lawstat: An R Package for Law, Public Policy and Biostatistics

We present a new R software package lawstat that contains statistical tests and procedures that are utilized in various litigations on securities law, antitrust law, equal employment and discrimination as well as in public policy and biostatistics. Along with the well known tests such as the Bartels test, runs test, tests of homogeneity of several sample proportions, the Brunner-Munzel tests, the Lorenz curve, the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test and others, the package contains new distribution-free robust tests for symmetry, robust tests for normality that are more sensitive to heavy-tailed departures, measures of relative variability, Levene-type tests against trends in variances etc. All implemented tests and methods are illustrated by simulations and real-life examples from legal cases, economics and biostatistics. Although the package is called lawstat, it presents implementation and discussion of statistical procedures and tests that are also employed in a variety of other applications, e.g., biostatistics, environmental studies, social sciences and others, in other words, all applications utilizing statistical data analysis. Hence, name of the package should not be considered as a restriction to legal statistics. The package will be useful to applied statisticians and "quantitatively alert practitioners" of other subjects as well as an asset in teaching statistical courses

Computer Data Analysis Aimed at Constructing a Model of Establishing the Factors Which Determine Household Savings in the Republic of Croatia

Examining the relationships between different economic variables has been significantly simplified through the usage of computer analysis. What used to be very complex procedures requiring considerable finances and amounts of time are now greatly reduced thanks to computer technology and adequate software applications. In addition, advances in communication and development of computer networks have provided universal interconnectedness, and thus also permanent accessibility of different data necessary for conducting economic analyses. In this way business entities and macroeconomic policy makers are able to react in a timely manner to changes in the environment, and thus make decisions based on relevant indicators. This paper intends to demonstrate how computer analysis can be applied to construct a model for establishing the factors which determine household savings in the Republic of Croatia. Time and savings deposits of households are an important economic category. They are the source of funds used for loans to both households and businesses. To establish the factors with the heaviest impact on household savings multiple regression analysis was used. In this paper special attention was given to the possibilities of the software package STATISTICA 6.0 intended for solving various statistical problems.computer data analysis, model, relevant variables, time and savings deposits of households, multiple regression analysis

The development and use of farm level indicators in England

In recent years the concept of ‘sustainability indicators’ has become important within agricultural policy development. Numerous indicators have been proposed by agricultural scientists and statisticians, which reflect the wide range of interests that are impacted by agriculture. In support of UK policy objectives the pilot national set of indicators of agricultural sustainability have been re-cast into indicators that can be collected, interpreted and compared at a farm level. The revised indicator set is directly linked to the national set via either disaggregation of the original data or by using a surrogate measure. A simple to use software package which prioritises the indicators according to farm type and which links trends with farm management decisions and practices identifying steps for improvements is being used as the main means of knowledge transfer.Peer reviewe