***** Vol.4 Chap.18 New dataset *****
The next morning, JB was working on finishing the semester with her classes and the phone rang. It was from Dr. Jim Lovelace, who originally supplied the initial database of DNA coding for violent criminals and their siblings to Dr. Abdulcizi.
“Good morning, Jim.” JB was in a good mood.
“Good morning, JB. I am calling because I have some data from you. It was not easy to get the data at all. While there was no problem getting the blood tests from those in the penitentiary, tracking their siblings and getting their blood tests turned out to be quite a nightmare.”
“There was so much paper work involved before we were able to get the consent forms signed and returned. Anyway, to make a long story short, I did manage to get a few blood tests done. However, the sample size was not as large as before.”
“Well, I really appreciate your help in this, Jim. I will take whatever I can get.”
“Great, perhaps you can really make some use of this dataset. I will sanitize the data and put the information on a thumb drive for you.”
“Super, I can’t wait to get my hands on the data.”
“I know you can’t wait. Ha, ha. Okay, give me a few days to clean up the data. You should be able to get the data by the end of the week.”
“Sounds good. Take care, Jim.”
“You too.”
After hanging up the phone, JB thought that was a little progress. A little data was always better than no data at all. She had been waiting for this data from Jim for a while already. So, she called Kendall for the good news. JB set up an appointment to meet with Kendall the following week to look at the data together.
The data from Jim finally came. JB was excited and pop the drive right away into her laptop to look at the data. Information from 253 inmates was clearly marked. For each inmate, there was a bunch of numbers representing the detectable intensities against the mass-to-charge ratio. Of course, the numbers meant nothing to her, not being a physiologist.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
But numbers were numbers. She could work with numbers. No, she could do magic with numbers. For the file on the siblings, to her dismay, there were only 19 sets there. Well, she was warned by Jim that they were not able to get a lot of consents from the siblings. Still, she thought nineteen sets were better than no sets.
She tried graphing the data to get some idea of what she was dealing with but saw a bunch of spikes with no idea what they meant. Well, she had to wait and grill Kendall about these numbers. The more she knew about these numbers, the better she could program her algorithms to look for patterns.
Disappointed, she headed home to rest for the weekend. She thought she would take her fancy car out to the country for a spin and finally had some driving fun. Being cooped up in her office for too long, she was refreshed about the adventure. She stopped by the Quick Wok around the corner on the main drag and ordered the Kung Pao chicken, Salted Shrimp, and fried rice. With that, she headed out towards the country.
After a relaxing weekend, something that JB had not had a chance to do for quite some time, she headed back to her office. The data from Lovelace still haunted her because she could not figure what that data represented. In desperation, she called Kendall and set up an appointment to have a brainstorming session.
JB Showed up on time and knocked at his door.
“Come in.”
“Good morning, Kendall.”
“Good morning.”
“You got some data to show me?”
JB explained that she got the data from Dr. Lovelace on blood tests results of inmates and their siblings. She explained that she had no idea what the data represents and would like some interpretation on the data.
“Blood tests, huh?”
“Yeah. And I plotted some of the data out and they are just some spikes.”
JB fumbled around on her laptop and pulled out a few plots.
Kendall laughed. “Yup, those are mass specs alright.”
“What does the plot tell me?” Humiliated, but desiring to know, she kept her pride down and inquired.
“The vertical axis shows the intensity. The horizontal axis shows the mass-to-charge ratio…”
The more Kendall went on, the more JB got confused.
“Kendall, may I ask a simple question? How can I use this data?”
He smiled.
“Put it simply, a mass spec is used to identify the molecular weight of a particular compound. You see, each sample compound has a unique spectrum based on the molecular structure and we used the spectrum to help us reconstruct the molecular structure of the compound in hope of identifying the sample.”
“Each compound has a unique signature?”
“Yes.”
“What if I have more than one compound?”
“Then the mass spec shows the composite of all the compounds resulting in a mess.”
JB sat back resigned. A moment later, she jumped up and said, “I don’t need to know which hormone or compound, I only want to differentiate between the relative quantity of some hormones in each group.”
He nodded his head.
“Thank you, Kendall for your explanations and suggestions.”
As if new life had been breathed into JB, she shot out of Kendall’s office and hurried back to her office.