Reliability of Statistical Software

Abstract

The reliability of several statisitcal software packages was examined using the National Institute of Standards and Technology linear and nonlinear least squares datasets and models. Software tested include Excel 2007, GAMS 23.4, GAUSS 9.0, LIMDEP 8.0, Mathematica 7.0, MATLAB 7.5, R 2.10, SAS 9.1, SHAZAM 10, and Stata 10. While some of these packages have been previously examined, others, including GAMS and MATLAB, have not been extensively examined. Reliability tests indicate improvements in some of the software packages that were previously tested, but some of these packages failed reliability tests under certain conditions. The findings underscore the need to benchmark software packages to ascertain reliability before use and the importance of solving econometric problems using more than one package.

An Optimum Principle Predicts the Distribution of Axon Diameters in Normal White Matter

“…The main reason for this extensive search is that several of the distributions fail to fit the data properly when arbitrary initial values (guesses) are used. The fits were performed using non-linear regression in Mathematica® 8.0 (Wolfram Research) with functions NonlinearModelFit and FindFit, whose performance on difficult non-linear regression tasks is usually deemed better than most other statistical packages (e.g., see [35], [36] for comparisons that utilize NIST benchmark data sets). In the end, after an extensive search, we were able to obtain reasonably successful fits for each of 46 ADDs and for each of the five models (see Table S1 in the Supporting Information).…”

A comparison of parametric and nonparametric estimation methods for cost frontiers and economic measures

“…Also, when comparing the 500U case to the 400HN with zero single output firms observed, there were changes for all three of the parametric methods as well as changes in magnitude for the estimated parameters. The calculation for the standard errors using GAMS used the method in Odeh, Featherstone, and Bergtold (1992).…”

The role and potential of information technology in agricultural improvement

“…In these issues, two papers treat accounting (Zoranović, Vukoje, 2008) and statistical (Odeh et al, 2010) software that can be used in agriculture and two papers (Roe et al, 2011;Diekmann et al, 2008) analyze use of internet auctions in trade of agricultural inputs and outputs. On the other hand, there are IT journals dealing with IT influence on economy and society that also treat IT support to agriculture.…”