Page 149 - DLIS401_METHODOLOGY_OF_RESEARCH_AND_STATISTICAL_TECHNIQUES

Methodology of Research and Statistical Techniques

Notes 10.4 MINITAB

MINITAB is very quick to learn. Nearly 450 textbooks (up to now) and textbook supplements
reference MINITAB Statistical Software, making it easy to use MINITAB in academic courses.
There are a lot of macro’s written for MINITAB. MINITAB Statistical Software is available for
PC and Macintosh microcomputer systems.

Did u know? MINITAB is available for mainframes, minicomputers, and workstations
including VAX and other DEC platforms, Sun, IBM, Prime, Data General,
Hewlett-Packard, and others.

MINITAB, SPSS, SAS
MINITAB is much more suited to statistical analysis than Excel, but definitely has some significant
disadvantages compared to SAS or SPSS. It has a good interface and decent graphics, a reasonable
macro facility, and decent support.

10.5 MATLAB

MATLAB is a (non-statistics-specific) mathematical programming language which happens to
contain some statistical routines. MATLAB, of course, is wide open in terms of adding new
capabilities, but requires that you have the time, energy and knowledge to construct the
necessary code. MATLAB is very powerful numerical computational package. We can do the
same analysis in several ways.

10.6 S-PLUS and R

S is considered a very high-level language and an environment for data analysis and graphics
since its evolution in the mid-70’s at Bell Labs. The evolution of the S language is characterized
by four books by John Chambers and coauthors, which are also the primary references for S.
There is a huge amount of user-contributed code for S.

Notes S-PLUS is a value-added version of S sold by Insightful Corporation (previous
MathSoft. Inc) since 1994 providing professional support to user-end.

Based on the S language, S-PLUS provides functionality in a wide variety of areas, including
robust regression, modern non-parametric regression, time series, survival analysis, multivariate
analysis, classical statistical tests, quality control, and graphics drivers. Add-on modules add
additional capabilities for wavelet analysis, spatial statistics, GARCH models, and design of
experiments.

R is a system for statistical computation and graphics. It consists of a language plus a run-time
environment with graphics, a debugger, access to certain system functions, and the ability to
run programs stored inscript files. R was initially written by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman
at the Department of Statistics of the University of Auckland in Auckland, New Zealand. The
name suggests that the authors consider R to be a pre-stage of S. In addition, a large group
of individuals has contributed to R by sending code and bug reports. The reason behind this

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