Draftsmans Displays for Contingency Tables Using a Full-Screen Scrollable APL2 Spreadsheet Input/Output Editor with Application to the Perserec Database of Special Background Investigation
Abstract
A full-screen, scrollable spreadsheet-like editor written in the APL2 language is described for inputting, examining, and outputting data. Mixed numeric and character arrays can be read into or read out to formatted or comma delimited ASCII files. Alternatively a bulk mode input facility allows for rapid direct data entry, or data can be examined and edited cell-by-cell in the usual way. Columns, rows or blocks of data can be highlighted in a chosen color, shadowed, moved or copied. In addition APL functions entered on a command line can use the blocks as input or output. A facility for coding missing values is also provided. Output is obtained as a new spreadsheet, or equivalently as an APL2 matrix. In particular two-way cross tabulations of multiple columns are laid out in the spreadsheet like draftsmen's plots to facilitate investigation and explanation of multivariate categorical data. No numerical coding of the data is needed. Flexible printing of arrays is provided, as well as lexicographic sorting of rows. A specific application of the techniques and the APL2 program is made to a database constructed with the author's assistance and maintained by the Defense Personnel Security Research and Education Center (PERSEREC), Monterey, California. This database is the basis of a large scale study of the Special Background Investigation. The study is designed to evaluate the productivity of investigative sources in developing the necessary information to determine eligibility for access to Sensitive Compartment Information.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA573982
Entities
People
- Uwe H. Steinfeld
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School