title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The series begins in the year 1867 and centers on a proper and wealthy female physician from Boston, Massachusetts, Michaela Quinn (Seymour), familiarly known as "Dr. Mike". After her father's death, she sets out west to the small wild west town Colorado Springs, to set up her own practice. She makes the difficult adjustment to life in Colorado with the aid of rugged outdoorsman and friend to the Cheyenne, Byron Sully (Joe Lando) and a midwife named Charlotte Cooper (played by Diane Ladd). After Charlotte is bitten by a rattlesnake, she asks Michaela on her deathbed to look after her three children Matthew (Chad Allen), Colleen (Erika Flores, later Jessica Bowman), and Brian (Shawn Toovey). Dr. Mike settles in Colorado Springs and adapts to her new life as a mother, with the children, while finding true love with Sully. She acts as a one-woman mission to convince the townspeople a female doctor can successfully practice medicine.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The pilot episode was shot in early 1992 and aired in a two-hour television special on New Year's Day 1993. CBS aired a second, hour-long episode the next night in order to attract and maintain the audience's attention. The pilot served more as a made-for-television movie – or mini-series suggestion – which could either be developed later into a full series or remain as a stand-alone two-hour movie. CBS ordered the show picked up immediately for the full season. However, the show made some imperative casting changes. Several pilot leads and a few of the supporting cast were replaced. Henry Sanders was recast as Robert E. in place of Ivory Ocean as a less folksy hard-nosed working man; Orson Bean replaced Guy Boyd as a more fatherly, cynically-comical Loren Bray; and Colm Meaney was replaced by Jim Knobeloch, a much younger, attractive, and contemptuously stoic Jake Slicker. Likewise, Larry Sellers's character, a Cheyenne brave called Black Hawk (listed under the closing credits as such) who played an auxiliary role as one of Chief Black Kettle's aides and spoke only their language, was quietly retooled into Cloud Dancing, Sully's blood brother and a major recurring character, who, in addition to aiding Black Kettle, plays a large role in quelling the tribulations of the Cheyenne and other neighboring tribes. He also acquired the ability to speak English, allowing him to act as a liaison alongside Sully. His character's name was never spoken on-screen during his first appearance, which can cause viewers to inadvertently re-interpret this look-alike as Cloud Dancing's first appearance before his formal debut.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Veteran actress Jane Seymour, labeled a mini-series "queen", was a last-minute casting choice for Michaela Quinn, having read the script only a day before production was set to begin on the pilot. She was instructed beforehand to review the script and make a decision of whether or not she felt the role was right for her, and, if so, that she truly wanted to commit to the strict contract Sullivan had demanded for the title character. The next day she began the wardrobe fittings for the series.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: In a 2015 feature on National Public Radio, Seymour said that she signed her contract for the show (including both the TV-movie/pilot and a five-year series commitment) because she had just discovered that her then husband/business manager had lost all her money and gotten her $9 million in debt. She had told her agent that to avoid losing her house and to protect her two young children, she would do any TV project available, no matter what it was, and "Dr. Quinn" was the first one offered to her.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: There were various cast changes of minor characters during the series. The most controversial change took place during the show's third season, when the character of Colleen Cooper was recast halfway through the year. Unlike the other actors, who signed five-year contracts with the show, Erika Flores was hesitant. She asked to be offered a contract of less than five years. Rumors circulated that Flores's father gave her an ultimatum to end the contract unless they offered her more money, or he would cut her off financially. Flores has denied such rumors, saying that she left the series for personal reasons and to pursue other opportunities.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Beth Sullivan decided that she wanted the character to continue instead of being killed off or sent away. As a result, Jessica Bowman was cast as the new Colleen in Flores's place. Some of Erika Flores's fans were quite vocal in their anger over the change and wrote to CBS demanding to know why the actress had been replaced. The producers of the show felt that Jessica Bowman had the ability to successfully recreate the character on her own.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Numerous cast changes occurred throughout the series, although none was as significant. Most notable was the replacement of Jane Wyman as Michaela's mother, Elizabeth Quinn. Wyman signed on to play the role for the third episode of "Dr. Quinn" in season one. Later Wyman turned down an invitation to return for another guest appearance in season two, as she had retired completely from acting by this stage (her previous appearance in season one marked her final acting role of any kind). Georgann Johnson was hired to replace Wyman in the role and continued throughout the remainder of the series, making one guest appearance each season and appearing in the final "Dr. Quinn" television movie.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Michelle Bonilla originated the role of Theresa Morales in season five and was replaced by Alex Meneses in season six. Bonilla was abruptly let go for reasons that were never publicly stated. Meneses's portrayal was well received and she was featured throughout the sixth season, when her character fell in love with Jake Slicker.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The role of Anthony (Grace and Robert E.'s adopted son) was played by Brenden Jefferson for four episodes in season four. He was replaced by Brandon Hammond, who continued in the role throughout seasons five and six.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Jennifer Youngs did not begin playing Ingrid until the character's second appearance; the first time the character appeared, she was played by Ashley Jones.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: "Dr. Quinn" was best known for its large, supporting cast, and its high-concept storytelling. The series often used its semi-historical setting as a vehicle to address issues of gender and race within the community. For example, one episode took on homophobia when the famous poet Walt Whitman came to town. Religion played a somewhat minor role in the series, but was also used to address certain issues and new ideas.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: In the season-three finale, "For Better or Worse", Michaela and Sully were married during a special two-hour episode. During season four, Seymour's real-life pregnancy was written into the show. The following season saw the birth of Michaela and Sully's daughter, Katie.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: During its entire original run on CBS, the show aired from 8–9 pm Eastern time on Saturday nights. It was the last successful TV Western drama series to air on a major broadcast network to date, and also one of the last original series to find long-term success in a Saturday timeslot.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: "Dr. Quinn" was one of the few dramatic shows that allowed fans full access to their filming sets at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills, California. Fans were permitted, often invited, to watch episodes being shot each week. Cast members were known to speak with their fans and sign autographs during shooting breaks. During the show's final season run, an official website was established, which remains active. Two fans went on to create the "Dr. Quinn Times", a newsletter in which interviews with the cast, producers, directors, and technical specialists were conducted and distributed to fans, twice each year.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Seymour and Barbara Babcock were the only regular cast members to receive Emmy nominations for their work on the series. Seymour was nominated in 1994 and 1998 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, while Babcock received a single nomination in 1995 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the episode entitled "Ladies' Night", as her character, Dorothy Jennings, underwent a mastectomy. Diane Ladd received a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 1993.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Seymour also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Drama in 1996 for her portrayal of Michaela Quinn, and was also nominated for the same award in 1994, 1995, and 1997. She was also nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series twice, in 1994 and 1996.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The show was a major hit in the United States for CBS and drew large ratings even though it aired on Saturday nights. Despite the high ratings, CBS claimed that the demographics changed during the show's run. During its final season, the majority of "Dr. Quinn"'s viewers were women 40 years of age and older, and not the male and female 18-to-49 demographic that networks try to reach. In response, CBS ordered the writers to give the show a slightly darker feel than in previous seasons. As a result, season six was darker than any previous season, with the death of several characters as well as some highly sensitive subject matter: the painful miscarriage of Michaela's second child, as well as an episode entitled "Point Blank", where Michaela was shot by a man and then later developed post-traumatic stress disorder. Many fans did not like the changes, while others felt that the tensions and high drama benefited the show after the overall pleasant past seasons. Despite these opposing opinions, the ratings still proved to be steady and consistent (finishing at #51 for the year). The series was suddenly canceled in 1998 after its sixth season. Despite this, the series concluded on a bookend by seeing Colleen marry Andrew and prepare to embark as a doctor in her own right, following her adoptive mother's footsteps.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: There is still an active fan club for William Shockley, who played Hank Lawson on the show, known as "Hank's Hussies". In January 2014, they attended a red carpet movie premiere together in Nashville for his new movie.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The show has enjoyed strong ratings in reruns. "Dr. Quinn" was one of the rare instances of a show entering rerun syndication in the middle of a TV season. It debuted reruns in most American markets on Monday, December 30, 1996, just two days shy of the show's 4th anniversary. With 4 seasons being the minimum requirement for syndication pickup, "Dr. Quinn" reruns could have started at the more traditional launch date of September 1996, but the show's distributor, like many, had an additional minimum episode limit in order for the show to be eligible for syndication. This episode count was not reached until several episodes into "Dr. Quinn"'s fifth season (1996–1997), and since stations had already purchased the show at the beginning of that season, the distributor decided not to hold off until the next fall and let the stations start airing reruns right away.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: When PAX TV launched in August 1998, it acquired reruns of current family-friendly series from CBS, including "Dr. Quinn". Because dedicated "Dr. Quinn" fans were angered by the show's cancellation by CBS that year, these national reruns via PAX helped relieve the blow, especially in markets where local stations were not airing reruns in syndication.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Until late 2005, the Hallmark Channel aired it daily, but in late 2005 Hallmark removed "Dr. Quinn" from its lineup, citing a drop in viewership. It is also believed that the high cost in "Dr. Quinn" distribution rights played a role in its removal. "Dr. Quinn" continues to be seen throughout the world and has been translated to several languages.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Starting in June 2009, the Gospel Music Channel began airing "Dr. Quinn" weekdays at 5:00 and 6:00. More recently Vision TV Canada began airing Dr Quinn week nights at 6PM AT. It also airs on CHNU10 in the Lower Mainland of BC, Canada, at 3 PM PST Weekdays. It has also been shown continuously in Denmark since 2001, with plans on to keep it at its daily broadcast time of 1:00, Monday to Friday, on Danish TV station, tv2.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Since the last movie in 2001, many of the show's cast members have expressed interest in reprising their roles and would like to do another reunion movie, or even a new season. Jane Seymour, Joe Lando, Chad Allen, and other cast members have stated they would all like to work together again and would reprise their "Dr. Quinn" roles if the opportunity arises. The show's creator, Beth Sullivan, has also stated her interest in writing another "Dr. Quinn" movie.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: In 2003, A&E Network managed to buy the distribution rights for "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" from CBS. All six seasons plus the two made-for-TV movies have been released on DVD. The series appears on the GMC Network. GMC aired all the series episodes, including the season-six episodes not shown in a decade, during the summer of 2010. Joe Lando did several teasers and promotions for the weekend marathons, and says he finds GMC's ad campaign "funny", saying: "Truthfully, I haven't had that many opportunities to make fun of Sully. No one's really found me that funny. But it's fun to do it now. GMC came up with a great ad campaign. My kids were entertained by it and my wife got a kick out of it."


