Ingenious Scientific Papers

[QofQuimica]

This was too good not to share with the rest of you. Make sure you read the refs too.

Anyone else have some good ones?

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The Sleep-******ant Properties of My Ex-Girlfriend

by Ryan Shaun Baker
Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittburgh, Pennsylvania

The importance of a good night’s sleep can not be overestimated. Getting more than 7 hours of sleep a night helps in retention and deep encoding of information, which is essential in graduate school.[1] Also, getting sufficient amounts of sleep results in a better mood and a greater level of happiness.[2]
Given this, I decided to conduct a study on those factors which influenced the amount of sleep I was getting, in order to determine how to get more sleep.

One factor which I predicted would have especially large effects was my girlfriend at the time, Hermina. I have induced that several of my acquaintances believe that Hermina would have significant positive effects on sleep -- in the words of one such acquaintance, Tom, "Man, she’s hot. I’d really like to sleep with her."[3] Other acquaintances have also expressed an interest in her sleep-inducing properties.[4,5]

There are many reasons why one might postulate that Hermina would increase sleep -- the quote above points to an important one, that she is quite hot, being a mammal with a body temperature of around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.[6] A warm blanket has been identified as a source of good sleep[7], and it is quite possible that Hermina performs a similar function.

1 Design

Over the course of 28 consecutive nights, I collected data on the number of hours of sleep I obtained, and on a number of factors that might potentially affect the amount of sleep obtained.
These variables included:
• whether or not I had read in bed that night
• whether it was a weeknight or weekend night
• whether I had gone drinking
• whether I had attended a social event
• whether I had been feeling ill the previous day
• whether I had an academic deadline
• whether I was returning a graded homework assignment in the class I TA the next day
• how late in the day my first meeting or class was
• how much sleep I had gotten the night before
• how much sleep I had gotten the previous two nights
• whether or not I had slept at Hermina’s apartment or my own
I used these variables in order to develop a regression model to explain the amount I slept.

2 Results

The first step towards developing a regression model of how much sleep I got was to transform all the binary variables (such as whether or not I had slept at Hermina’s apartment) into 0 and 1 so that I could treat them as quantitative variables.

I then conducted a forward-inclusion search for candidate variables in the model as such:

Using a statistical package, I computed Cp, BIC, AIC, RSS, and adjusted r-square metrics for models composed of each of the variables. The clear best model by each of this metrics was the one composed of where I had slept. It explained 22.3% of the data (adjusted R2=0.223) and the term was significantly different than zero. (ESS=27.79, Edf=1, s2=3.07, F=7.03, p<0.001)

Next, I examined whether a second variable explained more than the effects which were explained by where I slept. The best model by each metric was one where I added in as a variable whether or not I had gone on a social outing (including drinking) the night before. However, this term was not significantly different than zero. (ESS=6.5, Edf=1, s2=2.94, F=2.21, p>0.10)
No other term was significant, in further investigations, either when added to the model including where I slept, or in a model by itself.
The final regression model was
S = -2.018 H + 7.47

In essence, what this model means is that I got an average of two hours and one minute less sleep when I slept at Hermina’s apartment rather than my own. The exact amounts of sleep I got in each condition are shown in Figure 1. This is clear evidence for Hermina’s sleep-******ant properties.

3 Discussion

After obtaining these results, the appropriate course of action became clear. I spoke to Hermina and explained my study and its results, as well as the importance of getting sufficient sleep, as illustrated in [1] and [2]. I concluded by explaining that, due to her sleep-******ant properties, I could not continue to sleep with her, an act she termed "breaking up."[8]

I should mention that Hermina suggested that my data, being from an observational study rather than an experimental study, only shows correlations rather than causation, and that it was quite possible that I had only chosen to sleep at her apartment on nights when I was less tired, or that I had actually chosen to get less sleep on nights when I had come to her apartment. She proposed that, instead of taking hasty action, we conduct an experimental study where we flip a coin each night to determine whether I would sleep at her apartment or my own, in order to prove a causative effect.

Obviously, I rejected this suggestion. Although this study is insufficient to conclusively prove Hermina’s causative role, this strong a correlation, and the importance of getting enough sleep, are sufficient together to suggest that action needs to be taken expeditiously.

