SORITEC SAMPLER 						    Version 2.01









						 TM
			      The SORITEC SAMPLER

				 Version  2.01
			 Based on SORITEC Version 6.4.033

				 to  accompany
			    "Business  Forecasting"
		     by J. Holton Wilson and Barry Keating
		       (c) Richard D. Irwin, Inc.,  1990


				 Published by:
			    The Sorites Group, Inc.
				P. O.  Box 2939
			  Springfield, VA   22152 USA
			   Phone:      (703)569-1400
			   Telex/TWX:  (710)831-0339




				 March 1, 1990





The SORITEC SAMPLER is a subset of the SORITEC fourth-generation language for
econometric analysis.  SORITEC was selected by PC Magazine as its Editor's
Choice for econometrics (March 14, 1989).  It is the standard package for
econometric computation at the World Bank, OECD (Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development), and the British Treasury.

SORITEC is currently installed at over 700 sites worldwide, and SAMPLER is used
at thousands more.  The software and documentation is copyrighted, (c) 1990
Sorites Group, Inc., but permission is granted for non-commercial reproduction.











March 1, 1990							          Rev. 1









		     SAMPLER USER REGISTRATION FORM

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questions.  Before you got the SAMPLER, were you aware that SORITEC was:

     Selected as PC Magazine Editor's Choice for      ( ) Yes     ( ) No
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     Selected as the standard econometric software    ( ) Yes     ( ) No
	  at the World Bank?
     Selected as the standard econometric software    ( ) Yes     ( ) No
	  at the Organization for Economic Cooperation
	  and Development (OECD, Paris)?
     When you received the SAMPLER, was that the      ( ) Yes     ( ) No
	  first time you ever heard of SORITEC?

PLEASE DUPLICATE THE SORITEC SAMPLER AND PASS IT ON.   Your comments and
suggestions on SORITEC SAMPLER will be appreciated.

If you would  like us to  send  information to someone  you know, please
supply us with their name and complete mailing address on the reverse.

Complete and mail to:         The Sorites Group, Inc.
			      P.O. Box 2939
			      Springfield, VA  22152 USA



6.4.033

SORITEC



			       TABLE OF CONTENTS


SECTION (1)  PRIMER

	  Chapter 1 -- SORITEC SAMPLER for the New User

	     1.1  Introduction..........................  1
	     1.2  What is SORITEC?......................  1
	     1.3  Getting Started.......................  2
	     1.4  Hardware considerations...............  2
	     1.5  Invoking SORITEC .....................  3
	      1.5.1 Interactive Processing..............  3
	      1.5.2 Batch Processing....................  4
	     1.6  Executing SAC Files...................  5


	  Chapter 2 -- SORITEC Syntax

	     2.1  Introduction..........................  1
	     2.2  Variable Names........................  1
	     2.3  Special Symbols.......................  1
	     2.4  Variable Types........................  2
	     2.5  Selection of the Observation Set......  4
	     2.6  Transformations.......................  5
	     2.7  Revising Data in SORITEC..............  7
	     2.8  Missing Data Handling.................  9
	     2.9  Imputation of Missing Values.......... 10
	     2.10 Wildcards............................. 10
	     2.11 Recovering Internal SORITEC
		    Variables........................... 11
	     2.12 Flags................................. 12
	     2.13 SORITEC's Symbol Table................ 12
	     2.14 Minor Control Statements.............. 13


	  Chapter 3 -- Data Entry and Output

	     3.1  Introduction..........................  1
	     3.2  SORITEC Alternate Load (SAL) Files....  1
	      3.2.1 SAL File Input......................  2
	      3.2.2 SAL File Output.....................  2
	     3.3  Data Interchange Format (DIF) Files...  3
	      3.3.1 DIF File Input......................  3
	      3.3.2 DIF File Output.....................  4
	     3.4  Formatted Input and Output............  6
	      3.4.1 FORTRAN Formatted Input.............  6
	      3.4.2 FORTRAN Formatted Output............  7
	     3.5  Keyboard Entry........................  8
	     3.6  Output of Data to the Terminal........  8
	      3.6.1 Tabular Display.....................  8
	      3.6.2 Graphical Display...................  9
	     3.7  SORITEC Databanks..................... 10




February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC



	  Chapter 4 -- SORITEC Databank (SDB) Files

	     4.1  Introduction..........................  1
	     4.2  Create a Databank.....................  1
	     4.3  Access a Databank.....................  1
	     4.4  Access a Databank in Read-Only Mode...  2
	     4.5  Release a Databank from SORITEC.......  2
	     4.6  Delete a Databank.....................  2
	     4.7  Store Items in a Databank.............  2
	     4.8  Retrieve Items from a Databank........  3
	     4.9  Replace Items in a Databank...........  3
	     4.10 Rename Items in a Databank............  3
	     4.11 Switch the Names of Two Items
		     in a Databank......................  3
	     4.12 Discard Items from a Databank.........  4
	     4.13 Generate a Directory Listing
		     of a Databank......................  4


	  Chapter 5 -- Programming Constructs

	     5.1  Introduction..........................  1
	     5.2  Numeric Looping.......................  1
	     5.3  Unconditional Branching...............  2
	     5.4  Conditional Branching.................  2
	     5.5  Null (Continuation) Statement.........  3
	     5.6  Alpha Looping.........................  3


	  Chapter 6 -- Special Generation and Transformation Commands

	     6.1   Introduction.........................  1
	     6.2   Create a Time Trend Dummy Series.....  1
	     6.3   Create Seasonal Dummies..............  1
	     6.4   Recode a Variable....................  1
	     6.5   Conversion of Time-Series from
		      One Periodicity to Another........  2
	     6.6   Maximum Function.....................  3
	     6.7   Minimum Function.....................  4
	     6.8   Modular Division.....................  4
	     6.9   Compute Moving Average...............  4
	     6.10  Compute Moving Sum...................  5
	     6.11  Statistical Operations...............  5
	      6.10.1  Correlation Matrix Calculation....  5
	      6.10.2  Covariance Matrix Calculation.....  5
	      6.10.3  Other Statistical Operations......  5


	  Chapter 7 -- SORITEC Financial Functions

	     7.1  Financial Functions in SORITEC........  1
	     7.2  Internal Rate of Return...............  1
	     7.3  Present Value.........................  1
	     7.4  Loan Amortization.....................  2



2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC



	  Chapter 8 -- Cross-Section Techniques

	     8.1  Introduction..........................  1
	     8.2  Synopsis..............................  1
	     8.3  Crosstabulation Analysis..............  2
	     8.4  Frequency Analysis....................  2


	  Chapter 9 -- Estimation and Forecasting

	     9.1  Introduction..........................  1
	     9.2  Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)
		     Estimation.........................  1
	     9.3  Autocorrelation Techniques for the
		     Single Equation Model..............  2
	      9.3.1 Cochrane-Orcutt Iterative Technique.  2
	      9.3.2 Hildreth-Lu Scanning Technique......  2
	     9.4  Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS)
		     Estimation.........................  3
	     9.5  Forecasting Single Equation Models....  3


	  Chapter 10 -- SORITEC Interactive Print Server

	     10.1  Introduction.........................  1
	     10.2  Entering Interactive Mode............  1
	     10.3  Tableau Descriptions.................  1
	      10.3.1  Coefficient Display (E)...........  2
	      10.3.2  Regression Summary Table (G)......  2
	      10.3.3  Regression ANOVA Table (A)........  2
	      10.3.4  Beta Coefficients, Elasticities
		      and Partial R (B).................  2
	      10.3.5  Correlation Matrix of
		      Coefficient Estimates (C).........  2
	      10.3.6  PDF and Histogram of
		      Standardized Residuals (H)........  2
	      10.3.7  Convergence Path for
		      Autocorrelated Estimators (M).....  3
	      10.3.8  Non-Parametric Residual
		      Distribution Tests (N)............  3
	      10.3.9  Actual vs Fitted Plot and
		      Standardized Residuals (P)........  3
	      10.3.10 Residual Autocorrelation
		      Summary (R).......................  3
	      10.3.11 Statistical Summary of
		      Exogenous Variables (S)...........  3
	      10.3.12 Covariance Matrix of
		      Coefficient Estimates (V).........  3
	      10.3.13 Exogenous Variables List..........  3
	     10.4  Interactive Crosstabs................  3


	  Chapter 11 -- Simulation




February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC



	     11.1  Introduction.........................  1
	     11.2  Defining the Equations of Your Model.  1
	     11.3  Combining the Equations into a
		   Superformula.........................  1
	     11.4  Simulating a Model Using the Gauss-
		   Seidel Algorithm.....................  2
	     11.5  Putting Add Factors into Equations...  3
	     11.6  Comparing Scenarios..................  3


	  Chapter 12 -- Forecasting with Time Series Techniques

	     12.1  Introduction.........................  1
	     12.2  Identification of a Time Series Model  1
	     12.3  Estimation and Forecasting of
		   Time Series Models...................  2


	  Chapter 13 -- Forecasting with Smoothing Techniques

	     13.1  Introduction.........................  1
	     13.2  Moving Average of a Time Series......  1
	     13.3  Exponential Smoothing................  1


SECTION (2)  Survey articles from the SORITEC Reference Manual

		This section contains:

		FLAGS(2)	       : Global Option Settings
		RECOVER(2)             : Recoverable Results

		These articles contain more information about the
		operation of certain commands than the Primer does.
		However, some information is relevant only to the
		full SORITEC language.





















