Independent variable: Dosage of lipopolysaccharide because we control the dosage in the experiment
Dependent variable: Levels of inflammatory protein because this is affected by the amount of lipopolysaccharide and it is the data we are collecting in our experiment
Experimental Design
Groups
6 groups because we will vary the dosage on 2 milligram intervals going down from 10 and we will use 0 milligrams as our control. Our experiment will be a double-blind type where the candidates do not know the dosage they are receiving and the person providing the dosage will also not know.
Age
50-80 because according to the AARP the age at which you become a senior citizen is 50 and after 80 there could be other factors that could interfere with the experimental results.
Number of subjects per group
10 subjects to increase the accuracy of our results.
Subject Selection
5 male and 5 female in each group selected from randomized pools of culture and demographics to reduce bias. We will include non-smokers and healthy seniors. We will exclude people with major pre-existing conditions that may affect the protein levels. We will talk to physicians and ask them to evaluate their patients for potential candidates in our experiment.
Sources of Error and Bias
A large potential source of error would be our 30 year age difference between candidates because there could be other age-related issues.
A bias could be in the physicians who pick our potential candidates.
Since we only have 6 groups and 2 milligram increments, we may not find the 100% exact amount.
The sample size may not be large enough to get an accurate measure with each group.
Our control group will receive placebos in order to keep up with the double-blind experiment type.
We will also randomly pick the physicians that we will ask to help gather our candidates. We will only tell the physicians what we are looking for and not inform them of the experiment.
With more funding, we could address the other potential errors and biases.
BME 100 Fall 2013