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Start TV currently airs reruns of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" every Monday through Saturday at 5 & 6 A.M. as well as Sundays at 7 A.M.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The cancellation of "Dr. Quinn" caused a massive fan uproar, the likes of which had not been seen since "" in the 1960s. CBS decided that instead of producing another season, as the cost involved was deemed too high, it would instead produce a TV movie. In May 1999, one year after its cancellation, CBS aired "Dr. Quinn: Revolutions", a television movie special, set in 1877. However, the actual date should have been 1875, two years following the final episode, which would have been in 1873. In this TV movie, Katie Sully, now age 4, is kidnapped, and Dr. Mike and Sully, with help from some townsfolk, embark on a desperate search for their missing daughter in Mexico. Fans were delighted that a special movie was being produced, but they were not altogether impressed with its overall concept. The movie was very different in tone from the rest of the series, incorporating more guns and violence in an effort to please the twenty-something male audience demographics. Furthermore, both Jessica Bowman and Chad Allen declined appearances in that episode, due to its content, and William Olvis' entire score was scrapped in favor of more cost-effective music that was completely unlike that of the original series.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: Fans were shocked to find a "Dr. Quinn" episode that did not include the main title sequence or theme. Moreover, the script, acting, and interpretations of the original characters came across as unfamiliar and very unlike their portrayals in the series. Beth Sullivan was so furious with CBS's control over the whole project. It was critically panned and failed in the ratings. Following this backlash from having excessive creative say over the film, CBS profoundly softened its involvement with the next attempt to produce a TV movie.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: A second TV movie, entitled "Dr Quinn: The Heart Within", aired in May 2001. The movie was set a year after "Revolutions", making it 9 years since the first episode of "Dr. Quinn" in the year 1876. This time around, CBS gave Beth Sullivan total creative control; however, there were some strong ground rules. To save money, the movie had to be filmed in Canada, and only the principal cast could be involved. Jane Seymour also served as an executive producer. The plot revolved around Michaela and the Sully family returning to Boston to attend Colleen's graduation from Harvard Medical School. Having transferred from The Women's Medical College to the male dominated university since the series finale, Colleen has met harsh criticism from the board as well as from Andrew's father, who resents the fact that she continues to pursue medicine, despite his misgivings. Unfortunately, Michaela's mother, Elizabeth, has fallen ill due to a heart condition, and eventually passes, leaving her entire estate to Michaela to establish a hospital back in Colorado Springs, echoing the demise of her father at the very beginning of the series. Colleen soon finds herself in a situation similar to the one her mother, Michaela, had just nine years earlier – in the same Bostonian sector — in that she is not respected or taken seriously as a woman doctor.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The movie is a proper finale to the series, depicting the now-adult Cooper children's farewell to Colorado Springs, and finding their new futures in Boston, while Michaela and Sully inevitably return to Colorado Springs to begin a new chapter in their own, now older, adult lives.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: While this movie was far better received by fans, they did complain that more of the townspeople and original supporting cast were not involved, due to CBS's demands, as well as the last-minute absence of Chad Allen's Matthew (Allen had declined after learning that none of his original supporting costars were offered any appearances). Despite these criticisms, the movie was a success. It was filmed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: On October 7, 2019, Jane Seymour announced in a television interview her efforts toward a possible reboot of the series.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: A&E Home Video has released all six seasons of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" on DVD in Region 1. It has released also the two television movies that were made after the series ended.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: In Region 2, Revelation Films has released all six seasons on DVD in the UK. The two TV-movies were released separately, the first was entitled "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman – The Movie" and the second was entitled "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman – The Heart Within".


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: In Australia (Region 4), Via Vision Entertainment release the individual seasons from September 2008 through until February 2012. The TV movies Collection was released in September 2016. The individual seasons were then re-released with new artwork. Via Vision have released six complete series box sets, the first being "The Keepsake Collection" with 39 discs on April 17, 2013. The second version was "The Hat Box Collection" with 39 discs on November 26, 2014. The third released was a repackaged version of "The Hat Box Collection" on November 4, 2015. The fourth release "The Complete Collection - The Complete Seasons One-Six" with 40 discs was released on October 5, 2016. The fifth version under the same title as the fourth release and with 43 discs was released on May 10, 2018 and the sixth release also under the same title as the fourth and fifth editions with 40 discs was released on November 18, 2020.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: There were several books based on the series written by as follows. Some of them were also released abroad, including in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The books by Dorothy Laudan were originally released in Germany and have never appeared in an English version. However, it was these books that were most commonly translated into other languages. The series of nine covers most of the series, although the episodes on which they are based were shortened and some scenes were left out or were mentioned only briefly.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: In 1997, there were plans of making a spin-off series centered around the Hank Lawson character. Some of the other regular "Dr. Quinn" characters, including the ones of Jane Seymour, Joe Lando, Jim Knobeloch, Frank Collison and Orson Bean, were in as well.


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: It was directed by Jerry London, with Robert Brooks Mendel as the first assistant director, Timothy O. Johnson as the executive producer, and Beth Sullivan as the producer. The rest of the cast members were Laura Harring ("Christina Guevara"), Edward Albert ("Ted McKay"), James Brolin ("Sheriff"), Eddie Albert ("Ben McKay"), Carlos Gómez ("Father Thomas Guevara") and John Saxon ("Rafael Guevara").


title: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

text: The show was titled "California" and only the pilot episode was filmed. It remains unclear whether it has ever aired on television. It was available on YouTube for a time, but has since disappeared, except for a couple of clips.


title: Parkinson's law

text: Parkinson's law is the adage that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." It is sometimes applied to the growth of bureaucracy in an organization, but can be applicable to all forms of work.


title: Parkinson's law

text: Articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as part of the first sentence of an essay published in "The Economist" in 1955 and since republished online, it was reprinted with other essays in the book "Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress" (London, John Murray, 1958). He derived the dictum from his extensive experience in the British Civil Service.


title: Parkinson's law

text: A current form of the law is not the one to which Parkinson referred by that name in the article, but rather a mathematical equation describing the rate at which bureaucracies expand over time. Much of the essay is dedicated to a summary of purportedly scientific observations supporting the law, such as the increase in the number of employees at the Colonial Office while the British Empire declined (he showed that it had its greatest number of staff when it was folded into the Foreign Office due to a lack of colonies to administer). He explained this growth using two forces: (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals," and (2) "Officials make work for each other." He noted that the number employed in a bureaucracy rose by 5–7% per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done."


title: Parkinson's law

text: "Parkinson's Law" was translated into many languages. It was highly popular in the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. In 1986, Alessandro Natta complained about the swelling bureaucracy in Italy. Mikhail Gorbachev responded that "Parkinson's law works everywhere."


title: Parkinson's law

text: The first-referenced meaning of the law has dominated, and sprouted several corollaries, the best known being the Stock–Sanford corollary to Parkinson's law:


title: Parkinson's law

text: Other corollaries include Horstman's corollary to Parkinson's law, coined by Mark Horstman of website manager-tools.com:


title: Parkinson's law

text: This generalization has come to resemble what some economists regard as the law of demand – namely, the lower the price of a service or commodity, the greater the quantity demanded. This is also referred to as induced demand.


title: Parkinson's law

text: Observing that the promotion of employees necessitated the hiring of subordinates, and that time used answering minutes requires more work; Parkinson states: "In any public administrative department not actually at war the staff increase may be expected to follow this formula" (for a given year)


title: Parkinson's law

text: Parkinson also proposed a rule about the efficiency of administrative councils. He defined a "coefficient of inefficiency" with the number of members as the main determining variable. This is a semi-humorous attempt to define the size at which a committee or other decision-making body becomes completely inefficient.