4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC



SECTION (3)  Command summaries from the SORITEC Reference Manual

		This section contains:

		BUILD(3)	: Build a SORITEC Simulation Model
		COMPUTE(3)      : Transformations of Time Series Data
		FORECAST(3)     : Basic Forecasting Command
		MARMA(3)	: Rational Distributed Lag Estimation
		REVISE(3)       : Revision and Splicing of Data
		SMOOTH(3)       : Exponential Smoothing
		SUPERF(3)       : Superformula Construction
					(Gauss-Seidel Method)

		These articles contain more information about the
		operation of certain commands than the Primer does.
		However, some information is relevant only to the
		full SORITEC language.

SECTIONS (4) through (7) from the SORITEC Reference Manual
	     are not relevant to the use of the SAMPLER

SECTION (8)  Index and references from the SORITEC Reference Manual

		This section contains:

		INDEX(8)	: Index































February 1, 1990						               5




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 1 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 1 -- SORITEC SAMPLER for the New User

1.1  Introduction

The SORITEC SAMPLER is a freely reproducible subset of the SORITEC  system.   It
makes  high-quality,  tested, reliable econometric computation readily available
to students, and to organizations that need to expose large numbers of  analysts
to  econometric  methods,  without  the  expense associated with the purchase of
commercial software.  The SAMPLER fulfills the needs of many analysts at low  or
no  cost,  and provides an upgrade path to a more extensive and powerful system,
the SORITEC language.

SORITEC is a fourth-generation language for econometric analysis,  developed  by
the  Sorites  Group,  Inc.  (SGI) of Springfield, Virginia, USA.  SORITEC is now
supported   on   about   thirty   different   mainframes,   minicomputers    and
microcomputers.  SORITEC jobs are portable; all versions of SORITEC use the same
reference manual.  The system's command syntax is identical on all machines.

The first mainframe release of SORITEC was  in  December,  1978,  on  CDC  Cyber
equipment.  Until 1981, SORITEC was only available on time-sharing networks.  In
1981, mainframe and minicomputer in-house copy leasing was begun.

In the spring of 1984, the first version of SORITEC for the IBM PC was released.
Unlike  most  econometric packages for microcomputers, the PC version of SORITEC
has the full functionality of the mainframe system.  In early  1985,  a  reduced
version  of the system, the SORITEC SAMPLER, was released as a freely duplicable
package for the IBM PC only.

This Primer is intended to serve both as an introduction to SORITEC, and as  the
main  documentation  for  the SORITEC SAMPLER.  Accordingly, only those commands
common to both SORITEC and the SORITEC SAMPLER are discussed in  this  document.
Section  2 of the SORITEC Reference Manual contains more in-depth discussions of
the topics covered here, and also describes the full SORITEC command set.

SAMPLER users, please note:  Many software companies provide only a  demo  disk,
which can handle only a few records, or does not allow you to save your work, or
cannot write to hard disk, or is deliberately crippled in some other way.   They
are  determined  not to provide any real value to you for free.  If you like the
SAMPLER, and want to insure that it will be continued and improved over time, we
ask  that you make at least three copies and send them to (preferably far-flung)
colleagues.  This is one of our  main  advertising  vehicles.   You  defeat  the
purpose and diminish our incentive if you don't "pass it on".

1.2  What is SORITEC?

SORITEC is a sophisticated econometric modeling and forecasting system that  can
be  used  to  estimate,  solve  or  simulate  a  broad  range of econometric and
statistical models.   The  program  supports  econometric  time-series  analysis
within an easy-to-use command language syntax.

SORITEC can support models with hundreds of equations,  either  linear  or  non-
linear,  in  either  a  static  or  dynamic framework.  Models can be specified,
built, rearranged, manipulated by name, or kept on a databank.  Once a model  is
constructed, it can be simulated by a single command.  SORITEC provides a report



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 1 (1)



writer capable of providing detailed and complex reports with minimal effort and
training.   SORITEC  is  also  a  complete data processing language that permits
varied and complex data reduction operations.

The SAMPLER  supports  a  very  large  subset  of  the  SORITEC  commands.   Its
databanking facilities are upward-compatible with the full SORITEC language.  If
you decide some day to move up to the full SORITEC product, as we hope that  you
will,  all  the  work  you have done on SAMPLER will transfer with absolutely no
conversion effort.

In this document, when we refer to "SORITEC", you may generally assume that  the
statement applies to both the full product and to the SORITEC SAMPLER, unless we
say otherwise.

1.3  Getting Started

Because SORITEC is available on such a variety of machines, there is no standard
installation  procedure  applicable  to all environments.  Before you start, you
should be familiar with the computer and operating system where you plan to  use
the  SORITEC  system.   If you are going to work on a mainframe or minicomputer,
consult your system manager and find out about any local variations.  If you are
using  the full SORITEC product, you will find any machine-dependent information
in Section 7 of the SORITEC Reference Manual.

If you are installing SORITEC, you will have  received  a  set  of  Installation
Notes  that  will  give  you  precise instructions about what to do.  If you are
installing SAMPLER, there  is  a  README  file  on  the  documentation  diskette
(diskette #3) that gives all the necessary installation information.


1.4  Hardware considerations

SORITEC does not  require  any  particular  hardware  configuration  or  special
equipment.   However,  since  SORITEC  tasks  usually  involve  great amounts of
floating point arithmetic, it is  highly  recommended,  for  all  systems  where
floating-point  processors  (FPPs  are known as "math co-processors" on PCs) are
optional, that they be used.  Many UNIX workstations support  FPPs  only  as  an
add-on  option.  If you use an FPP, SORITEC will run much faster.  Minicomputers
and mainframes almost invariably have FPPs as part of their basic configuration,
so the question does not arise.

PC versions of SORITEC and SORITEC SAMPLER require a hard disk and 512K of  RAM.
640K  of RAM is strongly recommended for the full SORITEC system.  An FPP (i.e.,
"math co-processor") is not required for operation of either SORITEC or  SORITEC
SAMPLER on IBM PC-compatible machines, although it is highly recommended.

Any other system requirements for proper operation of the full SORITEC system on
other  types  of  computers  can  be  found  in the machine-specific articles in
Section 7 of the SORITEC Reference Manual.








2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 1 (1)



1.5  Invoking SORITEC

SORITEC is both an interactive and batch processor.  However, before  describing
how each mode is invoked, it is important to distinguish SORITEC interactive and
batch processing modes from the foreground and background processing modes  that
are typically associated with these terms.  When SORITEC is in interactive mode,
the program takes each line of input and processes it as  it  is  received.   In
batch processing mode, on the other hand, SORITEC accepts input lines until they
are logically concluded with  an  END  statement.   At  that  point,  batch  job
execution begins.  Note that SORITEC interactive and batch modes can run in both
foreground and background processing environments.

Batch job processing in SORITEC has certain characteristics that sometimes  make
it  more convenient to use than interactive mode.  First, it compiles a complete
listing of the commands of a job and outputs it  without  line  prompts  to  the
output  device before execution begins.  The command lines are thereby separated
from the output for more presentable reports.   Second,  batch  processing  mode
provides for the labeling of the job and the insertion of titles into the output
listing.  Batch processing mode is often useful when output is too  wide  to  be
displayed  legibly  on the terminal.  Through redirection and respecification of
the output width, output that would otherwise be difficult to read on a terminal
can  be routed to other output devices, such as line printers.  Although most of
these features can be replicated in  interactive  mode,  it  is  generally  more
convenient as a batch job.

1.5.1  Interactive Processing

On the initial banner page, SORITEC prints version information, date  and  time,
default  settings for input (SCAN) and output (WIDTH) device size, and workspace
size.

SORITEC will open an input journal file on the current directory.  Its name will
depend upon the installation type.  Please consult your system manager.

SAMPLER users running from floppy diskettes must take special care  not  to  run
the  SAMPLER  from the A: drive, because SAMPLER will attempt to write a journal
file on the A: diskette, which may fail due to write-protection of the diskette.
Even  when  a  non-protected  copy  of  the  SAMPLER  is  used,  it is generally
undesirable to have anything written on the program diskettes in the A: drive.

The journal file stores all commands that are entered during a session  so  that
you  can  archive  the  command  sequence for future use.  The file can later be
executed as a SAC file.  Journal files can be edited and re-executed to  produce
a "final draft" of a particular statistical or estimation problem.

Depending upon your machine,  any  journal  file  that  exists  on  the  current
directory  may  be  automatically erased when a new journal file is written.  Be
sure to rename any journal files you wish to keep.  If you wish to  execute  the
journal  file  as a command file, then you must change the filename extension to
".sac".

SORITEC prompts you  for  input  after  printing  the  banner  and  the  message
indicating the name of the journal file.  Prompts in SORITEC are of the form 1--
,2-- ,3-- and so on.  When you see the first prompt, 1--, interactive processing



February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 1 (1)



mode has been selected by default, and you  may  begin  entering  commands.   In
general, SORITEC allows you to enter any legal command at any time.  There is no
particular order in which tasks must be done.

Interactive processing is terminated by entering the command:

	QUIT

The QUIT command closes and returns any files that are  currently  attached  and
returns  control  to  the  operating  system.   All  items  in the workspace are
discarded when the QUIT command is executed.

1.5.2  Batch Processing

SORITEC batch job processing is initiated by the JOB command.  The  JOB  command
allows for a label of up to 120 characters.  Its format is as follows:

	JOB [job_label]

The JOB command supplies a label for the entire batch run.  As  such,  only  one
JOB command may appear in any single job deck.

