Standardized Distance from the Mean to the Median as a Measure of Skewness

The normal distribution, which has a symmetric and middle-tailed profile, is one of the most important distributions in probability theory, parametric inference, and description of quantitative variables. However, there are many non-normal distributions and knowledge of a non-zero bias allows their identification and decision making regarding the use of techniques and corrections. Pearson’s skewness coefficient defined as the standardized signed distance from the arithmetic mean to the median is very simple to calculate and clear to interpret from the normal distribution model, making it an excellent measure to evaluate this assumption, complemented with the visual inspection by means of a histogram and a box-and-whisker plot. From its variant without tripling the numerator or Yule’s skewness coefficient, the objective of this methodological article is to facilitate the use of this latter measure, presenting how to obtain asymptotic and bootstrap confidence intervals for its interpretation. Not only are the formulas shown, but they are applied with an example using R program. A general rule of interpretation of ∓0.1 has been suggested, but this can only become relevant when contextualized in relation to sample size and a measure of skewness with a population or parametric value of zero. For this purpose, intervals with confidence levels of 90%, 95% and 99% were estimated with 10,000 draws at random with replacement from 57 normally distributed samples-population with different sample sizes. The article closes with suggestions for the use of this measure of skewness.

Earth's density flattening and hypothesis of latitudinal normal density

In this paper, the definition of latitudinal density and density flattening of the level ellipsoid is given, and integral formulas of latitudinal density for pole gravity and equator gravity are derived. According to the pole gravity condition and equator gravity condition for the level ellipsoid, latitudinal density distribution function of the level ellipsoid is obtained. It is proved mathematically that latitudinal density of the earth's equator is larger than that of the pole, the earth's density flat-tening calculated preliminarily is 1/322, and hypothesis of the earth's latitudinal normal density is further proposed, so that theoretical preparation for studying the forming cause of the earth gravity in problems such as continent drift, mantle convection, and submarine extension is made well.