Quantum

Version 5.7
Release Notes
TRN90512U

COPYRIGHT 2000 BY SPSS LTD

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Contents
Quantum version 5.7 release notes .............................................................................1
1

Operating systems ............................................................................................................1

2
2.1
2.2

Newman-Keuls statistical tests .....................................................................................2

The standard Newman-Keuls table-level statistic .................................................................2
The Newman-Keuls T statistic ..............................................................................................3

3
3.1

3.2

Improved weight matrix error handling.......................................................................7

Non-zero rim and target weights and zero cases ...................................................................8
Target weights .......................................................................................................................8
Rim weights ...........................................................................................................................8
Zero target with non-zero cases .............................................................................................9

License expiry warning....................................................................................................9

Removal of some #include statement features.........................................................9

Quanvert Database Administration ............................................................................10

7
7.1

SPSS MR Utilities ............................................................................................................10

Enhancements to asort under Unix ......................................................................................10

Quantum Users Guide...................................................................................................11

Quantum Reference Guide............................................................................................13

10 Problems solved ..............................................................................................................14

10.1 Problems existing in Quantum prior to version 5f.1 ...........................................................14
10.2 Problems introduced in Quantum version 5f.1 or 5f.2 ........................................................16
11

Known limitations............................................................................................................21

12 Clarification of features .................................................................................................22

12.1 Clarification of some features of the special T statistics .....................................................27
Special T statistics in hierarchical data ...............................................................................27
Special T statistics and overlapping data ............................................................................27
Clarification of formulae .....................................................................................................28
13

References ........................................................................................................................28

Contents / i

Quantum version 5.7 release notes

These release notes describe the changes that have been made to Quantum since version 5f.1. The
changes include corrections to a number of problems and the updating of the documentation.

1 Operating systems
Quantum version 5.7 has been fully tested running under two new operating systems Red Hat
Linux version 6 for Intel systems and Solaris 7, 32-bit operating system for Sun systems. The full
list of operating systems that are now supported is:

MS-DOS.

SCO

Solaris 2.5 and 2.6 for Sun sparc systems.

HP Unix

Red Hat Linux version 6 for Intel systems.

Solaris 7, 32-bit operating system for Sun systems.

Open Server 5 for Intel systems.

10 and 11 for HP9000 systems.

Quantum is no longer guaranteed to run under SCO Unix 3, SunOS 4/Solaris 1, HP Unix 9,
AIX or Open VMS.

Quantum version 5.7 has also been tested running under MS-DOS in a Windows 2000 operating
environment.
The object files for Quantum running under SCO Open Server 5 are now provided in ELF format.
ELF format binary files are purported to be upwardly compatible with UnixWare, although we have
not tested this.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

2 Newman-Keuls statistical tests

We have undertaken a thorough review of the two Newman-Keuls statistical tests that are provided
in Quantum. As a result a number of minor errors have been corrected and the formulae that are
used are now provided in the Users Guide. (Sug UK2998)

2.1 The standard Newman-Keuls table-level statistic

This is the test that is requested by placing the stat=nk option on the tab statement. Previous
versions of the Quantum Users Manual failed to mention that the Newman-Keuls statistical test is
designed to compare columns which represent samples of equal size. So the bases of the columns
being tested need to be identical or nearly identical. The formula used in Quantum adjusts for the
fact that in practice sample sizes are seldom identical by using the harmonic mean of the sample
sizes. This approach is described by Snedecor and Cochran in Statistical Methods and by Miller in
Simultaneous Statistical Inference. However, it should be noted that the Newman-Keuls test is
inappropriate when sample sizes differ markedly.
The formula that was used in previous versions of Quantum failed to subtract the number of all zero
columns from the total number of columns in the test. This error has now been corrected.
The formula for two columns, i and j, is:
( Mi Mj )
q ij = -----------------------------MS error n
where:
Mi

represents the mean value in column i.

Mj

represents the mean value in column j.

represents the harmonic mean of the group and is calculated as:

k
n = --------------k

---nc
1

c=1

Page 2

The columns are sorted so that Mi is always greater than or equal to Mj.

Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

2
( xc )
( xc ) ------------
nc

c=1
= ---------------------------------------------k

MS error

( nc 1 )

c=1

where:
k

represents the total number of columns in the test, with a maximum of 20.

nc

represents the number of observations in column c.

xc

represents the sum of values in column c.

2
xc

represents the sum of the squared values in column c.

df

represents the degrees of freedom, calculated as:

k

df =

( nc 1 )

c=1

2.2 The Newman-Keuls T statistic

This is the test that is requested by placing tstat nkl [;options] after the tab statement or after the
l statement that represents the column axis. The following adjustments have been made to the
formula:

The formula now uses the harmonic mean over all the columns in the test.

The formula now uses the same calculation for the degrees of freedom in both the test of means
and the test of proportions.

The formula no longer recomputes the value of V for two columns in the test of proportions
as this has been found to be unnecessary.

Quantum performs the following steps:

Calculates the formula for each pair of columns.

Calculates the sum of these formulae for each column.