Batch processing is terminated by the END command, which has no arguments, i.e.:

	END

At the end of a JOB, the END command causes SORITEC  to  return  and  close  any
databanks  or  other files which are attached.  The workspace is discarded after
the END statement is processed.

Besides being used to indicate the end of a batch job, the END command  is  used
to  terminate  SORITEC  SAL  files, and to close procedures, DOT loops, and some
types of DO loops.  SORITEC keeps track of END statements when  compiling  batch
job  statements  and  takes  an  END statement to indicate the end of a job only
after END commands have  been  processed  to  close  each  DO  loop,  DOT  loop,
procedure,  etc.   Descriptions of these other commands that use the END command
are provided later in this documentation.

A label of up to 120 characters can be specified using the TITLE  command.   The
format of the command is as follows:

	TITLE [label]

The label will appear on the third line of each output page.   A  TITLE  command
with no argument causes the third line of succeeding pages to be blank.

As many TITLE commands as needed can be placed in a job.  They are  executed  as
they  are  encountered  in  the  job stream and label all succeeding pages until
another TITLE command is executed.








4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 1 (1)



1.6  Executing SAC Files

SORITEC accepts input both from the terminal and from SORITEC Alternate  Command
files  (SAC  files).  The EXECUTE command causes SORITEC to read commands from a
SAC file, execute them, and then return control to the terminal.

A SAC file is simply a file that contains legal SORITEC  commands.   It  may  be
structured  as a batch job for SORITEC's batch processing facility or may simply
be a set of commands as you would enter them from the terminal.  For SORITEC  to
recognize  it  as  a  SAC file, the filename must have the appropriate file type
extension.  This extension  varies  from  machine  to  machine.   On  most  UNIX
systems,  and  on  IBM  PCs, the extension used is '.sac'.  If you are using any
other systems then please consult Section 7 to determine the extension  used  on
your hardware.

When you execute a SAC file, your current directory is searched for a file  with
the  file name specified and the SAC file extension required by the computer you
are using.   You  can  construct  a  SAC  file  using  a  text  editor,  or  any
commercially available word processor.

Be sure, when constructing a SAC file, that the editor or  word  processor  used
writes  out your SAC file as an ASCII file, or an ordinary text file.  Many word
processors have two modes of operation.  One mode is an internal mode, which  is
designed  only  to  be  read back into the word processor.  The other mode is an
external mode, which is designed to write a file  that  can  be  used  by  other
applications.   In general, the internal mode may contain formatting information
that is not recognized by SORITEC,  and  may  provoke  SORITEC  error  messages.
Also,  internal  mode files often contain garbage after the end of the file that
the word processor knows not to use, but which will interfere  with  the  proper
functioning  of  SORITEC  and  other applications software.  If you have trouble
using files in SORITEC which have been created with a word processor, try adding
a blank line at the end of the file.

SORITEC will execute command files at any point  in  an  interactive  processing
session.  Command file processing is started by an EXECUTE command, i.e.:

	EXECUTE 'filename'

where "filename" is the name of the command file you wish to have executed.  You
should  always  put  file names in single quotes, although in many cases this is
not absolutely required.  Do not enter the file extension with the  filename  on
the EXECUTE command line.  In other words, this is legal:

	EXECUTE 'myfile'

but this is not:

	EXECUTE 'myfile.sac'

If the SAC file exists on a drive or directory other than the  current  one,  it
must   be   referenced  within  single  quotations.   For  example,  on  a  UNIX
workstation:

	EXECUTE '/io4way/sorites/electric'



February 1, 1990						               5




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 1 (1)



would execute commands from the file /io4way/sorites/electric.sac.  On  the  IBM
PC, the following command forms might be used:

	EXECUTE 'd:filename'
	  -or-
	EXECUTE '\path\filename'

Command file output is always displayed on  the  terminal  unless  it  has  been
redirected to another output device.
















































6								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 2 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 2 -- SORITEC Syntax

2.1  Introduction

SORITEC syntax has been constructed to make the entire package easy to learn and
use.  Before considering the command structure, we need to examine the form of a
SORITEC variable name.

The most important fact to keep in mind when you are using SORITEC is  that  the
language  is  oriented toward handling time series of numbers rather than toward
handling individual data points.  In FORTRAN or BASIC, the  statement  X=Y  sets
the  value  of  a  variable  X to the single numerical value currently stored in
variable Y.  In SORITEC, X=Y replaces the entire time series  X  with  the  time
series Y.  In SORITEC, variables having single, or "scalar", values are more the
exception than the rule.

2.2  Variable Names

SORITEC variable names are composed of the letters A-Z, the numbers 0-9, and the
symbols  @,  %,  ^,  _, and :.  The name MUST begin with a letter and must be no
more than 32 characters (or symbols) long.  Mathematical operators  may  not  be
used in variable names.

SORITEC allows you to indicate leading or lagging of variables by specifying the
lag  in brackets following the name of the time series.  For example, GNP{1} and
GNP{-1} are the first lead and lag values  of  GNP.   In  commands  that  expect
multiple  arguments,  SORITEC will accept ranged values of leads and lags, e.g.,
GNP{2 TO -3} is automatically expanded to  GNP{2}  GNP{1}  GNP  GNP{-1}  GNP{-2}
GNP{-3}.   Note  that  positive  signing  of  lead  arguments  is  not  allowed.
Arguments for leads, lags or ranges thereof may be integer constants or  SORITEC
variables.

Previously, parentheses were used to indicate leads or lags, and they may  still
be  used  to do so.  From now on, though, the brackets will be the preferred way
to write leads and lags.  This change is  being  made  because  there  are  some
ambiguities  between  function  references  and  lead/lag  references that arise
because both have, in the past, been  indicated  using  parentheses.   (However,
parentheses will always remain an acceptable way to indicate leads and lags.)

2.3  Special Symbols

SORITEC defines several special symbols to provide a  simplifying  shorthand  in
using  the  package.  The semi-colon [;], exclamation mark [!], comma [,], equal
sign [=], plus sign [+], minus sign [-], asterisk [*], slash  [/],  period  [.],
left  angle-bracket  [<],  right  angle-bracket [>], left parenthesis [(], right
parenthesis [)], question mark [?],  ampersand  [&],  and  ellipsis  [...]  have
special meaning in SORITEC.

A semi-colon is used to delimit commands when several are stacked  on  a  single
line, e.g.,

	USE 1984M1 1984M6 ; PRINT GNP

An exclamation mark in column 1 is used to add comments within a SORITEC command



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 2 (1)



sequence.  The exclamation mark functions as a comment identifier only if placed
in column 1.

A comma is used only as an argument separator and  is  interpreted  as  a  blank
everywhere  except  in  a  format  statement  and  within  parentheses or square
brackets (to separate arguments or subscripts).

The symbols +  - *  /  .  <  >  and = are used for mathematical operations.

The left and right parentheses, ( and ), are reserved  for  designating  command
modifiers,  arguments,  and  subscripts.   They  can  also  be  used as the less
preferred way of indicating lead and lag operations on time series.

The left and right curly brackets, { and }, are reserved to  indicate  lead  and
lag operations on time series.

The asterisk, *,  and  question  mark,  ?,  are  used  as  wildcard  references,
described later in this chapter.

Lastly, the ampersand, &, and ellipsis, ..., indicate that the  current  command
continues onto the next line.

2.4  Variable Types

There are many  types  of  variables  in  the  SORITEC  language.   Time  series
variables  are  the  default  data  type  in SORITEC.  This means that, unless a
statement contains some indication to the contrary, a reference  to  variable  X
implicitly references the time series X.  Variable assignment implicitly assumes
the variable is a time series unless you state otherwise, or there is some other
indication to the contrary.  (For instance, if you used a matrix function in the
statement, then SORITEC would assume instead that  matrices,  rather  than  time
series, are being manipulated.) So, if X has not been previously defined as some
other data type, a simple statement  such  as  X=2  creates  a  time  series  of
numbers, all of which are equal to 2, NOT a single value.

The next most common data types are parameters and constants.  Both are scalars,
i.e.  they have one value, not a series of values changing over time.  Parameter
values can be changed  by  the  nonlinear  estimation  commands,  but  constants
cannot.

Parameters and constants are created by the  PARAMETER  and  CONSTANT  commands.
For  example,  the  following  commands would create parameters ALPHA, BETA, and
GAMMA, and a constant LAMBDA.  ALPHA and GAMMA would be given values of 1.0  and
0.5, respectively, while BETA and LAMBDA would be given a value of zero.

	PARAMETER ALPHA 1.0 BETA GAMMA 0.5
	CONSTANT LAMBDA

Constants and parameters can be set or reset using any  standard  transformation
by prefixing the transformation with the SET command, for example:

	CONSTANT A .5 B .3
	SET A = A**0.5 * LOG(B)




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Although you may find few uses for parameters that cannot be  equally  satisfied
with  constants,  it  is recommended that you always use parameters in equations
for  "estimated"  coefficients,  i.e.  ones  that  have  either  been  estimated
elsewhere,  or  which  may  need to estimated in the future when you expand your
model.

SORITEC also defines vector and matrix data types.  These types are  created  by
using  the  VECTOR or MATRIX commands, respectively.  For example, the following
command would create a vector V with values 2, 4, and 6:

	VECTOR V 2 4 6

SORITEC keeps track of the length of the vector when it is created.   Individual
elements  of  a vector can be manipulated like scalar values in SORITEC commands
using subscript notation.  For example:

	SET S = V(1) + V(3)

would result in the value of the scalar S to 8.

