Times for a surgical procedure are normally distributed. There are two methods. Method A has a mean of 28 minutes and a standard deviation of 4 minutes, while method B has a mean of 32 minutes and a standard deviation of 2.0 minutes.   (a) Which procedure is preferred if the procedure must be completed within 29 minutes?   Method A Method B Either Method   (b) Which procedure is preferred if the procedure must be completed within 38.0 minutes?   Method A Method B Either Method   (c) Which procedure is preferred if the procedure must be completed within 36 minutes?   Method A Method B Either Method

Definition Definition Measure of central tendency that is the average of a given data set. The mean value is evaluated as the quotient of the sum of all observations by the sample size. The mean, in contrast to a median, is affected by extreme values. Very large or very small values can distract the mean from the center of the data. Arithmetic mean: The most common type of mean is the arithmetic mean. It is evaluated using the formula: μ = 1 N ∑ i = 1 N x i Other types of means are the geometric mean, logarithmic mean, and harmonic mean. Geometric mean: The nth root of the product of n observations from a data set is defined as the geometric mean of the set: G = x 1 x 2 ... x n n Logarithmic mean: The difference of the natural logarithms of the two numbers, divided by the difference between the numbers is the logarithmic mean of the two numbers. The logarithmic mean is used particularly in heat transfer and mass transfer. ln x 2 − ln x 1 x 2 − x 1 Harmonic mean: The inverse of the arithmetic mean of the inverses of all the numbers in a data set is the harmonic mean of the data. 1 1 x 1 + 1 x 2 + ...