Sorts the columns in ascending order of the sum of the formulae.

Compares the significance of each pair of columns with the appropriate value in a lookup table.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

The formula used in Quantum version 5.7 for two columns a and b, is:
x
x
----a- ----bna nb
= ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 1 1 2 corr ekl
V --- --- + --- ---------------------------------

2 n n
ea e b

Q ab

Where:
For the test of means:
2

2 ( xc )
x c -----------nc
c=1
V = ---------------------------------------k
wc
( e c 1 ) -----nc
k

c=1

where
k

represents the number of columns tested.

n c represents the number of observations contributing to column c.

w c represents the sum of squared weights for the observations contributing to column c.
x c represents the sum of values in column c, and is calculated as:
nc

xc =

xic

i=1
2

x c represents the sum of squared values in column c, and is calculated as:

2
xc

nc

x ic
2

i=1

e c represents the effective base in column c, and is calculated as:

2

nc
e c = -----wc

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

e =

c=1

nc
------wc

n represents the harmonic mean and is calculated as

k
n = --------------k

----ec
1

c=1

df represents the degrees of freedom and is calculated as:

k

df =

c=1

nc
------k
wc

corr and ekl are the overlap corrections and are calculated as:

x fa x fb
f
f

x fa x fb --------------------------------------f
f
corr = ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2

x
x

fa
fb

f

f

2
2
x fa ---------------------- x fb ----------------------
f
f
f
f

f
ekl = -------------2
wc

where f represents the number of observations in overlap contributing.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

For the test of proportions:

k

xc

xc

c=1

c=1

--------------- 1 --------------k

nc

nc

c=1

c=1

V = --------------------------------------------------1
1 ----------------k

c=1

nc
-----wc

where
k

represents the number of columns tested.

n c represents the number of observations in the base of column c.

w c represents the sum of squared weights for the observations contributing to column c.
x c represents the number in a row in column c (that is, the count).
e c represents the effective base in column c, and is calculated as:
2

nc
e c = -----wc
k

e =

c=1

nc
------wc

n represents the harmonic mean and is calculated as

k
n = --------------k

----ec
1

c=1

df represents the degrees of freedom and is calculated as:

k

df =

c=1

Page 6

nc
------1
wc

Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

corr and ekl are the overlap corrections and are calculated as:
n fa n fb
n fab -------------f
corr = ------------------------------------------------------2

n fa
n fb

n fa ------ n fb ------
f
f

f
ekl = -------------2
wc

where f represents the number of observations in overlap in the base.

Formulae used in previous versions of Quantum

The formula for two columns a and b, was:

Q ab

x
x
----a- ----bna nb
= --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1
1 1 2 corr ekl
V --- ----- + ----- ---------------------------------

2 ea eb
ea eb

For the test of proportions, the degrees of freedom were calculated as:
df = e a + e b 1

3 Improved weight matrix error handling

Quantum now performs improved validity checks on weight matrices and provides more
information when certain weight matrix errors are detected. When one of these errors is detected,
a message is displayed and, by default, the Quantum run stops. You can see further details of the
error in the weighting report file.
If you would prefer the run not to stop when one of these errors is detected, you can use the new
nowmerrors keyword on the a statement or the wm statement. When you do this, the run continues
with a warning. However, you can still find the additional information in the weighting report file.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

3.1 Non-zero rim and target weights and zero cases

Target weights
It is incorrect to specify a non-zero target weight for a cell that has no cases. When Quantum
encounters this error, it now stops the run with a message of the form:
Error: Weight matrix 5, cell 3: target 5.000 given, no cases found
For details, see the Quantum weighting report file (weightrp)

If the nowmerrors keyword is in force, the same message is issued except that the word Error is
replaced by the word Warning and the run continues.
The message is repeated in the weighting report file.

Rim weights
It is incorrect to specify a non-zero target weight for an element in a rim weighting dimension when
there are no cases in that element. When Quantum encounters this error, it now stops the run with
a message of the form:
Error: Weight matrix 3, dimension 2, elem 3: target 4.800 given, no cases
found
For details, see the Quantum weighting report file (weightrp)

If the nowmerrors keyword is in force, the same message is issued except that the word Error is
replaced by the word Warning and the run continues.
The message is repeated in the weighting report file immediately after the line reporting the
element in error, for example:
INPUT
FREQUENCY
----------24.000
24.000
----------48.000

INPUT
PERCENT
----------50.00
50.00
----------100.00

PROJECTED
FREQUENCY
----------28.800
19.200
----------48.000

PROJECTED
PERCENT
----------60.00
40.00
----------100.00

16.000
33.33
14.400
30.00
16.000
33.33
19.200
40.00
0.000
0.00
4.800
10.00
Error: Weight matrix 3, dimen 2, elem 3: target 4.800 given, no cases
found.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

3.2 Zero target with non-zero cases

It is not an error to specify a zero target for a target weighting cell or for an element in a rim
weighting dimension when there are cases in that cell or element. However, when Quantum
encounters either of these situations, it now provides a warning message in case you specified this
in error. The warning messages are of a similar form to the error messages issued when a non-zero
target is found for a cell or element that contains no cases, and the messages are repeated in the
weighting report file. However, Quantum does not stop the run regardless of whether nowmerrors
has been specified or not.