SORITEC also allows you to name and  manipulate  formulas  as  a  separate  data
construct  using the EQUATION command.  For example, the following command would
define an equation EQ_Y whose formula was Y=ALPHA+BETA*X

	EQUATION EQ_Y Y = ALPHA + BETA*X

Formulas are structured much as they are in FORTRAN, and in most other  computer
languages.  There are rules as to which operations in a complex formula get done
first, and so forth, and these will be discussed later in this chapter,  in  the
section on "Transformations".

Equations can be stored in databases and can be computed by  name,  once  values
have been assigned to their constants, parameters and variables. Use the COMPUTE
command to recompute values for the left-hand side variables.  For example:

	USE 1 7
	SERIES B 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	EQUATION MOVING A = B + .25*B{-1} + .5*B{-2} + .25*B{-3}
	USE 4 7
	COMPUTE MOVING
	EQUATION SIMPLE G = H - J
	CONSTANT H 17 J 63
	SET SIMPLE
	PRINT A G

Constant G = -46.00000

			A
		 ................
     4  	 .    6.00000
     5  	 .    8.00000
     6  	 .    10.0000
     7  	 .    12.0000




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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 2 (1)



The primary uses of equations in SORITEC are for  forecasting,  simulation,  and
non-linear estimation.

The group data type allows you to define one name as the set  of  several  other
names.   It  is  very  useful  in  repetitive commands (see the DOT command, for
instance), and for avoiding re-typing of names which are commonly used together.

A group is defined by the GROUP command.  For  example,  to  create  a  group  G
consisting of X, Y, and Z, the following command would be used:

	GROUP G X Y Z

To then use the group, group expansion must first be enabled via  the  ON  GROUP
command.   The  group  name will then be replaced by the individual names in the
group, wherever the group name occurs.  This avoids the need to  type  the  same
set  of  names repeatedly.  For example, the following commands greatly simplify
testing the inclusion of variables in a regression equation.

	GROUP BASIC_VARIABLES GNP M1 TAXES GOV_EXP PRIME
	ON GROUP
	REGRESS DEFICIT BASIC_VARIABLES PARTY
	REGRESS DEFICIT BASIC_VARIABLES TIME
		... etc

You can also refer to individual elements within a GROUP by the  number  of  its
position  in the group.  For example, you could refer to "BASIC_VARIABLES(2)" in
place of M1 in the example given above.  Referring to individual group  elements
by index number is particularly useful in DO loops.

2.5  Selection of the Observation Set

Periodicity and length of data series are defined by the USE command in SORITEC.
The  USE  period  defined  by  this  command is active in all subsequent SORITEC
commands until explicitly changed by another USE.   For  example  the  following
command would specify a period that begins in 1980 and continues through 1989:

	USE 1980 1989

Data need not be continuous over the range  of  observations,  but  instead  may
consist  of a series of intervals.  For example, the following command specifies
a USE period that runs from the first quarter of 1982 through the second quarter
of  1983, from the fourth quarter of 1983 through the third quarter of 1985, and
from the fourth quarter of 1986 through the fourth quarter of 1989:

	USE 1982Q1 1983Q2 1983Q4 1985Q3 1986Q4 1989Q4

USE requires zero, one or an even number of  arguments  which  may  be  positive
integers,  constants,  parameters or a vector.  Each pair of arguments defines a
range of observations within the overall observation range.  The second argument
of  each  pair must not be less than the first.  If no arguments are included in
the command line, SORITEC returns the currently active USE period.  If only  one
argument  is  included  in  the  command line, the USE period is set to that one
period.




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SORITEC allows you to define annual, semi-annual, quarterly, monthly,  ten  day,
weekly,   daily,   business   daily  (Monday-Friday)  and  undated  data  types.
Periodicity of time-series data is defined by appending an appropriate suffix to
the data year, as shown below:

	PERIODICITY         SUFFIX		RANGE(x)
	-----------         ------		--------
	Annual  	     none		  ---
	Semi-annual           Sx		 [1,2]
	Quarterly             Qx		 [1,4]
	Monthly 	      Mx		 [1,12]
	Ten Day 	      Tx		 [1,37]
	Weekly  	      Wx		 [1,52]
	Daily		      Dx		 [1,366] or [0101,1231]
	Business Daily        Bx		 [1,366] or [0101,1231]
	Undated 	     none		  ---

The permissible range of years for dated data types (other than annual) is  from
1801  through 2099.  Note that Ten Day data consists of first and second ten-day
periods of the month, and a remaining period of 8 to 11 days.  Weekly data  span
Sunday  through Saturday.  SORITEC will convert data series from one periodicity
to another, but certain restrictions apply.  Data  conversion  is  discussed  in
CONVERT(3) of the SORITEC Reference Manual.

The following are examples of USE commands:

	USE 1980Q1 1984Q4
	USE 1942M12 1955M6

Note that the command USE 1980 is equivalent to USE 1980 1980.

SORITEC permits conditional selection of the sample period based  on  a  logical
variable.  For example,

	USEIF Z

resets the USE period to select only the observations corresponding to  non-zero
entries  of  Z.   For  example,  to  select  all individuals with income between
$12,000 and $24,500, the following commands could be used:

	NEW_SAMPLE = INCOME > 12000 & INCOME < 24500
	USEIF NEW_SAMPLE


2.6  Transformations

The COMPUTE command is the basic SORITEC transformation  command.   The  command
line consists of the COMPUTE command name followed by either an EQUATION name or
any legal SORITEC transformation expression.  For example:

	EQUATION EQ1 Y = X/Z
	COMPUTE EQ1
	COMPUTE C = A + B




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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 2 (1)



In either case, the COMPUTE command name may be omitted:

	EQ1
	C = A + B

Transformations are  straightforward  in  SORITEC  since  syntax  considerations
conform to standard algebraic notation.  Here are the legal SORITEC operators:

       ARITHMETIC OPERATORS       LOGICAL OPERATORS
       --------------------       ---------------------------------------
       +    addition		  .eq.  	       equal
       -    subtraction 	  .ne.  or <> or ><    not-equal
       *    multiplication        .ge.  or >= or =>    greater-or-equal
       /    division		  .le.  or <= or =<    less-than-or-equal
       **   exponentiation        .gt.  or >           greater-than
				  .lt.  or <           less-than
				  .not. or ~           negation
				  .and. or &           conjunction
				  .or.  or |           alternation

The transformations common to both SORITEC and SAMPLER include the following:

	LOG      Natural Logarithm
	LOG10    Logarithm Base 10
	EXP      Exponentiate (Base e)
	ABS      Absolute Value
	CEILING  Next Largest Integer
	FLOOR    Next Smallest Integer
	ROUND    Round to Nearest Integer
	SIGN     Extract Sign (+1,0,-1)
	SQRT     Square Root
	TRUNC    Truncate Fractional Part
	SIN      Sine
	ASIN     Arcsine
	COS      Cosine
	ACOS     Arccosine
	TAN      Tangent
	ATAN     Arctangent
	SINH     Hyperbolic Sine
	ASINH    Hyperbolic Arcsine
	COSH     Hyperbolic Cosine
	ACOSH    Hyperbolic Arccosine
	TANH     Hyperbolic Tangent
	ATANH    Hyperbolic Arctangent

Arguments associated with these functions must be enclosed in parentheses.

Use of operators in  SORITEC  transformations  must  conform  to  the  following
conventions:

	(1) Two operators (+, -, .and.,  .or.,  etc.)  cannot  occur  in
	sequence unless separated by one or more left parentheses.

	(2) The number of left and right parentheses must be equal.



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	(3) The  mathematical  operators  *,  /,  and  **  cannot  occur
	immediately after a left parenthesis.

	(4)  An  operator  cannot  occur  immediately  before  a   right
	parenthesis.

Transformations  are  parsed  according  to  standard  programming  conventions.
Therefore,  subformulae  in  parentheses  are  evaluated  first, followed by all
function evaluations, then all "**" operations, then all "*" and "/" operations,
and  lastly  all  "+" and "-" operations.  Logical operators are evaluated after
parentheses  and  mathematical  operators.   Within  this  group,   mathematical
comparisons (.eq., .ne.  or <> or ><, .ge. or >=  or =>, .le.  or <= or =<, .gt.
or >, .lt.  or < ) are evaluated first, followed by  logical  negation  (.not.),
and  lastly  by .and. and .or.. When in doubt about the order of evaluation, use
parentheses to avoid errors.

Note that you can combine  mathematical  and  logical  operations  in  a  single
transformation.   This  allows  complex  conditional  structures  to be imbedded
directly into equations and  expressions  in  a  highly  flexible  manner.   For
example,  the  expression  log(x)*(b.gt.1)+x*(b.le.1)  is  legal in SORITEC. The
logical portion of the expansion is merely evaluated to 1 or 0 and then used  in
the computation.


2.7  Revising Data in SORITEC

Data series may be extended or  revised  easily  in  SORITEC  using  the  REVISE
command  and  the USE command.  The format of the command is the same as that of
the COMPUTE command, except that "REVISE" replaces "COMPUTE".

A data item being revised must have been previously  defined  in  SORITEC.   The
command cannot be used to initialize a variable.