title: Parkinson's law

text: In a chapter is devoted to the basic question of what he called "comitology": how committees, government cabinets, and other such bodies are created and eventually grow irrelevant (or are initially designed as such). (The word comitology has recently been independently invented by the European Union for a different non-humorous meaning.)


title: Parkinson's law

text: Empirical evidence is drawn from historical and contemporary government cabinets. Most often, the minimal size of a state's most powerful and prestigious body is five members. From English history, Parkinson notes a number of bodies that lost power as they grew:


title: Parkinson's law

text: A detailed mathematical expression is proposed by Parkinson for the coefficient of inefficiency, featuring many possible influences. In 2008, an attempt was made to empirically verify the proposed model. Parkinson's conjecture that membership exceeding a number "between 19.9 and 22.4" makes a committee manifestly inefficient seems well justified by the evidence proposed. Less certain is the optimal number of members, which must lie between three (a logical minimum) and 20. (Within a group of 20, individual discussions may occur, diluting the power of the leader.) That it may be eight seems arguable but is not supported by observation: no contemporary government in Parkinson's data set had eight members, and only the unfortunate king Charles I of England had a Committee of State of that size.


title: Parkinson's law

text: Other chapters relate to what time to arrive at a cocktail party, how best to select applicants, what is the best age to retire, and "injelitance": the disastrous rise to authority of individuals with an unusually high combination of incompetence and jealousy expressed in the chemical formula IJ.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: Erik Jon Spoelstra ( ; born November 1, 1970) is an American professional basketball coach who is the head coach for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has won two NBA championships as the head coach of the Heat. A Filipino American, Spoelstra is the first Asian-American head coach in the history of the four major North American sports leagues and the first Asian-American head coach to win an NBA title.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: Spoelstra played college basketball with the Portland Pilots before playing professionally and coaching in Germany. He served as assistant coach and director of scouting for the Heat from 2001 to 2008, during which time the team won the 2006 NBA Finals. He was promoted to head coach in the 2008-09 season. Following the addition of free agents LeBron James and Chris Bosh in 2010, the Heat made four consecutive NBA Finals appearances (2011–2014) under Spoelstra, winning the championship in 2012 and 2013. Spoelstra made his fifth appearance in the NBA Finals as head coach in 2020.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: Spoelstra was born in Evanston, Illinois, to Jon Spoelstra and Elisa Celino. Jon is Dutch-Irish-American and a former NBA executive of the Buffalo Braves, Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, and New Jersey Nets. Elisa is a native of San Pablo, Laguna, Philippines. Spoelstra is also the grandson of Watson Spoelstra, a long-time sportswriter for "The Detroit News".


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: He spent his childhood in Buffalo, New York, before moving to Portland, Oregon by the late 1970s. He attended Raleigh Hills Elementary and Whitford Jr. High School in Portland, before attending Jesuit High School in Beaverton, Oregon, where he excelled at point guard on the basketball team. He wore number 30 during high school and college in honor of then-Trail Blazer Terry Porter, one of his favorite NBA players. Before his senior year, Spoelstra participated in Sonny Vaccaro's Nike All-Star camp in Princeton, New Jersey, alongside future NBA players Alonzo Mourning, Shawn Kemp, Billy Owens, and Bobby Hurley.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: Spoelstra received basketball scholarship offers, and eventually accepted one from the University of Portland in his hometown. In 1989, he was named West Coast Conference (WCC) freshman of the year. Spoelstra was the Pilots' starting point guard for four years, averaging 9.2 points, 4.4 assists, and 2.4 rebounds per game. He is a member of the school's 1,000-point club, and is among the Pilots' career leaders in several statistical categories. During a 1990 WCC basketball tournament game against Loyola Marymount, Spoelstra was on the court standing just a couple of yards away from Hank Gathers when Gathers collapsed and later died of a heart condition. Spoelstra graduated from the University of Portland in 1992 with a degree in communications.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: After graduating from the University of Portland with a communications degree, Spoelstra boxed shoes at a Nike warehouse. He then spent two years (1993–1995) in Basketball Bundesliga's second division as a player–assistant coach for TuS Herten, a professional basketball club based in Westphalia, Germany. It was in this setting where Spoelstra got his first coaching job, as coach of the club's local youth team. He began having back problems after the end of his second year with the team, and contemplated having surgery. In 1995, Spoelstra was offered another two-year contract with the club, but the NBA's Miami Heat also offered him a position. Although both offers held appeal, he chose to take the Heat position.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: Roya Vaziri, then the director of player personnel for the Heat, convinced then general manager Dave Wohl to offer Spoelstra a position with the team. Spoelstra was hired as the Heat's video coordinator in 1995, although at first he was not promised the position past the summer of that year. Pat Riley was named the Heat's head coach not long after Spoelstra's hiring. Erik's father, Jon Spoelstra, said, "Contractually, Riley wasn’t allowed to bring in his video guy, otherwise, Erik would have been out of a job right then."


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: After two years as video coordinator, he then served two years as an assistant coach/video coordinator. Spoelstra was promoted to assistant coach/advance scout in 1999, and later became the Heat's assistant coach/director of scouting in 2001. Many of Spoelstra's colleagues attribute his ascent in the Heat coaching ranks to his strong work ethic. As an assistant coach, he was credited for improving Heat star shooting guard Dwyane Wade's balance and jump shot after Wade's return from the 2004 Summer Olympics. Spoelstra won his first NBA championship as an assistant coach when the Miami Heat defeated the Dallas Mavericks in the 2006 NBA Finals.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: In April 2008, Spoelstra became the head coach of the Miami Heat after Pat Riley's decision to step down. Spoelstra was Riley's hand-picked successor. In naming Spoelstra as head coach, Riley said: "This game is now about younger coaches who are technologically skilled, innovative, and bring fresh new ideas. That's what we feel we are getting with Erik Spoelstra. He's a man that was born to coach." Spoelstra became the first ever Asian-American NBA head coach, and the first Asian-American head coach in the history of the four major North American sports leagues. He led the Heat to the NBA Playoffs in his first year as head coach, despite the team's league worst record of 15-67 the previous season. The Heat, however, were defeated in seven games by the Atlanta Hawks in the first round. Spoelstra's team once again reached the postseason the following season, but again lost in the first round to the Boston Celtics in five games.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: Expectations of the team's success were raised significantly for the next season and beyond, after the free agent acquisitions of LeBron James and Chris Bosh in the summer of 2010. After the team started off the 2010–11 season with a 9–8 record, some Heat players reportedly were "frustrated" with Spoelstra, and questioned if he should remain their head coach. Chris Bosh intimated that the team was being worked too hard and that the players would rather "chill". LeBron James famously bumped into Spoelstra on his way to the bench during a timeout in a game. These two issues, coupled with the relatively poor start to the season, put Spoelstra on the coaching hot seat. The team bounced-back, however, and made the playoffs while posting the second best record in the Eastern Conference. Spoelstra led the Heat to an appearance in the 2011 NBA Finals, but lost to the Dallas Mavericks in six games. After Spoelstra failed to win a championship during his first season as head coach of the "big three" (James, Wade and Bosh), Heat executive Pat Riley was asked if he would consider returning to coach the team. Riley, however, turned down the idea and supported Spoelstra as the head coach going forward. Spoelstra received a $6 million contract extension in December 2011 which lasted through the 2013–14 NBA season.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: The following season, Spoelstra again guided the team to the postseason as the two seed. The Heat overcame a 2–1 game deficit against the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference semi-finals, and a 3–2 game deficit against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals to reach the 2012 NBA Finals despite an injury to starter Chris Bosh that forced him to miss nine straight games. Spoelstra's Heat defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games to win the NBA championship. He became the first Asian-American head coach to win an NBA championship, and the second Heat head coach to win the title. He also became the only Miami Heat head coach to take the team to the NBA Finals multiple times.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: During the 2012–13 season, Spoelstra was selected as head coach of the 2013 Eastern Conference All-Stars in the 2013 NBA All-Star Game, with the Heat holding the best record in the Eastern Conference at the time of selection. He later coached the Heat to a 27-game winning streak (third longest in NBA history). It started with a 100–85 win over the Toronto Raptors on February 3, 2013, and ended with a 97–101 loss to the Chicago Bulls on March 27, 2013. The team made the playoffs as the one seed while posting the best overall NBA regular season record. After sweeping the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, the Heat won a seven-game series with the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, and advanced to face the San Antonio Spurs in the 2013 NBA Finals. The Heat defeated the Spurs in seven games and became the first team to win two straight titles since the 2009–2010 Los Angeles Lakers. Spoelstra also became the eighth coach to lead his team to two straight championships.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: On September 29, 2013, the Heat extended Spoelstra's contract to an undisclosed multi-year deal. Details were not released, but Spoelstra was expected to receive a pay raise and a bigger role in the front office. Spoelstra led the Heat to the 2014 NBA Finals, becoming the third coach to lead his team to four straight Finals. The Heat faced the San Antonio Spurs once again, only this time losing the series in five games.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: On December 16, 2017, Spoelstra got his 455th win as the head coach of the Heat and passed Riley for most wins in franchise history, when they defeated the Los Angeles Clippers 90–85. Topping off the 2016–17 season, Spoelstra was named the NBCA Co-Coach of the Year after leading the Heat to a 30 win record in the final 41 games of the season. During the 2019–20 season, Spoelstra had again coached the Heat back to the 2020 NBA Finals before falling 4–2 to the Los Angeles Lakers.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: On April 28, 2021, Spoelstra earned his 600th win as the Heat's head coach, and also became the sixth head coach in NBA history to win 600 games with one team.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: On February 6, 2022, Spoelstra was named as the Eastern Conference head coach for the 2022 NBA All-Star Game.