4 License expiry warning

Quantum for MS-DOS now displays a warning when you run it within thirty days of your license
expiring. Normally you will receive an update before you get the warning, but if you do not, contact
your local SPSS MR support office. For a list of offices, refer to the SPSS MR web sit at:
http://www.spss.com/spssmr/offices.htm
When you see the message, press RETURN to continue the run as normal.
Quantum for MS-DOS gives the warning every time you run it within 30 days of the license expiring.
If you would prefer not to see the message, you can suppress it by setting the environment variable
QTNOWARN.

5 Removal of some #include statement features

The Quantum compiler statement reading module was changed in version 5f.1. Unfortunately this
resulted in the introduction of a number of errors. To resolve these errors, Quantum version 5.7 has
reverted to using the original version. This means that some #include statement features that were
introduced into Quantum in version 5f.1 have now been removed:

The list and nolist keywords are no longer valid on #include statements.

The error and noerror keywords are no longer valid on #include statements.

The limit of 200 include files in a run has now been reinstated.

You can no longer start an include file with a + continuation statement.

++ continuation statements are no longer valid in include files.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

In addition, error CI1789 that was corrected in Quantum version 5f.1 is now unsolved. This error
causes Quantum to suppress the printing of include files in the program listing file, out1, when there
are a large number of include files in the run. The exact number of include files that are required to
cause this problem is not known.

6 Quanvert Database Administration

A new version of the Quanvert Database Administration has been released for use with Quantum
version 5.7. The main changes are that it has been tested running under the same two new operating
systems as Quantum and an error has been corrected. You can find full details in the release notes.

7 SPSS MR Utilities
The SPSS MR Utilities are now included on the Quantum CD-ROM and are automatically installed
with Quantum.

7.1 Enhancements to asort under Unix

Enhancements have been made to the Unix version of asort to take advantage of the new method
of specifying the sort key in the Unix sort utility and to solve a problem when running asort under
SCO Open Server 5 (CI1738). The parameters are unchanged, except that there are now two new
options.
To use asort under Unix, type:
asort [options] input_file output_file start1 end1 [ startn endn]
Where input_file is the name of the unsorted input file, output_file is the name of the sorted output
file, start1 and end1 are the start and end positions of the first field you want to sort on, and startn
and endn are the start and end positions of the nth field you want to sort on and the options are:
Option

Explanation

Call sort using the old method of specifying the sort key. This has been provided for
backwards compatibility. You may find this option useful in the unlikely event that
asort now gives different results from the previous version. By using this option, you
should get the same results as you did using the previous version of asort. The default
is that this option is off.

Call sort in verbose mode. The default is that this option is off.

asort under MS-DOS remains unchanged.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

8 Quantum Users Guide

The Quantum Users Manual has been thoroughly updated for this release. It has been renamed the
Quantum Users Guide and it has been divided into four volumes as follows:

Volume 1, Data Editing. This consists of the first 14 chapters of the v5e Quantum Users
Manual, plus a new chapter on data-mapped variables and a chapter named Running Quantum
under Unix and DOS, which has been adapted from chapter 34 of the v5e Users Manual.

Volume 2, Basic Tables. This consists of chapters 15 to 24 of the v5e Quantum Users Manual
plus chapter 26 and appendices A, B and G .

Volume 3, Advanced Tables. This consists of chapters 25, 27 to 32, 37 and 38 of the v5e
Quantum Users Manual plus appendix G.

Volume 4, Administrative Functions. This consists of chapters 33, 36, 39 and 40 of the v5e
Quantum Users Manual plus appendices A, B, C, D, E and F. It also includes the chapters that
were removed from the Quantum Users Manual at the time of v5f.1 release to create the
Quanvert Database Administration Manual.

The documentation is provided on the CD-ROM in both Acrobat and PostScript formats.
However, please note that Quantum version 5.7 is the last version that will provide the
documentation in PostScript format. Future versions of Quantum will provide the
documentation in Acrobat format only.

The following table provides users of the v5e Quantum Users Manual with a cross reference
between the chapters in the v5e Quantum Users Manual and those in the new four-volume guide.
Quantum Users Manual version 5e

Quantum Users Guide version 5.7

Chapter 1, Introduction

Volume 1, Chapter 1

Chapter 2, Your Quantum program

Volume 1, Chapter 2

Chapter 3, Writing in the Quantum language

Volume 1, Chapter 3

Chapter 4, Basic elements

Volume 1, Chapter 4

Chapter 5, Expressions

Volume1, Chapter 5

Chapter 6, How Quantum reads data

Volume 1, Chapter 6

Chapter 7, Writing out data

Volume 1, Chapter 7

Chapter 8, Changing the contents of a variable

Volume 1, Chapter 8

Chapter 9, Flow control

Volume 1, Chapter 9

Chapter 10, Examining records

Volume 1, Chapter 10
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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