REVISE updates a variable by temporarily deactivating values  for  the  variable
that  lie outside the range of the currently active USE period.  In other words,
to update a data  series  you  must  first  define  with  the  USE  command  the
observations of the series that you wish to revise before changing the data with
the REVISE command.  For example,  revision  of  the  third  observation  of  an
undated  series  OLD_DATA,  defined  below,  requires  the following commands to
generate the series on the right:

							 OLD_DATA
						      ................
	SERIES OLD_DATA 1 2 3 4 5		      .
	USE 3					1     .   1.00000
	REVISE OLD_DATA=3.5			2     .   2.00000
	USE 1 5 				3     .   3.50000
	PRINT OLD_DATA  			4     .   4.00000
						5     .   5.00000

Since any legal transformation is permitted as an argument, the right hand  side
of  the  equation  can  be  a  constant,  time-series  or  other  valid  SORITEC
expression.  Revision of the third  and  fourth  observations  of  the  original
OLD_DATA,  for example, requires the following commands to produce the output on



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 2 (1)



the right:

							  OLD_DATA
	USE 3 4 				      ................
	SERIES NEW_DATA 4 5			      .
	REVISE OLD_DATA = NEW_DATA - 1.5	1     .    1.00000
	USE 1 5 				2     .    2.00000
	PRINT OLD_DATA  			3     .    2.50000
						4     .    3.50000
						5     .    5.00000

Extending a data series by one or more observations simply  requires  redefining
the USE period to the period you wish to update and revising the data as before.
For example, the output on the right is produced by the following commands:

							  OLD_DATA
	USE 6 6 				      ................
	REVISE OLD_DATA = 6			      .
	USE 1 6 				1     .    1.00000
	PRINT OLD_DATA  			2     .    2.00000
						3     .    3.00000
						4     .    4.00000
						5     .    5.00000
						6     .    6.00000

A similar procedure is used when splicing two series together.  For example, the
command  sequence  on  the left splices observations 6 through 10 of NEW_DATA to
the original five observations of OLD_DATA:

							  OLD_DATA
	USE 6 10				      ................
	SERIES OLD_DATA 6 7 8 9 10		      .
	REVISE OLD_DATA = OLD_DATA		1     .    1.00000
	USE 1 10				2     .    2.00000
	PRINT OLD_DATA  			3     .    3.00000
						4     .    4.00000
						5     .    5.00000
						6     .    6.00000
						7     .    7.00000
						8     .    8.00000
						9     .    9.00000
					       10     .    10.0000

Data revision can also be automatically  implemented  through  the  COMPUTE  and
SERIES commands by enabling the ON REVISE global option.  Values for data in the
currently active USE period are overwritten when these  commands  are  executed,
but  values  outside the USE period are retained, until an OFF REVISE command is
encountered.









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2.8  Missing Data Handling

In general, SORITEC does not do casewise or any other type of deletion  when  it
encounters  missing  data.   An  exception  to  this  rule  occurs in the cross-
sectional procedures.  Here, categorical techniques  treat  missing  data  as  a
separate   category   while  the  command  SYNOPSIS,  non-parametric  and  other
statistical techniques ignore missing values.

Several methods for handling missing data are available:

	(1) SORITEC generates a value MISSING  in  transformations  that
	involve missing data, except when missing data are multiplied by
	zero.  Here, a zero value for the transformation results.

	(2) The PUNCH command generates  the  word  "MISSING"  for  each
	missing value.

	(3) The READ command recognizes the words "MISSING" and "NA"  in
	input data.

	(4) The MISSING command assigns a missing  value  to  a  SORITEC
	constant.

	(5) The LEGAL function scans a data item for missing values.

SORITEC constants can be assigned missing values with the MISSING command.   For
example:

	MISSING constant_name

The argument "constant_name" is defined to be a SORITEC constant with the  value
MISSING  assigned.   Only  one  argument  is  permitted  in  the  command  line.
Regardless of its prior type, the argument is  always  redefined  as  a  SORITEC
constant.   MISSING  cannot  assign  a missing value to any other variable type.
You can, however, assign missing values to other variable types using the REVISE
command, as the following example shows.

	The commands:		      yield:

	USE 1 3 			 SERIES
	SERIES SERIES 1 2 3           .............
	USE 3			  1   .    1.00000
	MISSING X		  2   .    2.00000
	REVISE SERIES=X 	  3   .    MISSING
	USE 1 3
	PRINT SERIES

The LEGAL function returns the value 1 if a data item is not  MISSING  and  zero
otherwise.  This enables easy conversion of MISSING values to another value.








February 1, 1990						               9




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 2 (1)



2.9  Imputation of Missing Values

SORITEC provides four options for replacing missing values.  Missing values  may
be  substituted  by  zero,  the series mean, the interpolated value or the trend
forecast.  The option is set globally by the IMPUTE command, i.e.,

	IMPUTE [ZERO|MEAN|INTER|TREND|NONE]

Normal missing value processing is resumed when the  NONE  option  is  executed.
Entering  the  command  IMPUTE with no arguments returns the option currently in
effect.  The details of each option are as follows:

To substitute zero for each missing observation:

	IMPUTE ZERO

To replace each observation with the mean of the series during the  current  use
period:

	IMPUTE MEAN

To interpolate the range between the last two known non-missing values over  the
missing observations:

	IMPUTE INTER

To fill in missing values with the simple trend forecast for the series over the
current use period:

	IMPUTE TREND

To stop implicit imputation of missing values:

	IMPUTE NONE


2.10  Wildcards

SORITEC recognizes  the  "*"  and  "?"  symbols  as  wildcard  characters.   The
wildcarding  scheme  is a simple way to reduce the time spent typing and viewing
output (e.g. from the SYMBOLS command, described later in this chapter).

The rules for wildcard construction are simple.  An asterisk represents zero  or
more   alphanumeric  characters  and  a  question  mark  represents  any  single
character.  Commands that permit wildcards match all the names in the  workspace
against the wildcard pattern and expand the command line appropriately.

The following examples demonstrate wildcard processing in SORITEC.  Assume  that
the  workspace  contains  the  variables  X, XY, XXY, BBYB, BB, ABXYZ, and ABXY.
Then:







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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 2 (1)



	THESE WILDCARDS:     WOULD REFERENCE THESE ITEMS:

	*		     X, XY, XXY, BBYB, BB, ABXYZ, ABXY
	?		     X
	B*		     BBYB, BB
	*B*		     BBYB, BB, ABXYZ, ABXY
	?B??		     BBYB, ABXY

2.11  Recovering Internal SORITEC Variables

The RECOVER command allows you to access and manipulate secondary results  which
have been generated and stored under internal names by SORITEC commands.  Either
one or two arguments are associated with the command, which has the syntax:

	RECOVER [name] internal_name

The "internal_name" is an internal name which identifies which secondary  result
to  RECOVER  from  SORITEC for later use.  Legal names of secondary results that
can be recovered are given  in  RECOVER(2).   The  first  argument,  "name",  is
optional  and  is  a  name  assigned  to  the  recovered  item.  If omitted, the
recovered name is identical to the internal name.

In addition to the RECOVER command, SORITEC allows  you  to  directly  reference
internal  names  by  prefixing  an caret (^) to the variable name.  For example,
either of the  following  commands  would  recover  the  fitted  values  of  the
dependent variable and copy them into the variable FITTED_VALUES:

	RECOVER FITTED_VALUES YFIT
	FITTED_VALUES = ^YFIT

SORITEC internal names can be  referenced  directly  in  most  situations.   For
example,  parameters  and  time-series  variables that are internal names can be
reassigned with  the  SET  command  and  can  be  referenced  in  transformation
operations.   Equations,  matrices,  vectors  and GROUPS can also be referenced.
However, reassignment still requires the use of the RECOVER  command.   Internal
names  cannot  be  saved  to  a  databank  without  being  reassigned to another
variable.

SORITEC will not  confuse  its  own  internal  names  with  variables  or  other
identically-named  data  items  in your program.  The type of the first argument
(variable, vector, constant, or other SORITEC  form  of  data  organization)  is
automatically defined or redefined to the type required by the second argument.

Secondary results need not be recovered immediately.  All  such  results  remain
available  until a command is executed which stores other results under the same
internal name.  In that event, the prior results held under that  internal  name
are lost.

Note that the raw forecasting equation, ^RAWEQ, is retained only if the ON RAWEQ
command has been issued.







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2.12  Flags

Several global "flags" are available to control the amount of printing, depth of
analysis,  etc.   These  options  are  enabled  and  disabled  by the ON and OFF
commands.  For example, the command ON PLOT will  cause  residual  plots  to  be
produced  when  an  equation is estimated.  A complete list of available options
with current settings will be displayed by SORITEC if an ON command  is  entered
with  no arguments.  Global options in SORITEC, with their default settings, are
described in FLAGS(2).

After every ON or OFF command which changes  an  option,  an  internal  variable
called  ^FLAGS is stored as a vector.  ^FLAGS contains information on the global
options which are in effect immediately after the ON or OFF command is executed.
It  can  be  RECOVERed,  retained  in  SORITEC's  workspace or stored in SORITEC
databanks, and can later be used to restore global options to settings that were
in effect when they were recovered.

Global options are restored with the FLAGS command, which has the format:

	FLAGS flag_vector

The argument "flag_vector" is the name of the  vector  to  which  the  recovered
SORITEC internal variable ^FLAGS has been written.

Flag vectors must not be changed in any way, or unpredictable results may occur.
The  FLAGS  command  exists  solely  to restore previous global option settings.
Furthermore, the ordering and number of the global options is subject to  change
in  future  releases so flag vectors stored on SORITEC databanks may not restore
the options desired if retrieved by a later release of SORITEC.