When Tom, whom I mentioned earlier in the paper, discovered that Hermina and I had broken up, he expressed interest anew in sleeping with her. I attempted to warn him about Hermina’s sleep-******ant properties. In response, he referred to me as an "idiot." This clearly demonstrates his lack of understanding of the value of sleep.[1,2] (Although it would be fair to point out that since I only sampled from my own amount of sleep, my results may not generalize to Tom. Nonetheless.)

I would like to conclude by encouraging others to embark on this sort of data-collection activity in their own lives. By helping me identify and eliminate the foremost factor reducing the amount of sleep I get, it has enriched my life. I believe it will enrich your life as well.

4 Works Cited

1. Are You Getting Enough Sleep? [pamphlet], University of Iowa Student Health, 2001.
2. Wellness: A Lifetime Commitment, Patricia A. Floyd, et al., Hunter Textbooks, 1991.
3. Personal communication, Tom. October 19, 2001.
4. Personal communication, Dick. October 24, 2001.
5. Personal communication, Harry. October 24, 2001.
6. Yahoo! Health: Body Temperature Normals. 2001. http://health.yahoo.com/health/Diseases_and_Conditions/Disease_Feed_Data/Body_temperature_normals/
7. "To Be Alive," Seth Schachne. Poem written for Ms. Teifeld’s 8th grade class. Temple Habonim Religious School, Barrington, Rhode Island, 2001.
8. Uncoupling: Turning Points in Intimate Relationships, Diane Vaughan, Vintage Books, 1990.

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[Remuneration]

Dear Journal Editor, It's Me Again
By Roy F. Baumeister

Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:

Enclosed is our latest version of MS# 85-02-02-22-RRRRR, that is, the
re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again
rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed the
goddam running head! Hopefully we have suffered enough by now to satisfy
even you and your bloodthirsty reviewers.

I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change we
made in response to the critiques. After all, its fairly clear that your
reviewers are less interested in details of scientific procedure than in
working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations by seeking
some kind of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary exercise of
tyrannical power over hapless authors like ourselves who happen to fall into
their clutches. We do understand that, in view of the misanthropic
psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them
papers, for if they weren't reviewing manuscripts they'd probably be out
mugging old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch
of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not
ask him or her to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs
to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the
manuscript back to them the review process could be unduly delayed.

Some of the reviewers' comments we couldn't do anything about. For example,
if (as reviewer C suggested) several of my recent ancestors were indeed
drawn from other species, it is too late to change that. Other suggestions
were implemented, however, and the paper has improved and benefited. Thus,
you suggested that we shorten the manuscript by 5 pages, and we were able to
accomplish this very effectively by altering the margins and printing the
paper in a different font with a smaller typeface. We agree with you that
the paper is much better this way.

One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions # 13-28 by Reviewer B.
As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading the reviews before
doing your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16 works that he/she felt
we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety of different topics,
none of which had any relevance to our work that we could see. Indeed, one
was an essay on the Spanish-American War from a high school literary
magazine. The only common thread was that all 16 were by the same author,
presumably someone whom Reviewer B greatly admires and feels should be more
widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the Introduction and added,
after the review of relevant literature, a subsection entitled "Review of
Irrelevant Literature" that discusses these articles and also duly addresses
some of the more asinine suggestions in the other reviews.

We hope that you will be pleased with this revision and will finally
recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is. If not, then
you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of human
decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come from be
the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it, however,
we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this process
and to express our appreciation of your scholarly insights. To repay you,
we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you; please send us the
next manuscript that any of these reviewers submits to your journal.

Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like to add a footnote
acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point out that we liked
the paper much better the way we originally wrote it, but you held the
editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us chop, reshuffle, restate, hedge
expand, shorten, and in general covert a meaty paper into stir-fried
vegetables. We couldn't or wouldn't have done it without your input.

Sincerely,


DIALOGUE is published twice per year by the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology. Contributions are very welcome and are subject to
editing, esp. for brevity. Normal editorial address is R. Baumeister &
D. Tice, Dept. of Psychology, Case Western Reserve U., Cleveland, OH 44106.
The spring 1991 issue will have Todd Heatherton as guest editor (see story
on front page), so submit all material to him. SPSP members are welcome to
contact him about possible contributions. Views and opinions, including
editorial statements, do not represent official views of SPSP.