Page 12

Quantum Users Manual version 5e

Quantum Users Guide version 5.7

Chapter 11, Data validation

Volume 1, Chapter 11

Chapter 12, Data correction

Volume 1, Chapter 12

Chapter 13, Using subroutines in the edit

Volume 1, Chapter 13

Chapter 14, Creating new variables

Volume 1, Chapter 14

Chapter 15, Introduction to the tabulation section

Volume 2, Chapter 1

Chapter 16, The Hierarchy of the tabulation section

Volume 2, Chapter 2

Chapter 17, Introduction to axes

Volume 2, Chapter 3

Chapter 18, More about axes

Volume 2, Chapter 4

Chapter 19, Statistical functions and totals

Volume 2, Chapter 5

Chapter 20, Using axes as columns

Volume 2, Chapter 6

Chapter 21, Creating tables

Volume 2, Chapter 7

Chapter 22, Table texts

Volume 2, Chapter 8

Chapter 23, Filtering groups of tables

Volume 2, Chapter 9

Chapter 24, A sample Quantum job

Volume 2, Chapter 11

Chapter 25, Weighting

Volume 3, Chapter 1

Chapter 26, Includes and substitution

Volume 2, Chapter 10

Chapter 27, Row and table manipulation

Volume 3, Chapter 2

Chapter 28, Dealing with hierarchical data

Volume 3, Chapter 3

Chapter 29, Descriptive statistics

Volume 3, Chapter 4

Chapter 30, Z, T and F tests

Volume 3, Chapter 5

Chapter 31, Other tabulation facilities

Volume 3, Chapter 6

Chapter 32, Special T statistics

Volume 3, Chapter 7

Chapter 33, Files used by Quantum

Volume 4, Chapter 1

Chapter 34, Quantum on Unix, DOS and VMS

Volume 1, Chapter 16

Chapter 35, Quantum on HP Spectrum machines

Redundant chapter

Chapter 36, Files created by Quantum

Volume 4, Chapter 2

Chapter 37, Creating a table of contents

Volume 3, Chapter 8

Chapter 38, Laser printed tables with PostScript

Volume 3, Chapter 9

Chapter 39, Quantum utilities

Volume 4, Chapter 3

Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

Quantum Users Manual version 5e

Quantum Users Guide version 5.7

Chapter 40, Data conversion programs

Volume 4, Chapter 4

Chapter 41, Preparing a study for Quanvert

Volume 4, Chapter 5 and 6

Chapter 42, Creating and maintaining Quanvert databases Volume 4, Chapter 7

Chapter 43, Transferring databases between machines

Volume 4, Chapter 8

Appendix A, Limits

Volume 2, Appendix A
Volume 4, Appendix A

Appendix B, Error messages

Volume 2, Appendix B
Volume 4, Appendix B

Appendix C, Quantum data format

Volume 4, Appendix C

Appendix D, Using extended ASCII character set

Volume 4, Appendix D

Appendix E, ASCII to punch code conversion table

Volume 4, Appendix E

Appendix F, Will this job run on my machine?

Volume 4, Appendix F

Appendix G, Options in the tabulation section

Volume 2, Appendix C
Volume 3, Appendix A

9 Quantum Reference Guide

The Quantum Reference Guide has now been discontinued.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

10 Problems solved
10.1 Problems existing in Quantum prior to version 5f.1

UK1697
An error was introduced into Quantum in version 5e.3 which sometimes caused incorrect tables
to be produced when the numcode keyword was used on an axis that contained a val statement.
This error has now been corrected.

UK1997
Quantum now checks the values of data-mapped variables correctly when they are used with
the .in. syntax. In addition, Quantum now issues an error message if you use a data-mapped
variable and a definelist in an .in. statement. Quantum cannot handle this syntax because it
needs to read the data in the definelist differently for data-mapped variables (as strings instead
of column punches) but does not know at the time the definelist is parsed whether it will be
used with a data-mapped variable.

UK3193
Previous versions of Quantum erroneously included a copyright statement in:

The files generated by Quantum that have the filename extension .c or .h.

The report files tab_, out1, out2, out3, sum_ and weightrp.

The copyright statement has simply been removed from the first group of files. In the second
group of files it has been replaced by a blank page so that the pagination of existing jobs will
not be changed. You can suppress the blank page in these files by setting the environment
variable QTNOPAGE.

UK3328
Quantum now gives a warning if you refer to an element of a variable array that has not been
declared. For example, when c1 has a value greater than 5 in:
int test 5s
ed
test(c1)=c2
end

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

UK3233
Redefining the standard c data variable array using an upper case C resulted in a fatal error in
previous versions of Quantum. This problem has now been solved by changing Quantum so
that it stores all names in lower case. This means that when you create a Quanvert database, all
the variable names will now be in lower case, even when they are based on Quantum numeric
variables that are defined using upper case letters. It also means that if you need to reference
an external function whose name includes upper case characters, you will need to define a
function in private.c using a name in lower case, to call the external function.

UK4821
Quantum now handles n23 headings correctly when they occur in axes and grids that are split
by a page break.