title: Erik Spoelstra

text: On September 17, 2015, Spoelstra announced his engagement to former Miami Heat cheerleader, Nikki Sapp. They married on July 22, 2016 and have two sons and one daughter together.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: Taylor Edwin Hackford (born December 31, 1944) is an American film director and former president of the Directors Guild of America. He won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for "Teenage Father" (1979). Hackford went on to direct a number of highly regarded feature films, most notably "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982) and "Ray" (2004), the latter of which saw him nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Picture.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: Hackford was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Mary (née Taylor), a waitress, and Joseph Hackford. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1968, where he was a pre-law major focusing on international relations and economics. After graduating, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia, where he started using Super 8 film in his spare time. The camera was purchased for him by fellow Peace Corps volunteer, Steve Ball. He decided that he did not want to pursue a career in law, and instead got a mailroom position at KCET-TV. At KCET he was the associate producer on the Leon Russell special "Homewood" in 1970. In 1973 at KCET he produced the one-hour special "Bukowski" (about the poet Charles Bukowski), directed by Richard Davies.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: "The Idolmaker" starred Ray Sharkey, who was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his portrayal of "Vinnie" in the film. The Music Supervisor was Richard Flanzer. Hackford said of "The Idolmaker", "I make films about working-class people; showbusiness is one of those things through which people can get themselves out of the lower rung of society. To me, the compelling story in "The Idolmaker" is the guy with a wonderful talent and a fairly strong ego has to make it happen through puppets."


title: Taylor Hackford

text: During the filming of "An Officer and a Gentleman", Hackford kept Lou Gossett Jr. in separate living quarters from the other actors so he could intimidate them more during his scenes as a drill instructor. Richard Gere originally balked at shooting the ending, which involves his character arriving at his lover's factory wearing his Navy dress whites and carrying her off from the factory floor. Gere thought the ending would not work because it was too sentimental, and Hackford was initially inclined to agree with Gere, until during a rehearsal when the extras playing the workers began to cheer and cry. But when Gere saw the scene later with the music underneath it at the right tempo, he said it sent chills up the back of his neck, and is now convinced Hackford made the right decision.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: In 1983, Taylor Hackford partnered with Keith Barish, film producer, to co-develop a film version of "At Play in the Fields of the Lord", of which both Hackford and Barish received a lawsuit in 1986, claiming it had an option to exercise the rights from MGM/UA Entertainment Co., a film distributor.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: Hackford said of his film "Ray": "My proudest moments in "Ray" were in those 'chitlin' clubs. Ray Charles ended his life in concert halls, where people would go in tuxedos and quietly listen to a genius perform. But in these clubs, he had to get people up dancing. What I tried to create was a little of that energy and exuberance. The great thing about music is when you can get people on their feet."


title: Taylor Hackford

text: In a 2005 interview, Hackford confirmed that he never watched his own films: "When I finish a film, I put it away and I never look at it again. Occasionally I do now because of the DVDs and the commentary tracks. I usually put it aside and go onto the next. I never went to film school. I worked for the KCET public television station in L.A. I worked in concerts. I have done a lot of music. I feel very comfortable shooting music, and I think you can see that." Hackford has also directed music videos, including "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" by Phil Collins and "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: On July 25, 2009, Hackford was elected president of the Directors Guild of America. He was re-elected to a second, two-year term as president on June 25, 2011, at the DGA's National Biennial Convention in Los Angeles.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: Hackford has been married three times. He married his first wife, Georgie Lowres, in 1967; they have one child, Rio Hackford (1970–2022). The couple divorced in 1972. In 1977, Hackford married Lynne Littman, with whom he has one child, Alexander Hackford, born in 1979; their marriage lasted until 1987. Hackford has been married to Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren since 1997.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: Hackford met Mirren when he was directing her in "White Nights", although their first meeting did not go well: he kept her waiting to audition for "White Nights", and she was icy. "It was a strange way to meet Helen, because she is a lovely person", says Hackford, "but she didn’t hold back her fury." Hackford and Mirren wed in 1997, although as a young woman Mirren had vowed never to marry. The couple live along the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.


title: Taylor Hackford

text: In 2009, Hackford signed a petition in support of director Roman Polanski, calling for his release after his arrest in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for statutory rape.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: A statistical hypothesis test is a method of statistical inference used to decide whether the data at hand sufficiently support a particular hypothesis.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: While hypothesis testing was popularized early in the 20th century, early forms were used in the 1700s. The first use is credited to John Arbuthnot (1710), followed by Pierre-Simon Laplace (1770s), in analyzing the human sex ratio at birth; see .


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Modern significance testing is largely the product of Karl Pearson ("p"-value, Pearson's chi-squared test), William Sealy Gosset (Student's t-distribution), and Ronald Fisher ("null hypothesis", analysis of variance, "significance test"), while hypothesis testing was developed by Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson (son of Karl). Ronald Fisher began his life in statistics as a Bayesian (Zabell 1992), but Fisher soon grew disenchanted with the subjectivity involved (namely use of the principle of indifference when determining prior probabilities), and sought to provide a more "objective" approach to inductive inference.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Fisher was an agricultural statistician who emphasized rigorous experimental design and methods to extract a result from few samples assuming Gaussian distributions. Neyman (who teamed with the younger Pearson) emphasized mathematical rigor and methods to obtain more results from many samples and a wider range of distributions. Modern hypothesis testing is an inconsistent hybrid of the Fisher vs Neyman/Pearson formulation, methods and terminology developed in the early 20th century.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Fisher popularized the "significance test". He required a null-hypothesis (corresponding to a population frequency distribution) and a sample. His (now familiar) calculations determined whether to reject the null-hypothesis or not. Significance testing did not utilize an alternative hypothesis so there was no concept of a Type II error.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The "p"-value was devised as an informal, but objective, index meant to help a researcher determine (based on other knowledge) whether to modify future experiments or strengthen one's faith in the null hypothesis. Hypothesis testing (and Type I/II errors) was devised by Neyman and Pearson as a more objective alternative to Fisher's "p"-value, also meant to determine researcher behaviour, but without requiring any inductive inference by the researcher.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Neyman & Pearson considered a different problem (which they called "hypothesis testing"). They initially considered two simple hypotheses (both with frequency distributions). They calculated two probabilities and typically selected the hypothesis associated with the higher probability (the hypothesis more likely to have generated the sample). Their method always selected a hypothesis. It also allowed the calculation of both types of error probabilities.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Fisher and Neyman/Pearson clashed bitterly. Neyman/Pearson considered their formulation to be an improved generalization of significance testing. (The defining paper was abstract. Mathematicians have generalized and refined the theory for decades.) Fisher thought that it was not applicable to scientific research because often, during the course of the experiment, it is discovered that the initial assumptions about the null hypothesis are questionable due to unexpected sources of error. He believed that the use of rigid reject/accept decisions based on models formulated before data is collected was incompatible with this common scenario faced by scientists and attempts to apply this method to scientific research would lead to mass confusion.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The dispute between Fisher and Neyman–Pearson was waged on philosophical grounds, characterized by a philosopher as a dispute over the proper role of models in statistical inference.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Events intervened: Neyman accepted a position in the western hemisphere, breaking his partnership with Pearson and separating disputants (who had occupied the same building) by much of the planetary diameter. World War II provided an intermission in the debate. The dispute between Fisher and Neyman terminated (unresolved after 27 years) with Fisher's death in 1962. Neyman wrote a well-regarded eulogy. Some of Neyman's later publications reported "p"-values and significance levels.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The modern version of hypothesis testing is a hybrid of the two approaches that resulted from confusion by writers of statistical textbooks (as predicted by Fisher) beginning in the 1940s. (But signal detection, for example, still uses the Neyman/Pearson formulation.) Great conceptual differences and many caveats in addition to those mentioned above were ignored. Neyman and Pearson provided the stronger terminology, the more rigorous mathematics and the more consistent philosophy, but the subject taught today in introductory statistics has more similarities with Fisher's method than theirs.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Sometime around 1940, authors of statistical text books began combining the two approaches by using the "p"-value in place of the test statistic (or data) to test against the Neyman–Pearson "significance level".


