2)

(c) x <- c("waffles", "friends", "work")

7
Question 8

(a)

Write code that takes a vector x and a number n and outputs the first n elements of x. When n is greater
than length(x), your function should just output x.
With n = 6, verify that your code works on the vectors x <- numeric(0), x <- seq(1, 99, by = 2),
and x <- c("waffles", "friends", "work"). Also verify with n = 0 that your code works on one of the
aforementioned vectors.

(b)

Write code that takes a vector x and a number n and outputs the last n elements of x. When n is greater
than length(x), your function should just output x.
With n = 6, verify that code works on the vectors x <- numeric(0), x <- seq(1, 99, by = 2), and
x <- c("waffles", "friends", "work"). Also verify with n = 0 that your code works on one of the
aforementioned vectors.