UK4924
If the minimum or maximum weights are different after applying preweights and postweights,
the weighting report file now shows both sets of values.

UK5121
An error in previous versions of Quantum sometimes caused it to core dump if a value was
assigned to a data-mapped variable that had not been defined in a data-mapping file. This error
has now been corrected.

UK5122
When Quantum compares the value of data-mapped variables with real values, it now does so
in single precision. Previous versions of Quantum used double precision, which sometimes led
to inconsistent results.

UK5137
The Newman-Keuls special T statistic test is now suppressed for groups of columns when any
of them has a base that is less than minbase.

UK5138
There was an error in the way Quantum handled the special responses $_dk$, $_ref$, $_null$,
and $_na$ in assignment statements using data-mapped variables and the logical OR operator.
These special responses are exclusive, which means that they cannot occur with any other
response. So when an assignment results in a combination of any of these exclusive codes and
one or more other responses, Quantum should remove the exclusive special responses from the
assignment. Unfortunately, previous versions of Quantum were not doing this correctly and
were actually doing the reverse removing the other responses and leaving the exclusive
special response. This error has now been corrected.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

Quantum has also been changed to give more consistent results. If an assignment results in
more than one exclusive special response and no other responses, Quantum will now remove
all but one of the exclusive special responses using a defined order of precedence. The order
of precedence is:
$_ref$
$_dk$
$_null$
$_na$

So, if an assignment results in $_null$ and $_dk$, Quantum removes the $_null$ response and
leaves the $_dk$.

UK5177
This error was introduced in Quantum version 5e.2. It affected column axes that had headings
that were defined using the hd= option and that were long enough to need wrapping onto
another line. The error caused the last character of some lines to be lost. This error has now
been corrected. All hd= headings in column axes will now be printed one character further to
the left than previously, regardless of whether the text is wrapped or not.

UK5216
This error was in the MS-DOS version of the SPSS MR Utilities program, ftnise, which you use
to convert a text file from ASCII format to ANSI format. In ASCII text, you can superimpose one
line on another by ending the first line with a carriage return character ( CTRL+M).
Unfortunately ftnise was not handling this correctly, and was instead appending the second line
to the first. This error has now been corrected.

10.2 Problems introduced in Quantum version 5f.1 or 5f.2

UK3166
Conditions that use the special data-mapping response texts $_(unique_ID)$, $_null$ and
$_ref$ now select the correct records. This error was corrected in Quantum version 5f.2.

CI3170
Quantum now accepts alias statements that begin with the # character. This means that you can
incorporate #include statements in an alias. However, you cannot use the *include syntax in an
alias, because the asterisk is the alias substitution character.

UK3176
Quantum no longer erroneously issues syntax error 33 when you place an include file that uses
column substitution immediately after the ed statement.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

UK3208
The SPSS MR utility mtwrite now works correctly on MS-DOS.

UK3216
Quantum no longer issues a syntax error when it encounters an indented #include statement.

UK3230
Quantum can now handle an alias immediately after an #include statement in an axis. In
previous versions of Quantum this resulted in syntax error 33.

UK3232
An error was introduced into Quantum in version 5f.1 that sometimes resulted in syntax
error 33 or incorrect figures in tables when you put two #include statements in an axis, one
immediately following the other. The error occurred when the last element of the first include
file was an n01 statement and the two include files used the same column substitution letter.
This error was corrected in Quantum version 5f.2.

UK3242
Quantum can now handle blank substitution statements in #def statements. This syntax caused
an error in Quantum version 5f.1.

UK3247
Quantum can now handle an include file that follows immediately after a #def statement. When
Quantum version 5f.1 encountered this syntax, it issued error 45, Cannot find specified file.

UK3262
The SPSS MR utilities mtread, mtwrite, rcolbin, and wcolbin now work correctly.

UK3302
A change was introduced in Quantum version 5f.1 so that you are warned when you used
numeric data from one level at a higher or lower level. Quantum warned you with the message:
Cannot add desc entry for incx(108,115)

Unfortunately an error was introduced into Quantum at the same time that occasionally
resulted in incorrect figures appearing in subsequent tables that contained numeric data. This
error has now been corrected and the warning message has been changed to:
Same inc= at two different levels

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

For further information about the warning message, see Numerics with levels in Chapter 3
of the Quantum Users Guide Volume 3.

UK3329
An error was introduced into Quantum in version 5f.1 that affected multiple statements that
followed long if conditions. When an if condition exceeded about 176 characters, Quantum
ignored the second and subsequent statements that followed the if statement. This error has
now been corrected.

UK3347
Real (decimal) data-mapped variables no longer return incorrect values. Previously Quantum
treated them as integers, which resulted in values that were too high by a factor of 1000.

UK3349
Quantum can now handle axis and table specifications that use numeric data-mapped variables
that have not been referenced in the edit section.

UK3351
An error in previous versions of Quantum meant that it was not possible to run Quantum with
the -td option on a multi-lingual specification. This problem has now been fixed.

CI3353
An error was introduced in Quantum version 5f.1 that resulted in incorrect line numbers being
issued in the error log when there were #include statements in the specification. This error has
now been fixed.