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Paul Meehl has argued that the epistemological importance of the choice of null hypothesis has gone largely unacknowledged. When the null hypothesis is predicted by theory, a more precise experiment will be a more severe test of the underlying theory. When the null hypothesis defaults to "no difference" or "no effect", a more precise experiment is a less severe test of the theory that motivated performing the experiment. An examination of the origins of the latter practice may therefore be useful:


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: 1778: Pierre Laplace compares the birthrates of boys and girls in multiple European cities. He states: "it is natural to conclude that these possibilities are very nearly in the same ratio". Thus Laplace's null hypothesis that the birthrates of boys and girls should be equal given "conventional wisdom".


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: 1900: Karl Pearson develops the chi squared test to determine "whether a given form of frequency curve will effectively describe the samples drawn from a given population." Thus the null hypothesis is that a population is described by some distribution predicted by theory. He uses as an example the numbers of five and sixes in the Weldon dice throw data.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: 1904: Karl Pearson develops the concept of "contingency" in order to determine whether outcomes are independent of a given categorical factor. Here the null hypothesis is by default that two things are unrelated (e.g. scar formation and death rates from smallpox). The null hypothesis in this case is no longer predicted by theory or conventional wisdom, but is instead the principle of indifference that led Fisher and others to dismiss the use of "inverse probabilities".


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Hypothesis testing and philosophy intersect. Inferential statistics, which includes hypothesis testing, is applied probability. Both probability and its application are intertwined with philosophy. Philosopher David Hume wrote, "All knowledge degenerates into probability." Competing practical definitions of probability reflect philosophical differences. The most common application of hypothesis testing is in the scientific interpretation of experimental data, which is naturally studied by the philosophy of science.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Fisher and Neyman opposed the subjectivity of probability. Their views contributed to the objective definitions. The core of their historical disagreement was philosophical.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Many of the philosophical criticisms of hypothesis testing are discussed by statisticians in other contexts, particularly correlation does not imply causation and the design of experiments.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Statistics is increasingly being taught in schools with hypothesis testing being one of the elements taught. Many conclusions reported in the popular press (political opinion polls to medical studies) are based on statistics. Some writers have stated that statistical analysis of this kind allows for thinking clearly about problems involving mass data, as well as the effective reporting of trends and inferences from said data, but caution that writers for a broad public should have a solid understanding of the field in order to use the terms and concepts correctly. An introductory college statistics class places much emphasis on hypothesis testing – perhaps half of the course. Such fields as literature and divinity now include findings based on statistical analysis (see the Bible Analyzer). An introductory statistics class teaches hypothesis testing as a cookbook process. Hypothesis testing is also taught at the postgraduate level. Statisticians learn how to create good statistical test procedures (like "z", Student's "t", "F" and chi-squared). Statistical hypothesis testing is considered a mature area within statistics, but a limited amount of development continues.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: An academic study states that the cookbook method of teaching introductory statistics leaves no time for history, philosophy or controversy. Hypothesis testing has been taught as received unified method. Surveys showed that graduates of the class were filled with philosophical misconceptions (on all aspects of statistical inference) that persisted among instructors. While the problem was addressed more than a decade ago, and calls for educational reform continue, students still graduate from statistics classes holding fundamental misconceptions about hypothesis testing. Ideas for improving the teaching of hypothesis testing include encouraging students to search for statistical errors in published papers, teaching the history of statistics and emphasizing the controversy in a generally dry subject.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: In the statistics literature, statistical hypothesis testing plays a fundamental role. There are two mathematically equivalent processes that can be used.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The former process was advantageous in the past when only tables of test statistics at common probability thresholds were available. It allowed a decision to be made without the calculation of a probability. It was adequate for classwork and for operational use, but it was deficient for reporting results. The latter process relied on extensive tables or on computational support not always available. The explicit calculation of a probability is useful for reporting. The calculations are now trivially performed with appropriate software.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The former report is adequate, the latter gives a more detailed explanation of the data and the reason why the suitcase is being checked.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Not rejecting the null hypothesis does not mean the null hypothesis is "accepted" (see the Interpretation section).


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The processes described here are perfectly adequate for computation. They seriously neglect the design of experiments considerations.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: It is particularly critical that appropriate sample sizes be estimated before conducting the experiment.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The "p"-value is the probability that a given result (or a more significant result) would occur under the null hypothesis. At a significance level of 0.05, a fair coin would be expected to (incorrectly) reject the null hypothesis (that it is fair) in about 1 out of every 20 tests. The "p"-value does not provide the probability that either the null hypothesis or its opposite is correct (a common source of confusion).


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: If the "p"-value is less than the chosen significance threshold (equivalently, if the observed test statistic is in the


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: critical region), then we say the null hypothesis is rejected at the chosen level of significance. If the "p"-value is "not" less than the chosen significance threshold (equivalently, if the observed test statistic is outside the critical region), then the null hypothesis is not rejected.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: In the Lady tasting tea example (below), Fisher required the Lady to properly categorize all of the cups of tea to justify the conclusion that the result was unlikely to result from chance. His test revealed that if the lady was effectively guessing at random (the null hypothesis), there was a 1.4% chance that the observed results (perfectly ordered tea) would occur.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Rejecting the hypothesis that a large paw print originated from a bear does not immediately prove the existence of Bigfoot. Hypothesis testing emphasizes the rejection, which is based on a probability, rather than the acceptance.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: "The probability of rejecting the null hypothesis is a function of five factors: whether the test is one- or two-tailed, the level of significance, the standard deviation, the amount of deviation from the null hypothesis, and the number of observations."


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Statistics are helpful in analyzing most collections of data. This is equally true of hypothesis testing which can justify conclusions even when no scientific theory exists. In the Lady tasting tea example, it was "obvious" that no difference existed between (milk poured into tea) and (tea poured into milk). The data contradicted the "obvious".


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Statistical hypothesis testing plays an important role in the whole of statistics and in statistical inference. For example, Lehmann (1992) in a review of the fundamental paper by Neyman and Pearson (1933) says: "Nevertheless, despite their shortcomings, the new paradigm formulated in the 1933 paper, and the many developments carried out within its framework continue to play a central role in both the theory and practice of statistics and can be expected to do so in the foreseeable future".


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Significance testing has been the favored statistical tool in some experimental social sciences (over 90% of articles in the "Journal of Applied Psychology" during the early 1990s). Other fields have favored the estimation of parameters (e.g. effect size). Significance testing is used as a substitute for the traditional comparison of predicted value and experimental result at the core of the scientific method. When theory is only capable of predicting the sign of a relationship, a directional (one-sided) hypothesis test can be configured so that only a statistically significant result supports theory. This form of theory appraisal is the most heavily criticized application of hypothesis testing.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: "If the government required statistical procedures to carry warning labels like those on drugs, most inference methods would have long labels indeed." This caution applies to hypothesis tests and alternatives to them.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The successful hypothesis test is associated with a probability and a type-I error rate. The conclusion "might" be wrong.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The conclusion of the test is only as solid as the sample upon which it is based. The design of the experiment is critical. A number of unexpected effects have been observed including:


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: A statistical analysis of misleading data produces misleading conclusions. The issue of data quality can be more subtle. In forecasting for example, there is no agreement on a measure of forecast accuracy. In the absence of a consensus measurement, no decision based on measurements will be without controversy.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Publication bias: Statistically nonsignificant results may be less likely to be published, which can bias the literature.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Multiple testing: When multiple true null hypothesis tests are conducted at once without adjustment, the probability of Type I error is higher than the nominal alpha level.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Those making critical decisions based on the results of a hypothesis test are prudent to look at the details rather than the conclusion alone. In the physical sciences most results are fully accepted only when independently confirmed. The general advice concerning statistics is, "Figures never lie, but liars figure" (anonymous).


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: A statistical hypothesis test compares a test statistic ("z" or "t" for examples) to a threshold. The test statistic (the formula found in the table below) is based on optimality. For a fixed level of Type I error rate, use of these statistics minimizes Type II error rates (equivalent to maximizing power). The following terms describe tests in terms of such optimality:


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The earliest use of statistical hypothesis testing is generally credited to the question of whether male and female births are equally likely (null hypothesis), which was addressed in the 1700s by John Arbuthnot (1710), and later by Pierre-Simon Laplace (1770s).