2.13  SORITEC'S Symbol Table

Any time during an interactive or batch session  you  can  determine  what  item
names are currently active in SORITEC's workspace by examining the symbol table.
SORITEC's symbol table is listed on the output device when the following command
is entered:

	SYMBOLS ([ALL] [FULL]) [filter]

The symbol table lists each item's name, item type, and length.   Including  the
optional  modifier  "ALL" prints all currently active internal names in addition
to user-defined items.  Including the modifier "FULL" displays the full  details
of the items listed.  The optional filter consists of a string of characters and
wildcards.  Only those items that match the filter are printed.  If  the  filter
is omitted then SYMBOLS prints all items.

Items can be removed from SORITEC's symbol table by invoking the FORGET command,
which is of the form:

	FORGET item...

Each item is a currently active item in SORITEC's workspace, as identified  from
the  symbol  table.   FORGET  accepts  wildcards so that selected items from the
symbol table can be removed.  For example,



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 2 (1)



	FORGET AB*

removes all items that begin with the characters "AB"  from  the  symbol  table.
All  items from the symbol table are removed by entering the wildcard symbol "*"
in place of item names, i.e.,

	FORGET *

Note that FORGET operates only on the workspace.  It has no effect on databanks.

2.14  Minor Control Statements

Several commands alter default settings other than those identified with  global
options (ON/OFF) or pass information to SORITEC for use in output listings.

The width of output from SORITEC can be adjusted using the WIDTH command, i.e.,

	WIDTH number

The argument, "number", must be a numeric value between 50 and  150.   Arguments
outside  this  range  will generate an error message, leaving the previous WIDTH
definition intact.  The default value for interactive usage is 80 characters; in
batch mode, the default value is 132 characters.

The length of the input line that SORITEC can accept may be changed by the  SCAN
command, which has the format:

	SCAN number

The argument,  "number",  must  be  a  numeric  quantity  between  50  and  150.
Arguments  outside  this range will cause an error message and the existing SCAN
will remain in effect.  The default value for  scan  in  interactive  and  batch
modes is 80 characters.

The maximum error limit can be reset in SORITEC batch jobs to alter  the  number
of  NONFATAL  and  SERIOUS  errors  a  job can commit before the batch processor
abandons compilation and execution.  The syntax of the command is:

	MAXERR number

where "number" is a numeric quantity that defines  the  new  error  limit.   The
default setting for MAXERR is 25.

Listings of batch job commands are turned on or off by the  ONLIST  and  OFFLIST
commands, respectively.  The default setting is ONLIST.












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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 3 -- Data Entry and Output

3.1  Introduction

Data may be transferred to or from SORITEC in several formats: SORITEC Alternate
Load (SAL) files, DIF files, FORTRAN formatted files, and SORITEC Database Files
(SDB).  In addition, data can be  entered  directly  into  SORITEC  through  the
keyboard.   Data may be displayed at the terminal in either tabular or graphical
format.  This section describes the available data input and output options  and
provides examples and detailed descriptions of the syntax.

The most common mistakes that users make with data entry are (a)  forgetting  to
specify  the directory in which the data file resides, (b) alternately, move the
data file into the current working directory, (c) forgetting to add the  correct
file  extension  to  the  file when it is created with an editor, or (d) using a
file extension when specifying the file within SORITEC.  SORITEC always  appends
the  appropriate  file  extension  to  the  file name.  You must not specify the
extension in SORITEC file manipulation commands.  If you try to read a SAL  file
with  "READ('myfile.sal')", SORITEC will look for the file "myfile.sal.sal".  On
the other hand, "READ('myfile')" will not  execute  if  you  have  forgotten  to
append  a  .SAL  extension  to  the name of the stored DOS file that you want to
read.

3.2  SORITEC Alternate Load (SAL) Files

SAL files are the easiest way to import large  amounts  of  data  into  SORITEC.
They  are also a convenient means of exporting data, particularly if you want to
move data to SORITEC on another computer.  SAL files are essentially  free-field
ASCII  files.   If  you  already  have data in a tabular format, you can quickly
create a SAL file by editing the table  with  any  standard  text  editor,  word
processor, or spreadsheet program.

An example demonstrates the structure of a SORITEC SAL file.  We wish to  import
the following data into SORITEC:

	YEAR     GNP      TAXES    PRIME
	----    ------    -----    -----
	1970    1423.5    455.6    10.75
	1971    1564.2    678.3     9.76
	1972    1688.9    778.4    13.45

We could create the following file, naming it "macro.sal" (names  of  SAL  files
must end with a ".sal" extension):














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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



	USE 1970 1972
	READ GNP TAXES
	1423.5 455.6
	1564.2 678.3
	1688.9 778.4
	;
	READ PRIME
	10.75 9.76 13.45
	;
	END

SAL files can contain any number of data  series.   Furthermore,  data  sections
(sections  of  a  SAL  file  delimited  by  an  END statement) can be stacked as
necessary and imported using multiple reads (or exported using multiple  writes)
in  SORITEC.   More  than  one variable can be read with a single READ.  The USE
period can be changed as often as necessary to conform to the data.

3.2.1  SAL File Input

SAL files are imported into SORITEC using the READ command.  To  read  the  file
"macro.sal" we could use the following command:

	READ('macro')

As the USE period and all variable names are already predefined in the SAL file,
no  further  information is needed.  If referenced simply as above, the SAL file
must exist in the current directory.  If the SAL  file  exists  on  a  drive  or
directory other than the current one, the explicit file name (without extension)
must be referenced within single quotes.  For MS/DOS systems, one would use:

	READ('A:MACRO')
	or
	READ('\DATA\MACRO')

if macro.sal resided in the root of a floppy in the A: drive or in the directory
\DATA.

A READ command imports  data  from  a  SAL  file  until  it  encounters  an  END
statement.   A  later  READ  of  the  same  file would then begin importing data
following this delimiter until the next END statement is reached, and so on.  No
section of a SAL file can be re-read, since the file is sequentially organized.

3.2.2  SAL File Output

Data may be exported from SORITEC in SAL file format using  the  PUNCH  command.
The format of the PUNCH command is:

	PUNCH (['filename'] [ALL]) series...

If the modifier ALL is omitted then only the observations  in  the  current  USE
period  are  written  to  the  SAL  file.   If the modifier ALL is used then all
observations are written.  SORITEC appends the extension ".sal" to the  filename
when  the file is opened.  If you omit the filename, then SORITEC will assign an
arbitrary name.  If a SAL file already exists that has the same name as the  one



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



you are creating, then SORITEC will over-write the existing file  with  the  new
one.   Note that SAL files remain open until a QUIT command is issued to end the
session.  Multiple PUNCH commands to the same file  will  therefore  append  the
data  to the referenced SAL file.  An END delimiter is appended to the file when
it is closed.

3.3  Data Interchange Format (DIF) Files

The Data Interchange Format (DIF) file format has emerged as a de-facto standard
for exchanging data between popular PC packages (such as LOTUS 1-2-3, DBASE III,
SUPERCALC, and various stand-alone graphics  packages),  and  between  PC's  and
mainframes or minicomputers.  SORITEC supports DIF file input and output.

3.3.1  DIF File Input

SORITEC imports DIF files through the READDIF command.  There are two  forms  of
the  READDIF  command.   If variable names are in the DIF file (in this example,
"filename.dif"), then the command is simply:

	READDIF('filename')

If variable names are not in the DIF file, the command line is:

	READDIF('filename') series...

SORITEC supports subdirectory addressing within the filename reference.  If  the
DIF  file  exists on a drive or directory other than the current one, it must be
referenced within single quotes.  Again, using an MS/DOS example:

	READDIF('d:filename') [series...]
	or
	READDIF('\path\filename') [series...]

READDIF does not read dates in DIF files so an appropriate USE period must be in
effect before the command is executed.

READDIF expects to find ONLY time-series  data  in  the  input  DIF  file.   Any
spreadsheet  cells  that do not contain legal numbers are interpreted as missing
values by SORITEC. As a consequence, SORITEC-generated DIF  files  that  contain
data  other  than  time-series  and  that  are  later  read  by SORITEC will NOT
generally produce useful results.

There are two ways that data can be organized in LOTUS to pass  it  to  SORITEC:
with  and  without  labels.   In either case, the data are interpreted under the
currently active USE period in SORITEC.

If certain rules are followed, the USE interval for the data being read  in  can
be  derived from a DIF file's contents.  If an entire column or an entire row of
the spreadsheet being translated to DIF format contains legal SORITEC dates,  in
text  mode,  then  SORITEC  will  recognize  them  as  dates, and align the data
accordingly.  Note that for undated or annual data, if  the  dates  are  entered
into  the spreadsheet as numeric quantities, then they will not be recognized by
READDIF as dates.




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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



If the columns are to be labeled, the names must appear in the first  row  being
translated  to DIF.  If the rows are to be labeled, the names must appear in the
first column being translated to DIF.  For example, if the  following  worksheet
is written to "national.dif" using the LOTUS translate function:

		  A        B        C        D
	+------------------------------------
	1 |     GNP    TAXES    PRIME
	2 |  1423.5    455.6    10.75
	3 |  1564.2    678.3     9.76
	4 |  1688.9    778.4    13.45

then "national.dif" can be read into SORITEC using the following commands:

	USE 1970 1972
	READDIF('national')

READDIF can read variable names up to 32 characters in length.