UK3354
Quantum no longer issues the error Incorrect statement type when it encounters #ed and #end
statements in an axis that is not tabulated.

UK3414
Quantum can now handle axtt statements in grid tables. For a grid table, the axtt statement
creates a title of the form axis name (grid).

UK3568
The qdiaxes program now handles extended ASCII characters correctly.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

UK4457
An error was introduced into Quantum in version 5f.1 that resulted in incorrect substitution of
text in multiple include files that used the same text substitution parameter name but different
substitution values. This error has now been corrected.

UK4493
This error was introduced into Quantum in version 5f.2 and caused Quantum to core dump
when you ran certain specifications that were generated from a Quancept qdi file using qdiaxes.
The problem only occurred when text in a qdi VARITER statement contained more than
48 characters and a unique ID. This problem has now been corrected.

CI4561
This error was introduced into Quantum in version 5f.2 and sometimes caused syntax error 33
to be issued incorrectly. The error occurred when #include statements were defined one after
the other and the second or a subsequent #include statement was defined with column
substitution, and this was used on the first line of the include file. This error has now been
corrected.

CI4571
Quantum can now handle comments in the alias.qt file that are defined using C in column 1.

UK4589
In version 5f.1, changes were made to the way inc= statements were handled. This sometimes
resulted in the limit for the number of characters in the names for inc= variables being
exceeded. To solve this problem, the default size of this limit has been increased from 8000 to
12000 characters. However, you may find some jobs that previously ran with the incheap=
parameter set manually in maxima.qt, may now require it to be set a little higher.

UK4606
Changes were introduced in Quantum version 5f.1 that resulted in problems with the limit to
the number of inc= statements you could use in a run. Although the default limit was set to 600,
sometimes the actual limit was lower. This was because the number of inc= statements allowed
is also controlled by the limit set for the number of named variables and sometimes that limit
was exceeded. Consequently, the default limit for named variables has been increased from
300 to 900. And when you increase the limit for inc= statements in the maxima.qt file,
Quantum now automatically increases the limit for named variables by an equivalent amount.
This should solve most instances of this problem. However you may find that some jobs that
contain inc= statements that previously ran successfully with, for example namevars=500 in
maxima.qt, may now require namevars= to be set higher.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

CI4608
Quantum can now handle #include statements in the alias.qt file.

CI4636
Quantum now handles multiple long ++ continuation lines in require statements correctly.

CI4642
Quantum now handles multiple long ++ continuation lines in report statements correctly.

UK4668
A problem relating to ++ continuation lines in wm statements has now been resolved.

UK4997
This error sometimes caused incorrect results when manipulating tables from different runs
under MS-DOS. This problem has now been corrected.

UK5041
Quantum can now handle text substitutions in a statement that uses an alias.

CI5068
This error resulted in errors when data mapped variables were defined using the or operator.
This error has now been corrected.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

11 Known limitations
Although this version corrects a number of problems in Quantum, a number of other problems are
known to remain. One of these can give rise to incorrect results without any warning and is
summarized here.

CI1744
This error occurs in axes that contain an n00 statement that uses column substitution and where
later in the axis there is one of the following that is filtered on the n00 statement:

The start or end of a group of net elements.

A weighted base and nsw is in force.

A mean in a weighted axis and nsw is in force.

If the column substitution has changed when Quantum processes this element, incorrect results
can result. However, if the column substitution has been cancelled, Quantum issues the
following message:
Error: (33) unanalyzable text in expression

UK5232
This error occurs when you request a T-test on column means in a table that contains n25
elements and more than one n19 or n20 element. The values in the table itself are correct,
however, Quantum calculates the T-statistic incorrectly for any mean that appears after the first
n19 or n20 element in the axis. In particular, the values for SUM(W2) and EFFBASE in the
tstat.dmp file for these means are incorrect and so you cannot rely on the results of the test.
You can get around the problem by inserting an n03 or n23 element before the first n19 or n20
in the axis. When you do this, Quantum calculates the T-statistic correctly.
This problem occurs when you request the test using the tstat mean option and when you
request it using the tstat propmean option.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

12 Clarification of features
The Quantum Users Guide has been thoroughly updated. Changes that were formally requested
through a Trax report are listed below.

UK1069
The previous version of the Quantum Users Manual failed to draw attention to the fact if you
create a variable with the s option, you still have to refer to the individual columns using
parentheses if the variables name contains a digit. For example, if you create a data variable
by writing:
data safe1 12 s

Quantum does not recognize safe112 as column 12 of the data. So you have to write:
safe1(12)

which defeats the purpose of using the s option.

UK1073
A note has been added to draw attention to the fact that increasing the C array using a data, int
or real statement does not cause Quantum to clear the extra cells between records. However,
when you increase the C array by using the max= option on the struct statement, Quantum
automatically clears the entire array between records.

UK1079
The Creating a table of contents chapter has been updated to reflect the fact that the newp,
section and index keywords were removed from Quantum in version 5d.1.

UK1182
Previous versions of the Quantum Users Manual did not make it clear that when Quantum
calculates the number of axes in a run, it counts a grid axis as two axes.