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Arbuthnot examined birth records in London for each of the 82 years from 1629 to 1710, and applied the sign test, a simple non-parametric test. In every year, the number of males born in London exceeded the number of females. Considering more male or more female births as equally likely, the probability of the observed outcome is 0.5, or about 1 in 4,836,000,000,000,000,000,000,000; in modern terms, this is the "p"-value. Arbuthnot concluded that this is too small to be due to chance and must instead be due to divine providence: "From whence it follows, that it is Art, not Chance, that governs." In modern terms, he rejected the null hypothesis of equally likely male and female births at the "p" = 1/2 significance level.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Laplace considered the statistics of almost half a million births. The statistics showed an excess of boys compared to girls. He concluded by calculation of a "p"-value that the excess was a real, but unexplained, effect.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: In a famous example of hypothesis testing, known as the "Lady tasting tea", Dr. Muriel Bristol, a colleague of Fisher claimed to be able to tell whether the tea or the milk was added first to a cup. Fisher proposed to give her eight cups, four of each variety, in random order. One could then ask what the probability was for her getting the number she got correct, but just by chance. The null hypothesis was that the Lady had no such ability. The test statistic was a simple count of the number of successes in selecting the 4 cups. The critical region was the single case of 4 successes of 4 possible based on a conventional probability criterion (< 5%). A pattern of 4 successes corresponds to 1 out of 70 possible combinations (p≈ 1.4%). Fisher asserted that no alternative hypothesis was (ever) required. The lady correctly identified every cup, which would be considered a statistically significant result.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: A statistical test procedure is comparable to a criminal trial; a defendant is considered not guilty as long as his or her guilt is not proven. The prosecutor tries to prove the guilt of the defendant. Only when there is enough evidence for the prosecution is the defendant convicted.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: In the start of the procedure, there are two hypotheses formula_1: "the defendant is not guilty", and formula_2: "the defendant is guilty". The first one, formula_1, is called the "null hypothesis". The second one, formula_2, is called the "alternative hypothesis". It is the alternative hypothesis that one hopes to support.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The hypothesis of innocence is rejected only when an error is very unlikely, because one doesn't want to convict an innocent defendant. Such an error is called "error of the first kind" (i.e., the conviction of an innocent person), and the occurrence of this error is controlled to be rare. As a consequence of this asymmetric behaviour, an "error of the second kind" (acquitting a person who committed the crime), is more common.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: A criminal trial can be regarded as either or both of two decision processes: guilty vs not guilty or evidence vs a threshold ("beyond a reasonable doubt"). In one view, the defendant is judged; in the other view the performance of the prosecution (which bears the burden of proof) is judged. A hypothesis test can be regarded as either a judgment of a hypothesis or as a judgment of evidence.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The following example was produced by a philosopher describing scientific methods generations before hypothesis testing was


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The beans in the bag are the population. The handful are the sample. The null hypothesis is that the sample originated from the population. The criterion for rejecting the null-hypothesis is the "obvious" difference in appearance (an informal difference in the mean). The interesting result is that consideration of a real population and a real sample produced an imaginary bag. The philosopher was considering logic rather than probability. To be a real statistical hypothesis test, this example requires the formalities of a probability calculation and a comparison of that probability to a standard.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: A simple generalization of the example considers a mixed bag of beans and a handful that contain either very few or very many white beans. The generalization considers both extremes. It requires more calculations and more comparisons to arrive at a formal answer, but the core philosophy is unchanged; If the composition of the handful is greatly different from that of the bag, then the sample probably originated from another bag. The original example is termed a one-sided or a one-tailed test while the generalization is termed a two-sided or two-tailed test.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The statement also relies on the inference that the sampling was random. If someone had been picking through the bag to find white beans, then it would explain why the handful had so many white beans, and also explain why the number of white beans in the bag was depleted (although the bag is probably intended to be assumed much larger than one's hand).


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: A person (the subject) is tested for clairvoyance. They are shown the back face of a randomly chosen playing card 25 times and asked which of the four suits it belongs to. The number of hits, or correct answers, is called "X".


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: As we try to find evidence of their clairvoyance, for the time being the null hypothesis is that the person is not clairvoyant. The alternative is: the person is (more or less) clairvoyant.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: If the null hypothesis is valid, the only thing the test person can do is guess. For every card, the probability (relative frequency) of any single suit appearing is 1/4. If the alternative is valid, the test subject will predict the suit correctly with probability greater than 1/4. We will call the probability of guessing correctly "p". The hypotheses, then, are:


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: When the test subject correctly predicts all 25 cards, we will consider them clairvoyant, and reject the null hypothesis. Thus also with 24 or 23 hits. With only 5 or 6 hits, on the other hand, there is no cause to consider them so. But what about 12 hits, or 17 hits? What is the critical number, "c", of hits, at which point we consider the subject to be clairvoyant? How do we determine the critical value "c"? With the choice "c"=25 (i.e. we only accept clairvoyance when all cards are predicted correctly) we're more critical than with "c"=10. In the first case almost no test subjects will be recognized to be clairvoyant, in the second case, a certain number will pass the test. In practice, one decides how critical one will be. That is, one decides how often one accepts an error of the first kind – a false positive, or Type I error. With "c" = 25 the probability of such an error is:


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: and hence, very small. The probability of a false positive is the probability of randomly guessing correctly all 25 times.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Before the test is actually performed, the maximum acceptable probability of a Type I error ("α") is determined. Typically, values in the range of 1% to 5% are selected. (If the maximum acceptable error rate is zero, an infinite number of correct guesses is required.) Depending on this Type 1 error rate, the critical value "c" is calculated. For example, if we select an error rate of 1%, "c" is calculated thus:


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: From all the numbers c, with this property, we choose the smallest, in order to minimize the probability of a Type II error, a false negative. For the above example, we select: formula_10.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: As an example, consider determining whether a suitcase contains some radioactive material. Placed under a Geiger counter, it produces 10 counts per minute. The null hypothesis is that no radioactive material is in the suitcase and that all measured counts are due to ambient radioactivity typical of the surrounding air and harmless objects. We can then calculate how likely it is that we would observe 10 counts per minute if the null hypothesis were true. If the null hypothesis predicts (say) on average 9 counts per minute, then according to the Poisson distribution typical for radioactive decay there is about 41% chance of recording 10 or more counts. Thus we can say that the suitcase is compatible with the null hypothesis (this does not guarantee that there is no radioactive material, just that we don't have enough evidence to suggest there is). On the other hand, if the null hypothesis predicts 3 counts per minute (for which the Poisson distribution predicts only 0.1% chance of recording 10 or more counts) then the suitcase is not compatible with the null hypothesis, and there are likely other factors responsible to produce the measurements.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The test does not directly assert the presence of radioactive material. A "successful" test asserts that the claim of no radioactive material present is unlikely given the reading (and therefore ...). The double negative (disproving the null hypothesis) of the method is confusing, but using a counter-example to disprove is standard mathematical practice. The attraction of the method is its practicality. We know (from experience) the expected range of counts with only ambient radioactivity present, so we can say that a measurement is "unusually" large. Statistics just formalizes the intuitive by using numbers instead of adjectives. We probably do not know the characteristics of the radioactive suitcases; We just assume


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: To slightly formalize intuition: radioactivity is suspected if the Geiger-count with the suitcase is among or exceeds the greatest (5% or 1%) of the Geiger-counts made with ambient radiation alone. This makes no assumptions about the distribution of counts. Many ambient radiation observations are required to obtain good probability estimates for rare events.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The test described here is more fully the null-hypothesis statistical significance test. The null hypothesis represents what we would believe by default, before seeing any evidence. Statistical significance is a possible finding of the test, declared when the observed sample is unlikely to have occurred by chance if the null hypothesis were true. The name of the test describes its formulation and its possible outcome. One characteristic of the test is its crisp decision: to reject or not reject the null hypothesis. A calculated value is compared to a threshold, which is determined from the tolerable risk of error.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Statistical hypothesis testing is a key technique of both frequentist inference and Bayesian inference, although the two types of inference have notable differences. Statistical hypothesis tests define a procedure that controls (fixes) the probability of incorrectly "deciding" that a default position (null hypothesis) is incorrect. The procedure is based on how likely it would be for a set of observations to occur if the null hypothesis were true. This probability of making an incorrect decision is "not" the probability that the null hypothesis is true, nor whether any specific alternative hypothesis is true. This contrasts with other possible techniques of decision theory in which the null and alternative hypothesis are treated on a more equal basis.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: One naïve Bayesian approach to hypothesis testing is to base decisions on the posterior probability, but this fails when comparing point and continuous hypotheses. Other approaches to decision making, such as Bayesian decision theory, attempt to balance the consequences of incorrect decisions across all possibilities, rather than concentrating on a single null hypothesis. A number of other approaches to reaching a decision based on data are available via decision theory and optimal decisions, some of which have desirable properties. Hypothesis testing, though, is a dominant approach to data analysis in many fields of science. Extensions to the theory of hypothesis testing include the study of the power of tests, i.e. the probability of correctly rejecting the null hypothesis given that it is false. Such considerations can be used for the purpose of sample size determination prior to the collection of data.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: An example of Neyman–Pearson hypothesis testing (or null hypothesis statistical significance testing) can be made by a change to the radioactive suitcase example. If the "suitcase" is actually a shielded container for the transportation of radioactive material, then a test might be used to select among three hypotheses: no radioactive source present, one present, two (all) present. The test could be required for safety, with actions required in each case. The Neyman–Pearson lemma of hypothesis testing says that a good criterion for the selection of hypotheses is the ratio of their probabilities (a likelihood ratio). A simple method of solution is to select the hypothesis with the highest probability for the Geiger counts observed. The typical result matches intuition: few counts imply no source, many counts imply two sources and intermediate counts imply one source. Notice also that usually there are problems for proving a negative. Null hypotheses should be at least falsifiable.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Neyman–Pearson theory can accommodate both prior probabilities and the costs of actions resulting from decisions. The former allows each test to consider the results of earlier tests (unlike Fisher's significance tests). The latter allows the consideration of economic issues (for example) as well as probabilities. A likelihood ratio remains a good criterion for selecting among hypotheses.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The two forms of hypothesis testing are based on different problem formulations. The original test is analogous to a true/false question; the Neyman–Pearson test is more like multiple choice. In the view of Tukey the former produces a conclusion on the basis of only strong evidence while the latter produces a decision on the basis of available evidence. While the two tests seem quite different both mathematically and philosophically, later developments lead to the opposite claim. Consider many tiny radioactive sources. The hypotheses become 0,1,2,3... grains of radioactive sand. There is little distinction between none or some radiation (Fisher) and 0 grains of radioactive sand versus all of the alternatives (Neyman–Pearson). The major Neyman–Pearson paper of 1933 also considered composite hypotheses (ones whose distribution includes an unknown parameter). An example proved the optimality of the (Student's) "t"-test, "there can be no better test for the hypothesis under consideration" (p 321). Neyman–Pearson theory was proving the optimality of Fisherian methods from its inception.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Fisher's significance testing has proven a popular flexible statistical tool in application with little mathematical growth potential. Neyman–Pearson hypothesis testing is claimed as a pillar of mathematical statistics, creating a new paradigm for the field. It also stimulated new applications in statistical process control, detection theory, decision theory and game theory. Both formulations have been successful, but the successes have been of a different character.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The dispute over formulations is unresolved. Science primarily uses Fisher's (slightly modified) formulation as taught in introductory statistics. Statisticians study Neyman–Pearson theory in graduate school. Mathematicians are proud of uniting the formulations. Philosophers consider them separately. Learned opinions deem the formulations variously competitive (Fisher vs Neyman), incompatible or complementary. The dispute has become more complex since Bayesian inference has achieved respectability.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: The terminology is inconsistent. Hypothesis testing can mean any mixture of two formulations that both changed with time. Any discussion of significance testing vs hypothesis testing is doubly vulnerable to confusion.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Fisher thought that hypothesis testing was a useful strategy for performing industrial quality control, however, he strongly disagreed that hypothesis testing could be useful for scientists.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Hypothesis testing provides a means of finding test statistics used in significance testing. The concept of power is useful in explaining the consequences of adjusting the significance level and is heavily used in sample size determination. The two methods remain philosophically distinct. They usually (but "not always") produce the same mathematical answer. The preferred answer is context dependent. While the existing merger of Fisher and Neyman–Pearson theories has been heavily criticized, modifying the merger to achieve Bayesian goals has been considered.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Criticism of statistical hypothesis testing fills volumes. Much of the criticism can be summarized by the following issues:


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Critics and supporters are largely in factual agreement regarding the characteristics of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST): While it can provide critical information, it is "inadequate as the sole tool for statistical analysis". "Successfully rejecting the null hypothesis may offer no support for the research hypothesis." The continuing controversy concerns the selection of the best statistical practices for the near-term future given the existing practices. However, adequate research design can minimize this issue. Critics would prefer to ban NHST completely, forcing a complete departure from those practices, while supporters suggest a less absolute change.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Controversy over significance testing, and its effects on publication bias in particular, has produced several results. The American Psychological Association has strengthened its statistical reporting requirements after review, medical journal publishers have recognized the obligation to publish some results that are not statistically significant to combat publication bias and a journal ("Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis") has been created to publish such results exclusively. Textbooks have added some cautions and increased coverage of the tools necessary to estimate the size of the sample required to produce significant results. Major organizations have not abandoned use of significance tests although some have discussed doing so.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: A unifying position of critics is that statistics should not lead to an accept-reject conclusion or decision, but to an estimated value with an interval estimate; this data-analysis philosophy is broadly referred to as estimation statistics. Estimation statistics can be accomplished with either frequentist or Bayesian methods.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: One strong critic of significance testing suggested a list of reporting alternatives: effect sizes for importance, prediction intervals for confidence, replications and extensions for replicability, meta-analyses for generality. None of these suggested alternatives produces a conclusion/decision. Lehmann said that hypothesis testing theory can be presented in terms of conclusions/decisions, probabilities, or confidence intervals. "The distinction between the ... approaches is largely one of reporting and interpretation."


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: On one "alternative" there is no disagreement: Fisher himself said, "In relation to the test of significance, we may say that a phenomenon is experimentally demonstrable when we know how to conduct an experiment which will rarely fail to give us a statistically significant result." Cohen, an influential critic of significance testing, concurred, "... don't look for a magic alternative to NHST "[null hypothesis significance testing]" ... It doesn't exist." "... given the problems of statistical induction, we must finally rely, as have the older sciences, on replication." The "alternative" to significance testing is repeated testing. The easiest way to decrease statistical uncertainty is by obtaining more data, whether by increased sample size or by repeated tests. Nickerson claimed to have never seen the publication of a literally replicated experiment in psychology. An indirect approach to replication is meta-analysis.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Bayesian inference is one proposed alternative to significance testing. (Nickerson cited 10 sources suggesting it, including Rozeboom (1960)). For example, Bayesian parameter estimation can provide rich information about the data from which researchers can draw inferences, while using uncertain priors that exert only minimal influence on the results when enough data is available. Psychologist John K. Kruschke has suggested Bayesian estimation as an alternative for the "t"-test and has also contrasted Bayesian estimation for assessing null values with Bayesian model comparison for hypothesis testing. Two competing models/hypotheses can be compared using Bayes factors. Bayesian methods could be criticized for requiring information that is seldom available in the cases where significance testing is most heavily used. Neither the prior probabilities nor the probability distribution of the test statistic under the alternative hypothesis are often available in the social sciences.


title: Statistical hypothesis testing

text: Advocates of a Bayesian approach sometimes claim that the goal of a researcher is most often to objectively assess the probability that a hypothesis is true based on the data they have collected. Neither Fisher's significance testing, nor Neyman–Pearson hypothesis testing can provide this information, and do not claim to. The probability a hypothesis is true can only be derived from use of Bayes' Theorem, which was unsatisfactory to both the Fisher and Neyman–Pearson camps due to the explicit use of subjectivity in the form of the prior probability. Fisher's strategy is to sidestep this with the "p"-value (an objective "index" based on the data alone) followed by "inductive inference", while Neyman–Pearson devised their approach of "inductive behaviour".


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: Ruiz is best known for portraying cartel queen Isabella Bautista in the first two seasons of "" as well as Carmen in "Father Stu." She has been awarded several Best Actress awards internationally and is a Lifetime Member of the Actors Studio.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: In 2013, Ruiz was invited by the late Martin Landau to become a member of the Actors Studio. The Actors Studio is a membership organization of professional actors led by Al Pacino and is based in New York City and Los Angeles. Ruiz studied method acting under the instruction of Martin Landau and renowned acting coaches Greta Seacat and Sandra Seacat.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: Ruiz appears in the 1st and 2nd seasons of the Netflix original series "" playing Isabella Bautista, a long time friend (and partner in crime) of main character Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: She also played the character Nadia Basurto in the political thriller "Aquí en la Tierra" a co-production between Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna's production company "La Corriente del Golfo" and Fox Networks. The 8-episode drama series written and directed by some of Mexico's most renowned filmmakers was the only Latin American title competing in the inaugural edition of Cannes Film Festival: Series.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: Ruiz appeared in Gregory Nava's controversial film "Bordertown" alongside Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas. The story was based on the murders of women in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua and had the endorsement of Amnesty International.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: Ruiz went on to play the main character in Gerardo Tort's "Round Trip" (or "Viaje Redondo" in Spanish), for which she won several Best Actress awards including the Guadalajara's International Film Festival's Mayahuel, the Prix d'Interprétation Féminine at the Amiens International Film Festival in France and the India Catalina in Colombia; as well as Mexico's Academy Award: Ariel.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: Other film works include Carlos Bolado's "Tlatelolco"; the film tells the story of the 1968 massacre of protesting students in Mexico's capital and Jose Luis Gutierrez-Arias' remake of the classic Spanish film "Marcelino Pan y Vino". She played the Mexican Golden-Era actress and dancer Meche Barba, also known as "The Mexican Venus", in the biopic "Cantinflas" about iconic Mexican actor Mario Moreno Cantinflas.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: Ruiz co-starred in the film "The Delivery" next to Mickey Rourke, an action movie parody directed by Louis Leterrier and appeared in Michael Bay's "The Last Ship".