If the columns are not labeled then correct variable names must be specified  in
the READDIF command.  In the following example, READDIF assumes that the desired
variables are stored in column order.  If column D were not empty  and  the  USE
specified  four  observations,  then the data would be interpreted in row order.
The following table written from LOTUS to the file "national.dif":

		  A        B        C        D
	  +------------------------------------
	1 |  1423.5    455.6    10.75
	2 |  1564.2    678.3     9.76
	3 |  1688.9    778.4    13.45

can be read into SORITEC with the commands:

	USE 1970 1972
	READDIF('national')GNP TAXES PRIME

with the same results as in the previous example.

Input data outside the current USE interval are ignored.  If  insufficient  data
exist  to  satisfy the current USE period, the remaining observations are set to
"MISSING".  READDIF tries to do something reasonable with any input DIF file  by
first  considering  the  current  USE  interval,  then  examining  the  DIF file
contents.  One should spot check READDIF input results to ensure that  the  rows
and columns are interpreted as intended.

3.3.2  DIF File Output

DIF files may be exported from SORITEC using the WRITEDIF command.  This command
has the format:

	WRITEDIF[('filename')] argument...

where the arguments  may  be  time-series,  parameters,  constants,  vectors  or
matrices.   Variable  names  in  the  argument  list  can  be  no longer than 10



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



characters.   Longer  names  are  truncated.   SORITEC  creates  a  file  called
"filename.dif"  which  can  be translated into a LOTUS worksheet using the LOTUS
Translate utility.  If the filename is omitted, SORITEC assigns a name.  You can
redirect  DIF file output to a file on another drive or directory other than the
current one using the same conventions as the READDIF command.

Note that the following rules apply:

	(1) Only observations active under the current USE  command  are
	written to the file.

	(2) WRITEDIF re-orders its arguments (if required) so  that  all
	SERIES  are  written  first,  followed  by  CONSTANT  items, and
	lastly, VECTOR items.

	(3) PARAMETERS are output as CONSTANTS.

	(4) MATRICES are output as VECTORS with M * N elements.

	(5) SORITEC missing values are output as "NA".

Most of these considerations are demonstrated by the following example:

	USE 1984Q1 1984Q3
	SERIES GNP 1423.5 1564.2 1688.9
	SERIES TAXES 455.6 678.3 778.4
	SERIES PRIME 10.75 9.76 13.45
	SET CONST=35.
	CONSTANT CONST2 223
	PARAMETER C3
	VECTOR VVV 1 2 3
	VECTOR V2 4 3 2 1
	USE 1984Q2 1984Q4
	WRITEDIF('adiffile') V2 VVV C3 CONST2 CONST &
	GNP TAXES PRIME

The file adiffile.dif is created and results in the following spreadsheet  after
being read into LOTUS 1-2-3:

		  A        B        C        D         E	F
	+--------------------------------------------------------
	1 |    TIME      GNP    TAXES    PRIME
	2 |  1984Q2   1564.2    678.3     9.76
	3 |  1984Q3   1688.9    778.4    13.45
	4 |  1984Q4       NA       NA       NA
	5 |CONSTANT       C3        0
	6 |CONSTANT   CONST2      223
	7 |CONSTANT    CONST       35
	8 |  VECTOR      VVV        1        2        3
	9 |  VECTOR       V2        4        3        2 	1







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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



3.4  Formatted Input and Output

SORITEC supports formatted input and output  of  data  and  text.   The  command
syntax  for  formatted I/O is similar to FORTRAN formatted I/O.  In other words,
the read or write statement refers to a FORMAT statement  number  that  contains
the format for the input or output.

The FORMAT command has a statement number, the command name FORMAT, and a  legal
format specification enclosed in parentheses, i.e.,

	statement_number FORMAT (format_specification)

The statement_number is always a positive integer between 1 and 9999.   It  must
be  unique within any given session or batch job.  In other words, once a FORMAT
is entered and identified by a statement number, no other command can  have  the
same  command number during that session.  Allowable "format_specifications" are
identical to those permitted in FORTRAN programs.  Consult any FORTRAN reference
manual for details on FORMAT statements.

3.4.1  FORTRAN Formatted Input

Although free-format SAL files are the preferred way to import data to SORITEC ,
there  may  be occasions when data are structured so that it is necessary to use
an explicit format statement.   Standard  FORTRAN-style  format  statements  are
used.   SORITEC  can  read  formatted  data directly from the terminal or from a
file.  The syntax for reading formatted data is:

	READ(['filename'] [statement_number]) series...

Here, the "statement_number" refers to a previously  defined  format  statement.
The  optional  data  file  identified  by  "filename"  must  have  a ".sal" file
extension.  If the filename is omitted, SORITEC reads the data from the  current
input  device,  i.e.  the  terminal  or  a  SAC  file if a command file is being
executed.  If the format statement number is omitted, data  are  assumed  to  be
free-formatted.

Input file redirection is supported by the READ statement so that you can read a
formatted  file  from  a  drive or directory other than the current one if it is
referenced within single quotes.  In MS/DOS:

	READ('d:filename' statement_number) series...
	or
	READ('\path\filename' statement_number) series...

Unlike SAL files, formatted files cannot be read by  multiple  READ  statements;
all  data  from the file must be imported at one time.  Normally, formatted READ
commands expect data to be organized  in  columns.   However,  if  the  STREAMIO
option  is  enabled  by  the ON STREAMIO command, data can be read by rows.  For
example, to read the text file macro1.sal, including the headers, given below:








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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



	KEY MACROECONOMIC INDICATORS

		      1970    1971    1972
	GNP         1423.5  1564.2  1688.9
	TAXES        455.6   678.3   778.4
	PRIME RATE   10.75    9.76   13.45;

the following command sequence would be required:

	ON STREAMIO
	USE 1970 1972
	101 FORMAT(///10X,3F8.1)
	READ('macro1' 101) GNP
	102 FORMAT(10X,3F8.2)
	READ('macro1' 102) TAXES
	READ('macro1' 102) PRIME

In order to read a formatted file, you must use a FORMAT statement and refer  to
the FORMAT statement number in the READ statement.  You must explicitly list the
variables to be read in the READ statement.  The USE period must be set  in  the
main  program  before the READ command is executed.  The file must be terminated
with a semi-colon.

3.4.2  FORTRAN Formatted Output

Data and text may be printed in a prespecified  format  by  the  WRITE  command.
FORTRAN  formatted output can be directed to either the terminal or a file.  The
general format for the formatted write command is:

	WRITE(['filename'] [statement_number]) var...

The statement number refers to a previously defined FORMAT  statement.   If  the
optional "filename" is included, SORITEC writes the data according to the format
statement  associated  with  "statement_number"  to   the   file   filename.lst.
Otherwise,  the data are written to the terminal or the current output device if
DOS redirection has been invoked.  If the statement number is omitted, data  are
printed  in  a  list format similar to the format used to PRINT variables at the
terminal, e.g.,

		    VAR_A
	      ................
	      .
	1     .    1.00000
	2     .    2.00000
	3     .    2.50000
	4     .    3.50000
	5     .    5.00000

Variables in the variable list may be time-series, constants or parameters.

When time-series or vectors are encountered in the variable list, SORITEC writes
all  active observations to the terminal before writing the next variable in the
list.  Placing parentheses around time series variables in  the  variable  list,
however,  will  direct  SORITEC  to  print one value from each variable in turn,



February 1, 1990						               7




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



allowing you to print time series in columns.

For example, the commands:

	USE 1973Q1 1973Q3
	102 FORMAT(15X,'  GNP    CONSUMPTION  INVESTMENT'/(10X,3F11.1))
	WRITE(102) (GNP CONSUMP INVEST)

produce the following output:

	GNP    CONSUMPTION  INVESTMENT
	475.7      301.4       71.0
	468.3      306.2       70.1
	487.7      312.8       82.3

Constants and parameters cannot be included in parentheses.

3.5  Keyboard Entry

Data may be entered directly from the keyboard using the SERIES  command,  which
has the format:

	SERIES variable_name value_list

where  "value_list"  is  the  set   of   values   assigned   to   the   variable
"variable_name".  For example,

	SERIES VAR_A 1 4 2 5 7 8

creates a new series VAR_A with the six specified values.

When there is no USE command in effect, a SERIES command counts the data  items,
stores  them  as  undated  data and defines an appropriate USE interval which is
assumed in later commands or until the USE period is redefined.   If  there  are
too  many  or  too few observations entered for the current USE period, an error
message is generated unless the ON RAGGED option is enabled.  The option command
ON  RAGGED  permits  entry, through SERIES, of data series that are shorter than
the current USE interval without generating  an  error.   Unaccounted  data  are
assigned  MISSING  values  when  this condition is encountered.  SERIES will not
accept data series longer than the current USE period under  any  circumstances.
SERIES is commonly used to enter data series that consist of few observations or
to extend current series.

3.6  Output of Data to the Terminal

Data may be output to the terminal or printer  in  both  tabular  and  graphical
form.

3.6.1  Tabular Display

The simplest data display is produced by the PRINT command.  Any series, vector,
constant, parameter, equation or group can be displayed as follows:

	PRINT argument...



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



Types  of  arguments  to  be  printed  may  be  mixed,  but  this  is  generally
inadvisable.   Since SORITEC does not put unlike items on the same lines, mixing
types or periodicities indiscriminately can generate  lengthy  outputs.   Lagged
variables may be specified in a PRINT command.  To display data from the members
of a GROUP, the ON GROUP option must be active.  PRINT  displays  the  names  of
GROUP members if OFF GROUP is enabled.

