In selecting a sulfur concrete for roadway construction in regions that experience heavy frost, it is important that the chosen concrete has a low value of ther- mal conductivity in order to minimize subsequent damage due to changing temperatures. Suppose two types of concrete, a graded aggregate and a no-fines aggregate, are being considered for a certain road. The table below summarizes data on thermal conductivity from an experiment carried out to compare the two types of concrete. Ğ¢ÑÑеп ni xi si
Graded 42 0.486 0.187
No-fines Ñ 42 0.359 0.158

Assume that the conductivity for each sample of concrete is independent of that of all the others. Our interest is in determining if the mean conductivity for the graded concrete is significantly different than the mean conductivity for the no-fines concrete?

Required:
a. Formulate the above in terms of a hypothesis testing problem.
b. Give the test statistic and its reference distribution (under the null hypothesis).
c. Report the p-value of the test statistic and use it to assess the evidence that this sample provides on the scientific question of difference in mean conductivity of the two materials at the 5% level of significance.