UK1191
A note has been added to the description of ident to explain that in ident statements you can
refer to a field of adjacent entries in a data variable array by specifying the first and last entries.
For example, you can specify c(1,12) to refer to columns 1 through 12 of the C array. However,
you cannot use this syntax for other types of variable arrays, such as integer arrays.

UK1333
The limit of 2000 weights per run has been removed from the Limits Appendix as this limit no
longer applies.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

UK1416
The previous version of the Quantum Users Manual said that you can use the letter u in a col
statement to mean exactly equal to, when in fact this is not true and you must use the = sign for
this purpose.

UK1627
The previous version of the Quantum Users Manual failed to mention that when you use hitch
or squeeze in a table specification which contains n09s to force page breaks, Quantum ignores
the n09 statements.

UK2253
The Special T statistics chapter in the Quantum Users Manual incorrectly stated that the tstat
nkl option could be placed on the l statement.

UK2256
The font= keyword is used for specifying the various fonts you require for your tables when
you print them in PostScript on a laser printer. We recommend that you do not use this keyword
when you do not want to print the tables in PostScript, because font= causes the font numbers
to be printed on the right side of the tab_ file.
If you have inadvertently used the font= keyword and want to remove the font numbers from
the tab_ file, simply remove the font= keyword from the a statement and run the program
again.

UK2258
The documentation of the paired preference test has been clarified. The identifiers have been
removed from the age axis in the example, as it was thought that they caused unnecessary
confusion. A note has also been inserted to explain that you need to put one stat ppt statement
into the axis for each pair of rows you are comparing.

UK2259
The limits built into Quantum for handling very large numbers have been clarified.

Quantum can deal with whole numbers in the range 1,073,741,824 to +1,073,741,823
with an accuracy of up to six significant figures. Numbers with more than six significant
figures are rounded up or down depending on the value of the remaining figures.

Quantum can print figures in tables with up to ten characters; figures that require more than
ten characters are printed as asterisks. For example, 12345678.12 appears as 12345678.1
when displayed with one decimal place, but as asterisks (*) when displayed with two
decimal places.

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

UK2268
The section on pcsort, sorting percentages, in the Other tabulation facilities chapter was not
indexed. This has now been corrected.

UK2531
The documentation of the numcode option has been clarified to make it clear that Quantum
considers an axis to be multicoded if the data on which it is based is multicoded, or if it contains
any net, ndi, nsw or n25 elements, or if it contains any n00 or n10 elements with conditions.

UK2878
The section on formulae in the Special T statistics chapter has been updated to reflect the fact
that Quantum no longer uses the qtab.qt lookup file when calculating special T statistics.

UK2901
The section on filtering groups of tables has been updated to make it clear that you cannot use
a flt statement within a nested filter section.

UK2960
Compiler error 337 was inadvertently introduced in Quantum version 5e.5 without
documentation. The following explanation has now been added to the Error Messages
Appendix:
337

Text string within $s contain too many characters

You have specified a text string with more than nine characters in a fld or bit statement. There
is a limit of nine characters.

UK3058
The explanation of how to create alpha variables for audio files recording verbatim open end
responses has been clarified.

UK3081 and UK3094

The explanation for compiler error 275 was incorrect in the previous version of the Users
Manual. This has now been corrected.
275

Too many values specified for one fld/bit

The specification of the element values in a fld or bit statement requires too many bit
arguments; for details, see Appendix A, Limits, in the Quantum Users Guide, Volume 4.
Change the specification so that it requires fewer bit arguments or put another fld statement
before the number that exceeds the limit.
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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

The following limit has been added to the limits in Appendix A:

499 bit arguments per fld statement. A single number, such as "Ten" or "Ten=10", requires
1 bit argument; a range of numbers on its own, such as "Five or Six=5-6", requires 3 bit
arguments; in a list of values, each value in the list requires 1 bit argument, and 2 bit
arguments are required to identify the list itself; if a list includes a range of numbers, the
range is expanded so each number in the range requires 1 bit argument, so "Any Washo
brand=1,3,7,10-12,14" requires 9 bit arguments.

UK3162
The previous version of the Quantum Users Manual correctly explained that the ntot option
can be used to exclude elements in an axis from the descriptive statistics. And it explained that
ntot does not exclude elements from the special T statistics. However the manual failed to
mention that Windows-based Quanvert only performs special T statistics on ntot columns if
id= is also specified on the element when it is defined in Quantum.

UK3219
The documentation of the namedalpha statement has now been corrected.

UK3265
The Limits section has been updated to reflect the current fetch file limits:

32 different fetch files per run.

50 characters in a fetch file pathname.

32767 maximum fetch file record length.

2 numbers on first line of fetch file, with a maximum of 3 digits in first number and 8 in
second number.

UK3376
The previous version of the Quantum Users Manual documented the pstab program that
converts tables to PostScript format for printing on a laser printer. However it failed to mention
that the -p option uses the Unix lpr command to queue the print job and so you cannot use the
-p option if the lpr command is not available on your system. The -p option is not available
when running Quantum under DOS.

