The Weight drop-down list contains a variable for weighted analysis. The Stratify by list contains a variable to act as a grouping variable. These options are not used in this example. Click OK. The results are displayed on the canvas. Additional choices for the means gadget are available in the Display option and include: Output columns to display–specifies the columns to include in the current analysis. Decimals to display–specifies the number of decimals that will be displayed in the results (possible values range from 0–4 and are set to 2 by default). This option does not apply to the descriptive statistics produced when a cross-tabulate variable is used. The descriptive statistics are always displayed to 4 decimal places. The Display ANOVA statistics checkbox specifies whether to display the analysis of variance statistics. This option is selected by default. If you are working with large data sets and the ANOVA statistics are not required, performance may be improved by turning off (un-checking) this feature. Figure 8.40: Means table The mean age of individuals in the dataset is 36.8. Analysis Gadget > Duplicates List The Duplicates List gadget in Visual Dashboard is used to list potentially duplicate records. In some situations, as with a patient registry for example, it is important each individual has only one record. The Duplicates List gadget allows you to select a few fields that should be unique, and a few other non-unique fields to display. When the gadget runs, it counts the number of occurrences of the key fields for duplicate checking. The gadget displays the message, “No records match the selection criteria” if all rows in the database are unique for the key fields. If any database rows have key fields that match another row, those matching rows are listed in the results. In the example below, assume a patient registry with a small population, where two individuals sharing the same last name and birthdate is very unlikely. The goal is to check the database to see if there are duplicate records based on the Date of Birth field [DOB] and the Last Name field [LastName]. If we find a match, we might also want to see the few other fields, such as CaseID, DateofInterview, and OnsetDate in order to conclude that individual is actually duplicated in the registry. Open the EColi.PRJ project and select the Food History form.
Set the Data Source to the Sample.prj project. From the Data Source Explorer menu, select Surveillance. Click OK. On the left-hand side of the Visual Dashboard canvas, move the mouse cursor over the Defined Variables gadget or click the Variables icon in the top left of the screen. The gadget expands and becomes fully visible. Click the New Variable button. Select With Formatted Value. The Add Formatted Value dialog box appears. Figure 8.82: Add Formatted Variable dialog box Select BirthDate from the Source field drop-down list. The Destination field automatically shows the source field with a suffix of “FORMATTED” (i.e. “BirthDate_FORMATTED”). Modify the name of the Destination field as desired. Select the long date from the Format type drop-down list. Using the current system date, a sample long date value appears in the Preview field. Click OK. A description of the assignment appears in the Variable Definitions textbox within the Defined Variables gadget. To see the BirthDate_FORMATTED variable in line list view, right click on the canvas and then select Add Analysis Gadget > Line List. Select BirthDate_FORMATTED from List of Variables to display and then click OK. Figure 8.83: Formatted Variable line list The Analysis Gadget > Line List view displays the new variable created via Formatted Value. Assigned Expression Assigned Expression assigns the result of an expression or the field value to a variable as demonstrated in the example below. In the following example, the zip code field is a number. To use the zip code in a map, a new zip code variable must be defined and assigned text values. Set the Data Source to the Sample.prj project. From the Data Source Explorer menu, select Surveillance. Click OK. On the left-hand side of the Visual Dashboard canvas, move the mouse cursor over the Defined Variables gadget or click the Variables icon in the top left of the screen. The gadget expands and becomes fully visible. Click the New Variable button. Select With Assigned Expression. The Add Variable with Expression dialog box appears.