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A Brief Description of Stata: File Example Datasets..

Stata is a statistical software package designed for data management, analysis, and visualization, available as both a GUI and command-driven application. It allows users to perform various statistical operations, including generating summary statistics and fitting regression models, with an emphasis on speed and efficiency by keeping data in memory. Stata's interface is user-friendly for both beginners and experienced users, facilitating easy access to datasets and commands.

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Ramiro Gerardo Rovira Gomez
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11 views4 pages

A Brief Description of Stata: File Example Datasets..

Stata is a statistical software package designed for data management, analysis, and visualization, available as both a GUI and command-driven application. It allows users to perform various statistical operations, including generating summary statistics and fitting regression models, with an emphasis on speed and efficiency by keeping data in memory. Stata's interface is user-friendly for both beginners and experienced users, facilitating easy access to datasets and commands.

Uploaded by

Ramiro Gerardo Rovira Gomez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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2 A brief description of Stata

Stata is a statistical package for managing, analyzing, and graphing data.


Stata is available for a variety of platforms. Stata may be used either as a point-and-click application
or as a command-driven package.
Stata’s GUI provides an easy interface for those new to Stata and for experienced Stata users who
wish to execute a command that they seldom use.
The command language provides a fast way to communicate with Stata and to communicate more
complex ideas.
Here is an extract of a Stata session using the GUI:
(Throughout the Stata manuals, we will refer to various datasets. These datasets are all available from
http://www.stata-press.com/data/r13/. For easy access to them within Stata, type webuse dataset name,
or select File > Example Datasets... and click on Stata 13 manual datasets.)
. webuse lbw
(Hosmer & Lemeshow data)

We select Data > Describe data > Summary statistics and choose to summarize variables low,
age, and smoke, whose names we obtained from the Variables window. We click on OK.

1
2 [ U ] 2 A brief description of Stata

. summarize low age smoke


Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

low 189 .3121693 .4646093 0 1


age 189 23.2381 5.298678 14 45
smoke 189 .3915344 .4893898 0 1

Stata shows us the command that we could have typed in command mode—summarize low age
smoke—before displaying the results of our request.
Next we fit a logistic regression model of low on age and smoke. We select Statistics > Binary
outcomes > Logistic regression (reporting odds ratios), fill in the fields, and click on OK.

. logistic low age smoke


Logistic regression Number of obs = 189
LR chi2(2) = 7.40
Prob > chi2 = 0.0248
Log likelihood = -113.63815 Pseudo R2 = 0.0315

low Odds Ratio Std. Err. z P>|z| [95% Conf. Interval]

age .9514394 .0304194 -1.56 0.119 .8936482 1.012968


smoke 1.997405 .642777 2.15 0.032 1.063027 3.753081
_cons 1.062798 .8048781 0.08 0.936 .2408901 4.689025

Here is an extract of a Stata session using the command language:


[ U ] 2 A brief description of Stata 3

. use http://www.stata-press.com/data/r13/auto
(1978 Automobile Data)
. summarize mpg weight
Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

mpg 74 21.2973 5.785503 12 41


weight 74 3019.459 777.1936 1760 4840

The user typed summarize mpg weight and Stata responded with a table of summary statistics.
Other commands would produce different results:
. generate gp100m = 100/mpg
. label var gp100m "Gallons per 100 miles"
. format gp100m %5.2f
. correlate gp100m weight
(obs=74)
gp100m weight

gp100m 1.0000
weight 0.8544 1.0000

. regress gp100m weight gear_ratio


Source SS df MS Number of obs = 74
F( 2, 71) = 96.65
Model 87.4543721 2 43.7271861 Prob > F = 0.0000
Residual 32.1218886 71 .452420967 R-squared = 0.7314
Adj R-squared = 0.7238
Total 119.576261 73 1.63803097 Root MSE = .67262

gp100m Coef. Std. Err. t P>|t| [95% Conf. Interval]

weight .0014769 .0001556 9.49 0.000 .0011665 .0017872


gear_ratio .1566091 .2651131 0.59 0.557 -.3720115 .6852297
_cons .0878243 1.198434 0.07 0.942 -2.301786 2.477435

. scatter gp100m weight, by(foreign)

Domestic Foreign
8.00
Gallons per 100 miles
6.00
4.00
2.00

2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000


Weight (lbs.)
Graphs by Car type

The user-interface model is type a little, get a little, etc., so that the user is always in control.
4 [ U ] 2 A brief description of Stata

Stata’s model for a dataset is that of a table — the rows are the observations and the columns are
the variables:
. list mpg weight gp100m in 1/10

mpg weight gp100m

1. 22 2,930 4.55
2. 17 3,350 5.88
3. 22 2,640 4.55
4. 20 3,250 5.00
5. 15 4,080 6.67

6. 18 3,670 5.56
7. 26 2,230 3.85
8. 20 3,280 5.00
9. 16 3,880 6.25
10. 19 3,400 5.26

Observations are numbered; variables are named.


Stata is fast. That speed is due partly to careful programming, and partly because Stata keeps the
data in memory. Stata’s file model is that of a word processor: a dataset may exist on disk, but the
dataset in memory is a copy. Datasets are loaded into memory, where they are worked on, analyzed,
changed, and then perhaps stored back on disk.
Working on a copy of the data in memory makes Stata safe for interactive use. The only way to
harm the permanent copy of your data on disk is if you explicitly save over it.
Having the data in memory means that the dataset size is limited by the amount of computer
memory. Stata stores the data in memory in an efficient format — you will be surprised how much
data can fit. Nevertheless, if you work with extremely large datasets, you may run into memory
constraints. You will want to learn how to store your data as efficiently as possible; see [D] compress.

2.1 Video example


Tour of the Stata 13 interface

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