UK3379
The Quantum Users Guide has been updated to warn you that the field and fld statements only
accept codes that are shorter than the field width if they are right-justified. Both statements
ignore codes which are shorter than the field width and which are right-padded with blanks or
zeros.
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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

UK3577
The limit that is built into Quantum for the number of columns per field on fld and bit
statements is 9. In practice, however, the limitations of the available resources on many
systems impose a lower limit.

UK4496
The documentation of process with levels has been altered to make it clear that process can
produce unreliable results with hierarchical data that has more than two levels. So when there
is information for more than two levels on the same card, it is preferable to recode the data so
that each level is on a separate card.

Sug CI2938
The Quantum Users Guide has been updated to make it clear that when setting up weight
matrices in hierarchical data, you generally need to create a weight matrix for each level of data
that is present. For example, in a survey that has three levels, hhold, person and trip:
wm1 waccom1;input;anlev=hhold;70;30
wm2 waccom2;input;anlev=person;70;30
wm3 waccom3;input;anlev=trip;70;30
tab accom region;anlev=hhold;wm=1
tab sex age;anlev=person;wm=2
tab mode destin;anlev=trip;wm=3
l waccom;anlev=hhold
col 106;House;Flat
l waccom2;anlev=person
col 106;House;Flat
l waccom3;anlev=trip
col 106;House;Flat

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

12.1 Clarification of some features of the special T statistics

Special T statistics in hierarchical data
All of the special T statistics that are available in Quantum are based on the assumption that the
samples being compared are independent of each other. However, in levels data, there is normally
a relationship between the lower levels and the higher levels, which means that cases at the lower
level are not independent of each other. For example, you would not expect the voting patterns of
the members of a household to be totally independent of each other, nor would you expect the
various journeys or shopping trips made by an individual to be unrelated to each other. These
relationships mean that the underlying assumptions for the special T statistics are almost never
satisfied when you run the tests on lower level data.
Because of the ease with which you can request these statistical tests in Quanvert, some clients
were concerned that some of their Quanvert users might run special T statistics on data at lower
levels and not realize that the results were statistically invalid. To resolve this issue, a change was
introduced in Quanvert version 1.6, so that by default in hierarchical databases you can only run
T statistics on tables that are run at the highest level. However, expert users can still run the tests
at lower levels if they first edit the stats.ini file by hand.
It was not considered necessary to make a similar change in Quantum, because a far greater level
of expertise and statistical understanding is assumed.

Requesting statistics in levels databases in Quanvert

The default stats.ini file that is supplied with Quanvert version 1.6 and later has the following line:
TopLevelOnly=True

In hierarchical databases, this only lets you run statistics on tables that are run at the highest level.
It prevents you running statistics on tables at any other level.
If you want to be able to run statistics in tables at any level of a hierarchical database, remove this
line from the stats.ini file.

Special T statistics and overlapping data

Do not confuse the non-independence of lower level data in hierarchical databases that is described
above with overlapping data. Overlapping data can occur in both hierarchical and non-hierarchical
data and is when one case is present in two or more columns. Overlapping data typically occurs
when the columns of a table represent elements of a multicoded axis. For example, when an axis
represents the following question and respondents were not limited in the number of responses they
could choose:

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Quantum Version 5.7 Release Notes

Which of the following brands did you buy?

Brand
Brand
Brand
Brand

A
B
C
D

Quantum can determine from the data whether it is overlapping or not and can use a special formula
to compensate for the fact that some cases appear in more than one column. However, Quantum
needs to know that the data is overlapping when it starts calculating the T statistic, but it cannot tell
this until it has processed all of the data. So you need to tell Quantum to use the special formula
and you do this by using the overlap keyword. If you place the keyword on the a statement,
Quantum uses the overlap formula for all T statistics calculations regardless of whether the data is
overlapping or not. However, when the data is not overlapping the compensation has a zero value
and does not change the results.
Quanvert is different because the flipping process organizes the data differently. As a result,
Quanvert can tell at the start of the T statistic calculation whether the data is overlapping. So
Quanvert always uses the overlap formula for T statistics when they are run on overlapping data,
regardless of whether the overlap keyword was specified when the database was created.
Unless you suppress it by using the nooverlapfoot keyword, both Quantum and Quanvert print a
special footnote when the overlap formula is used on overlapping data in calculating T statistics.
The text of the footnote is:
Overlap formulae used.

The basis on which Quantum makes the overlap adjustment is given by Kish in Survey Sampling.

Clarification of formulae
The formulae for the T-test on column means and the T-test on column proportions have been
clarified in the Quantum Users Guide. The formulae for the overlap adjustments are now shown
more clearly.

13 References

Kish, L. Survey Sampling. New York: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-48900-X.

Miller, R. G. Simultaneous Statistical Inference. 2nd Edition. New York: Springer-Verlag.

ISBN 0-387-90548-0

Snedecor, G. W. and Cochran, W. G. Statistical Methods. 7th Edition, Ames, Iowa: The Iowa
State University Press. ISBN-8138-1560-6

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