When a compressor pumps one CFM (cubic foot per minute), that means the intake port inhales one cubic foot of free air (air at atmospheric pressure, which is 0 psig) per minute. (Note: A CFM does not mean in any sense the compressed volume.) So the unit really measures the mass of air flowing per minute, not volume per minute, since a cubic foot of free air is a unit of mass.
This second scale has a mean and standard deviation that have been arbitrarily set. A z score, for example, is a raw score that has been transformed to a scale with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1.
A z score always reflects the number of standard deviations above or below the mean a particular score is. For instance, if a person scored a 70 on a test with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10, then they scored 2 standard deviations above the mean. Converting the test scores to z scores, an X of 70 would be: So, a z score of 2 means the original score was 2 standard deviations above the mean. Note that the z distribution will only be a normal distribution if the original distribution (X) is normal.