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: Ruiz was Executive Partner of the production company Machete, which won the Caméra d'Or at the 63 Cannes film festival for the film "Año Bisiesto", directed by Michael Rowe.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: In 2014 Ruiz played the part of Veronica in The Actors Studio production of Stephen Adly Guirgis's "The Motherfucker with the Hat". The play was produced by Martin Landau, Ellen Burstyn and Al Pacino and opened in Los Angeles in September 2014.


title: Teresa Ruiz (actress)

text: She also played young Frida Kahlo in Ofelia Medina's "Cada Quien su Frida"; the play had its worldwide premiere at the International Cadiz Theater Festival in Spain, then went on to tour in Cuba, Denmark, the UK, Mexico and the US.


title: Mortgage loan

text: A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any purpose while putting a lien on the property being mortgaged. The loan is "secured" on the borrower's property through a process known as mortgage origination. This means that a legal mechanism is put into place which allows the lender to take possession and sell the secured property ("foreclosure" or "repossession") to pay off the loan in the event the borrower defaults on the loan or otherwise fails to abide by its terms. The word "mortgage" is derived from a Law French term used in Britain in the Middle Ages meaning "death pledge" and refers to the pledge ending (dying) when either the obligation is fulfilled or the property is taken through foreclosure. A mortgage can also be described as "a borrower giving consideration in the form of a collateral for a benefit (loan)".


title: Mortgage loan

text: Mortgage borrowers can be individuals mortgaging their home or they can be businesses mortgaging commercial property (for example, their own business premises, residential property let to tenants, or an investment portfolio). The lender will typically be a financial institution, such as a bank, credit union or building society, depending on the country concerned, and the loan arrangements can be made either directly or indirectly through intermediaries. Features of mortgage loans such as the size of the loan, maturity of the loan, interest rate, method of paying off the loan, and other characteristics can vary considerably. The lender's rights over the secured property take priority over the borrower's other creditors, which means that if the borrower becomes bankrupt or insolvent, the other creditors will only be repaid the debts owed to them from a sale of the secured property if the mortgage lender is repaid in full first.


title: Mortgage loan

text: In many jurisdictions, it is normal for home purchases to be funded by a mortgage loan. Few individuals have enough savings or liquid funds to enable them to purchase property outright. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets for mortgages have developed. Mortgages can either be funded through the banking sector (that is, through short-term deposits) or through the capital markets through a process called "securitization", which converts pools of mortgages into fungible bonds that can be sold to investors in small denominations.


title: Mortgage loan

text: According to Anglo-American property law, a mortgage occurs when an owner (usually of a fee simple interest in realty) pledges his or her interest (right to the property) as security or collateral for a loan. Therefore, a mortgage is an encumbrance (limitation) on the right to the property just as an easement would be, but because most mortgages occur as a condition for new loan money, the word "mortgage" has become the generic term for a loan secured by such real property.


title: Mortgage loan

text: As with other types of loans, mortgages have an interest rate and are scheduled to amortize over a set period of time, typically 30 years. All types of real property can be, and usually are, secured with a mortgage and bear an interest rate that is supposed to reflect the lender's risk.


title: Mortgage loan

text: Mortgage lending is the primary mechanism used in many countries to finance private ownership of residential and commercial property (see commercial mortgages). Although the terminology and precise forms will differ from country to country, the basic components tend to be similar:


title: Mortgage loan

text: Many other specific characteristics are common to many markets, but the above are the essential features. Governments usually regulate many aspects of mortgage lending, either directly (through legal requirements, for example) or indirectly (through regulation of the participants or the financial markets, such as the banking industry), and often through state intervention (direct lending by the government, direct lending by state-owned banks, or sponsorship of various entities). Other aspects that define a specific mortgage market may be regional, historical, or driven by specific characteristics of the legal or financial system.


title: Mortgage loan

text: Mortgage loans are generally structured as long-term loans, the periodic payments for which are similar to an annuity and calculated according to the time value of money formulae. The most basic arrangement would require a fixed monthly payment over a period of ten to thirty years, depending on local conditions. Over this period the principal component of the loan (the original loan) would be slowly paid down through amortization. In practice, many variants are possible and common worldwide and within each country.


title: Mortgage loan

text: Lenders provide funds against property to earn interest income, and generally borrow these funds themselves (for example, by taking deposits or issuing bonds). The price at which the lenders borrow money, therefore, affects the cost of borrowing. Lenders may also, in many countries, sell the mortgage loan to other parties who are interested in receiving the stream of cash payments from the borrower, often in the form of a security (by means of a securitization).


title: Mortgage loan

text: Mortgage lending will also take into account the (perceived) riskiness of the mortgage loan, that is, the likelihood that the funds will be repaid (usually considered a function of the creditworthiness of the borrower); that if they are not repaid, the lender will be able to foreclose on the real estate assets; and the financial, interest rate risk and time delays that may be involved in certain circumstances.


title: Mortgage loan

text: During the mortgage loan approval process, a mortgage loan underwriter verifies the financial information that the applicant has provided as to income, employment, credit history and the value of the home being purchased via an appraisal. An appraisal may be ordered. The underwriting process may take a few days to a few weeks. Sometimes the underwriting process takes so long that the provided financial statements need to be resubmitted so they are current. It is advisable to maintain the same employment and not to use or open new credit during the underwriting process. Any changes made in the applicant's credit, employment, or financial information could result in the loan being denied.


title: Mortgage loan

text: There are many types of mortgages used worldwide, but several factors broadly define the characteristics of the mortgage. All of these may be subject to local regulation and legal requirements.


title: Mortgage loan

text: The two basic types of amortized loans are the fixed rate mortgage (FRM) and adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) (also known as a floating rate or variable rate mortgage). In some countries, such as the United States, fixed rate mortgages are the norm, but floating rate mortgages are relatively common. Combinations of fixed and floating rate mortgages are also common, whereby a mortgage loan will have a fixed rate for some period, for example the first five years, and vary after the end of that period.


title: Mortgage loan

text: The charge to the borrower depends upon the credit risk in addition to the interest rate risk. The mortgage origination and underwriting process involves checking credit scores, debt-to-income, downpayments, assets, and assessing property value. Jumbo mortgages and subprime lending are not supported by government guarantees and face higher interest rates. Other innovations described below can affect the rates as well.


title: Mortgage loan

text: Upon making a mortgage loan for the purchase of a property, lenders usually require that the borrower make a down payment; that is, contribute a portion of the cost of the property. This down payment may be expressed as a portion of the value of the property (see below for a definition of this term). The loan to value ratio (or LTV) is the size of the loan against the value of the property. Therefore, a mortgage loan in which the purchaser has made a down payment of 20% has a loan to value ratio of 80%. For loans made against properties that the borrower already owns, the loan to value ratio will be imputed against the estimated value of the property.


title: Mortgage loan

text: The loan to value ratio is considered an important indicator of the riskiness of a mortgage loan: the higher the LTV, the higher the risk that the value of the property (in case of foreclosure) will be insufficient to cover the remaining principal of the loan.


title: Mortgage loan

text: Since the value of the property is an important factor in understanding the risk of the loan, determining the value is a key factor in mortgage lending. The value may be determined in various ways, but the most common are:


title: Mortgage loan

text: In most countries, a number of more or less standard measures of creditworthiness may be used. Common measures include payment to income (mortgage payments as a percentage of gross or net income); debt to income (all debt payments, including mortgage payments, as a percentage of income); and various net worth measures. In many countries, credit scores are used in lieu of or to supplement these measures. There will also be requirements for documentation of the creditworthiness, such as income tax returns, pay stubs, etc. the specifics will vary from location to location. Income tax incentives usually can be applied in forms of tax refunds or tax deduction schemes. The first implies that income tax paid by individual taxpayers will be refunded to the extent of interest on mortgage loans taken to acquire residential property. Income tax deduction implies lowering tax liability to the extent of interest rate paid for the mortgage loan.


title: Mortgage loan

text: Some lenders may also require a potential borrower have one or more months of "reserve assets" available. In other words, the borrower may be required to show the availability of enough assets to pay for the housing costs (including mortgage, taxes, etc.) for a period of time in the event of the job loss or other loss of income.


title: Mortgage loan

text: Many countries have lower requirements for certain borrowers, or "no-doc" / "low-doc" lending standards that may be acceptable under certain circumstances.


title: Mortgage loan

text: Many countries have a notion of standard or conforming mortgages that define a perceived acceptable level of risk, which may be formal or informal, and may be reinforced by laws, government intervention, or market practice. For example, a standard mortgage may be considered to be one with no more than 70–80% LTV and no more than one-third of gross income going to mortgage debt.


title: Mortgage loan

text: A standard or conforming mortgage is a key concept as it often defines whether or not the mortgage can be easily sold or securitized, or, if non-standard, may affect the price at which it may be sold. In the United States, a conforming mortgage is one which meets the established rules and procedures of the two major government-sponsored entities in the housing finance market (including some legal requirements). In contrast, lenders who decide to make nonconforming loans are exercising a higher risk tolerance and do so knowing that they face more challenge in reselling the loan. Many countries have similar concepts or agencies that define what are "standard" mortgages. Regulated lenders (such as banks) may be subject to limits or higher-risk weightings for non-standard mortgages. For example, banks and mortgage brokerages in Canada face restrictions on lending more than 80% of the property value; beyond this level, mortgage insurance is generally required.


title: Mortgage loan

text: In some countries with currencies that tend to depreciate, foreign currency mortgages are common, enabling lenders to lend in a stable foreign currency, whilst the borrower takes on the currency risk that the currency will depreciate and they will therefore need to convert higher amounts of the domestic currency to repay the loan.