Dear Terry, Thanks for your detailed response. It makes me feel better to know that these things have been considered.
I have interspersed some further remarks. on 5/10/03 10:49 PM, Terry Simpson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Pat Naughtin wrote: >> Data from Netherlands >> This data appears to have been taken using centimetre measurements >> and then converted to millimetres (implying a false level of >> precision) to match the other data. > > The data were not obtained with cm. Anthropometric data is usually mm. Some > of the values were rounded to the nearest 5 mm. This must be very annoying to those who want to use this data. Especially if you need to use national data to produce international amalgamations � say when you are designing door handles for an international airport. > I am not aware of a relationship between prefixes and precision. If there > is, then perhaps it should be mentioned by the BIPM. Anyone that uses > anthropometric data (such as myself) that misunderstands the difference > between precision and prefixes should not be working in the field. Agreed, there should be no 'relationship between prefixes and precision'. However, did the data collector know this. This kind of unnecessary rounding simply raises my credibility hackles. > If you would like the standard deviation data for each country and sex, I > have that here. No don't worry about going to that trouble. I calculated a rough standard deviation by taking a quarter of the range between the 5�% and the 95�% percentiles. By the way, I was surprised to see that the standard variations were remarkably variable � the French females had an SD of 2.5 but the Sri Lankan females had an SD of 5.0 � double! >> Data from Sri Lanka >> I simply don't believe this data. > > OK. > > > >> By the way, what happened to the Brasilian ladies? > > The reference has no data for Brazil females. > > > Thank you for reading the data in detail and challenging it where you > identify curiosities. It makes the effort of digging it out worth while. If > you are interested in discussing this topic, I would be happy to chat to you > about it via email. At the moment, no, but thanks very much for your offer. I'll keep it in mind. > The good news is that more data on body size are being collected as part of > an international initiative to improve the sizing of clothes. The current > clothing size standards are inaccurate and inconsistent. > > > www.bsi-global.com/News/Releases/2002/March/n3f02c7044524a.xalter > > http://www.tno.nl/en/news/tno_magazine/march_2002/em1_12_13.html > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3142934.stm Clothing sizes On the subject of clothing sizes, you might be interested in this quotation from 'Clothing Sizes � International Standardization' by John Winks, where he asks the pertinent question. �Which size 12 are you?� He then goes on to publish this table of sizes for a woman of medium build � the manufacturer�s mythical stock size. Country Size Australia 14 Bulgaria 81 Canada 32 Czechoslovakia 3AA45 Denmark 40 Finland NC 40 or C 38 France 42 n Germany 40 Holland 34 Hungary 164/80/94 or N 90 Iran 38 Ireland 12 Israel 40 Japan 92/99 New Zealand 14 Poland 164/92/96 Spain 46+2 L Sweden C40 Switzerland 40 UK 14, 38, or 8 USA 12 or 14 USSR 164/92/96 Yugoslavia 40 However, if a woman was asked John Winks' question, �Which size 12 are you?� she might throw up her hands in horror at all this confusion and simply say, �I don�t care how this fits, I AM A SIZE 8, I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A SIZE 8, AND THAT IS WHAT I AM BUYING�. There are, however, definite limitations to this method. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by sending an email containing the words subscribe Metrication matters to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
