Bookmark and Share Print this page
School of Population Health SPAN - instruction manual

A Manual for SPAN

© Roger J. Marshall

Section of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Population Health, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Table of contents

1 Introduction
2 Installation and requirements
2.1 SPAN on the Internet
2.2 Version
3 SPAN methodology
3.1 Partition representation
3.2 Attributes
3.3 SPAN Boolean  partitions
3.4 Regular  partitions: positive attibutes
4 Windows SPAN       
4.1 Mouse input in windows
4.2 Extracting contents of windows
4.3 I'm thinking...
4.4 The View function
5 Data preparation
5.1 Free format
5.2 Fixed format
5.3 Excel spreadsheet input data
6 Main menu items
7 File and Edit
7.1 File
7.2 Edit .SPN and Edit file
7.3 Edit:Split sample
7.4 Edit:Select ...
8 Control file: Data input            
8.1 Control file
8.2 Variables
8.3 Format
8.4 Grouped data
8.5 Missing values and missing attributes
8.6 Data restrictions
8.7 Character Data
8.8 Boolean combination lines
9 Control file: Creating attributes
9.1 Attribute representation
9.2 Interval and ordinal variables
9.2.1   Range attributes
9.2.2   Percentile and mean cutpoints
9.2.3   Multiple cuts
9.3 Nominal or binary variables
9.3.1   Category representation
9.4 Labels
9.5 Direction of association
9.6 Multiple attributes
9.7 Using SPAN to edit or create a control file
9.8 Missing value attributes
9.8.1   Nominal variables
9.8.2   Interval variables
9.9 Special attributes
9.9.1   The null attribute
9.9.2   Index attribute
9.9.3   Random attribute
9.9.4   _all_ attribute
9.9.5   The cross-validation specification
9.10  Continuation indicator
10 Y menu
10.1 OK
10.2 Distribution
10.3 Scatterplot /cross-tab
10.3.1   Z: Adding a third variable. Rotating 3D plots 10.4 Transform
10.4.1   Creating attributes from binary transformations
10.5 Select Y
10.6 By-group/cross-validate
11 Criteria          
11.1 Criterion
11.2 Balancing parameter gamma
11.3 Penalty parameter beta
11.4 Complexity
11.5 Priors for Entropy/Gini indices
11.6 Costs for Entropy/Gini and Quality indices
12 Rank       
12.1 Attributes Rank Plot
12.2 Fix positive attributes
12.2.1   Multiple Y 
12.3 Effectiveness v Cuts plot
12.4 ROC curves
12.5 QROC curves
13 Strategy            
13.1 Constrain X space
13.2 Force in attribute
13.3 Iterative mode
13.4 Tree
13.5 Top m
13.6 Decide positivity
13.7 Set Extent parameters
14 Extent             
14.1 Size p_1 ....p_q
14.2 Up to stated size
14.3 A  and A-
14.4 Number of float levels
15 Search              
15.1 The Search 
15.2 During the search
15.3 The end of a search: complexity hull
15.4 Penalty parameter setting
15.5 Searching in iterative mode
15.6 Search interrupts
15.7 Search with by-group/ cross-validate  
15.8 Search in tree mode
16 Process                     
16.1 Rectangle Diagrams
16.1.1   Rectangles construction method
16.2 Lists
16.3 Distribution
16.4 Statistics
16.4.1   2x2 table statistics
16.4.2   Chi-square, generalised error etc
16.4.3   Risk matrix
16.4.4   Log-rank: incidence rates
16.4.5   Table of prior adjusted pseudo-counts
16.5 Random
16.6 Tree
16.7 Test [training] sample
16.8 Create added attribute
16.9 Manual partitions [simplifying Boolean expressions]
17 Options              
17.1 Full Boolean reduction
17.2 Attributes are primitive
17.3 Tied partitions: use last found
17.4 Missing attributes
17.5 Detailed output
17.6 Display graphics while searching
18 View and Window   
18.1 Output log
18.2 Viewing data and .SPN files
18.3 Added attributes
18.4 Window
19 Help 
19.1 Website
19.2 Topics
19.3 Enter Registration #
19.4 Manual
19.5 FAQs
20 References

Appendices

Appendix 1 Lock and Key algorithm 
Appendix 2 Size of search
A 2.1 Number of partitions of size p1,...,pq
A 2.2 Sub-search extent
Appendix 3 Partition criteria
A 3.1 Within MSE
A 3.2 Subgroup MSE
A 3.3 Entropy
A 3.3.1  Prior probabilities
A 3.4 Quality index QI(r)
A 3.5 Chi-square 
A 3.6 Odds ratio (Bayes)       
A 3.7 Log-rank
A 3.8 Gini diversity
A 3.9 Directional v. Non-directional measures
A 3.10 Multiple Y measures
Appendix 4 Computational notes
A 4.1 Timings and Turbo facility
A 4.2 Program limits
A 4.3 Error messages
A 4.4 Bugs
A 4.5 Limitations
Appendix 5 Manipulating Boolean formulae
A 5.1 Reduction rules
A 5.2 Transposing partitions
A 5.3 Expanding out partitions
A 5.4 Variable dependent Boolean reductions
A 5.5 Null partitions
Appendix 6 Skipped partitions
Appendix 7 Assessing statistical significance
A 7.1 Non-randomness of generated partitions
A 7.2 Significance of the best partition


Please give us your feedback or ask us a question

This message is...


My feedback or question is...


My email address is...

(Only if you need a reply)