Journal articles that describe some randomized experiment often include a table of the characteristics of the subjects after they were randomly assigned to the treatments, but before the treatments were applied. An example of part of one of those tables is shown here. 

a. What is the purpose of showing such a table, and how is that related to the experimental design? 

b. These types of tables also often include p-values showing the results of testing some characteristic between the two groups (e.g., deciding whether the mean age between those that will receive the placebo and those that will receive the drug is significantly different). Ideally, would you want those p-values to be large or small? Why?

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Mean age (yrs) Men (%) Women (%) Mean disease duration (yrs) Duration <1 year (%) Duration >5 years (%) Baseline Patient Demographics and Clinical Characteristics Placebo (n = 129) 39.9 59.7 40.3 6.3 17.8 39.5 Drug (n = 128) 37.6 54.7 45.3 5.5 21.9 34.4