Analysis of the wideband external pulse: an application of graphical methods

This paper demonstrates the power of statistical graphics in gleaning information from very large medical data sets. In the case of the particular data set described here (the wideband external pulse signal) little was known about the shape of the signal and the relationship of that shape to the characteristics of the related physical system, the cardiovascular system. Previous numerical statistical analyses of the data were unfruitful in finding the important relationships which were easily discovered through the appropriately designed graphics. The paper also describes the process of designing graphics to help in discovering the important relationships in the data.