2_R

Statistical attributes/variables

An attribute is a characteristic of an object (person, thing, etc.) [1].

A variable is an attribute that has a value, which varies from entity to another [3]. . An attribute is often intuitive, while the variable is the operationalized way in which the attribute is represented for further data processing. Values of each variable statistically "vary" (or are distributed) across the variable's domain. A domain is a set of all possible values that a variable is allowed to have. The values are ordered in a logical way and must be defined for each variable. Domains can be bigger or smaller. The smallest possible domains have those variables that can only have two values, also called binary (or dichotomous) variables. Bigger domains have non-dichotomous variables and the ones with a higher level of measurement.

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Dataset

Dataset is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record of the data set in question. It lists values for each of the variables, such as height and weight of an object, for each member of the data set [3].

The values in the dataset may be numbers, such as real numbers or integers, for example representing a person's height in centimeters, but may also be nominal data (i.e., not consisting of numerical values), for example representing a person's ethnicity. More generally, values may be of any of the kinds described as a level of measurement. For each variable, the values are normally all of the same kind. However, there may also be missing values, which must be indicated in some way [2].

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Dataset generation

In statistics, datasets usually consist of actual observations obtained from a statistical population, where each row corresponds to the observations of one element of that population. Datasets also can be generated by algorithms to test certain kinds of software. When data is missing or suspicious an imputation method may be used to complete a data set [2].

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References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_and_attribute_(research)

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_set

3. https://stattrek.com/descriptive-statistics/variables.aspx