Data may be output to the terminal in specified  formats  and  mixed  with  text
using  the  WRITE  command.  See "FORTRAN Formatted Output" for a description of
this command.


3.6.2  Graphical Display

Two types of graphical displays are available from  SORITEC,  time-series  plots
and  scatter  diagrams.   They  are  available in character mode on all types of
computers.  They are also available in medium-resolution color-graphics mode  on
personal computers.

Multi-variable plots of time-series or cross-section data are generated  by  the
PLOT command, which has the following form in character mode:

	PLOT series symbol [series symbol]...

The PLOT command produces a time-series of as many as nine variables.   Plotting
symbols  must  be specified in the command line for each variable to distinguish
plotted values.   Plotting  symbols  may  be  alphanumeric  (A-Z,  0-9)  or  the
characters +, -, * , /, =.

If two variables, at some observation, are nearly equal so that they occupy  the
same  position  on  the screen, only the symbol for the latter named variable is
displayed.  The horizontal scale is determined automatically so  that  all  data
values  can  be  plotted.   The WIDTH command can be used to inform SORITEC that
more (or fewer) than 72 characters can be printed on a  single  line.   In  that
case, the width of the plot is adjusted accordingly, e.g., WIDTH 132.

To generate meaningful output, all plotted variables  should  have  roughly  the
same range of values.  Otherwise, some multiplicative or additive scaling may be
necessary.

In color-graphics mode the PLOT command has the following form:

	PLOT series...

The relationship between two variables can be illustrated  graphically  via  the
SCATTER command, which is specified as:

	SCATTER series_1 series_2

SCATTER generates a scatter diagram with the variable referenced  in  the  first
argument  plotted  with  respect  to  the  vertical  or  Y-axis and the variable
referenced in the second argument plotted  against  the  horizontal  or  X-axis.
Lagged variables are permitted.




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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 3 (1)



The graph size is dependent upon the number of characters that can appear  on  a
line.  The default value is 72 but can be changed by the WIDTH command.

3.7  SORITEC Databanks

SORITEC databanks (SDB files) are the most convenient means of storing data once
the  data  have been entered into SORITEC.  The databanking facility has its own
set of commands for accessing and managing data.  Those commands  are  described
in the following chapter.
















































10								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 4 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 4 -- SORITEC Databank (SDB) Files

4.1  Introduction

SORITEC databanks, also known as SDB files, can store  data  series,  equations,
matrices,  vectors,  scalars,  parameters,  groups, procedures, and models.  The
number of items that can be stored on a SORITEC databank is limited only by  the
amount of available disk space.

SDB files are constructed in a "knapsack" databank arrangement.  In effect,  you
can throw anything you want into an SDB file and later recall it by name.  There
is no need to specify the type or length of the data item; SORITEC  keeps  track
of that for you.

Databanks are opened in either of two modes: read/write, and read-only.  You can
have  as  many as five databanks open at any time, only one of which may be open
in read/write mode.

The commands necessary to create and manipulate SDB  files  are  straightforward
and  easy to learn.  Instructions on how to use each of the databanking commands
follow.

4.2  Create a Databank

CREATE constructs and initializes a SORITEC databank.  The only argument in  the
command line is the name of the databank that you want to create.  The format of
the CREATE command is as follows:

	CREATE filename

The CREATE command appends the extension ".sdb" to the filename specified on the
command.   The CREATE command normally creates the databank on the default drive
and directory.  However, the file can be created  on  an  alternative  drive  or
directory  by  enclosing  the drive specification and filename in single quotes.
In MS/DOS:

	CREATE 'd:filename'
	or
	CREATE '\path\filename'

Once the databank is created, it remains open  for  reading  and  writing  until
either  (a)  another databank is created or accessed, (b) the file is closed, or
(c) SORITEC is terminated.

4.3  Access a Databank

ACCESS opens a SORITEC databank in  read/write  mode  for  use  in  the  current
session.  The general form of the command is:

	ACCESS filename

The databank must already exist in the current directory as "filename.sdb" or an
error  message is generated.  Once a databank is accessed, SORITEC automatically
copies the requested data items referenced in a command into the workspace if it



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 4 (1)



is not  already  there.   ACCESS  automatically  closes  any  databank  that  is
currently open.

Databanks residing on drives other than the current drive may be  referenced  by
enclosing the drive designation and filename within single quote marks, as noted
above for CREATE.


4.4  Access a Databank in Read-Only Mode

LIBRARY accesses a databank in read-only mode. The syntax of the command  is  as
follows:

	LIBRARY filename


4.5  Release a Databank from SORITEC

CLOSE closes a databank which is currently open and releases it  from  SORITEC's
control.  The format of the command is:

	CLOSE [filename]

If the filename is omitted then the current read/write databank is closed.

4.6  Delete a Databank

Databanks may be deleted from a directory with the PURGE command.  The format is
as follows:

	PURGE filename

Since the databank is permanently erased, this command should be used with care!
Reference to a databank on a directory or drive other than the current one works
just as it does with CREATE and ACCESS.

4.7  Store Items in a Databank

Items in SORITEC's workspace are stored on the current read/write databank  with
the KEEP command.  The syntax of the command is:

	KEEP item...

Any item in the workspace can be stored on a databank.  If you try  to  KEEP  an
item  that  has  the same name as an item that already exists in the databank, a
nonfatal error is reported and the item is not replaced.

There are three ways to replace  an  item  that  already  exists  on  a  SORITEC
databank.   First,  the  item stored in the databank can be explicitly discarded
using the DISCARD command and then stored using the KEEP command.   Second,  the
item can be replaced explicitly with the REPLACE command.  Lastly, items in in a
databank can be implicitly replaced with the KEEP  command  if  the  ON  REPLACE
option has been enabled.




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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 4 (1)



KEEP stores all observations associated with a given time series, regardless  of
the  observation  period,  as defined by the current setting of the USE command,
that is currently active.  For example, if the series GNP is defined for  1950Q1
to  1984Q2  and the current USE period is for 1980Q1 to 1983Q4, the command KEEP
GNP stores  the  series  for  1950Q1-1984Q2.   You  may  save  only  the  active
observations by using the ACTIVE modifier:

	KEEP(ACTIVE) item...

4.8  Retrieve Items from a Databank

Data are explicitly  copied  from  the  current  read/write  databank  into  the
workspace by the COPY command.  The command syntax is:

	COPY item...

Since the databank is always implicitly searched for  items  needed  by  SORITEC
commands,  this  command  is  generally used only when you need to retrieve data
from a second databank.  If, for example, you  wish  to  regress  a  measure  of
inflation,  such  as CPI, stored on one databank, against some measures of final
demand, such as PCE and DEFENSE, stored on another, the command  sequence  would
be:

	ACCESS 'inflate'
	COPY CPI
	ACCESS 'fdemand'
	REGRESS CPI PCE DEFENSE

4.9  Replace Items in a Databank

Items in databanks are replaced by  items  of  the  same  name  in  the  current
workspace with the REPLACE command.  The command syntax is:

	REPLACE item...

If the item is not currently stored  on  the  databank,  a  warning  message  is
generated but the item is still saved.

4.10  Rename Items in a Databank

The names of items in a SORITEC databank are changed with  the  RENAME  command,
which has the form:

	RENAME new_name old_name [new_name old_name]...

RENAME takes an even number of arguments consisting of pairs of item names.


4.11  Switch the Names of Two Items in a Databank

Pairs of items in a SORITEC databank can have their names swapped by the  SWITCH
command.  The syntax of the command is:

	SWITCH item_1 item_2



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 4 (1)



It is equivalent to the following series of commands:

	RENAME temp item_1
	RENAME item_1 item_2
	RENAME item_2 temp


4.12  Discard Items from a Databank

Items are erased from a databank  with  the  DISCARD  command.   The  format  of
DISCARD is:

	DISCARD item...

Once discarded, an item is irretrievably lost.

4.13  Generate a Directory Listing of a Databank

An alphabetically sorted directory listing of a  SORITEC  databank  is  produced
with the CONTENTS command, which has the form:

	CONTENTS ['filename']

If the filename is omitted from the command line, SORITEC produces  a  directory
listing  of  the  currently active databank.  If no databank is active, an error
message is returned.

The optional argument "filename" is the  name  of  a  SORITEC  databank  in  the
current  directory.   Reference to a databank on a directory or drive other than
the current one is done as for the CREATE, ACCESS, and PURGE commands.



























4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 5 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 5 -- Programming Constructs

5.1  Introduction

SORITEC provides a powerful interpretive programming language that  enables  you
to  simplify  complex and repetitive estimation procedures into a smaller set of
commands  that  can  be  executed  interactively  or  through  SORITEC's   batch
processing  facility.   SORITEC's  programming  language  supports  numeric  and
alphanumeric looping, and conditional and unconditional transfer of  control  to
other  statements.   When  organized  in a SORITEC Alternate Command (SAC) file,
these  programming  constructs  provides  a  convenient  means  for   developing
estimators  and  diagnostic statistics in addition to those provided directly by
SORITEC.  The SAC file facility enables command  files  to  call  other  command
files so that a series of command sequences can be executed.

SORITEC also provides a procedure  facility  that  allows  you  to  structure  a
sequence  of  commands  into  a  subprogram  that,  once  defined, can be passed
arguments and repetitively called from a SORITEC command line.

The commands associated with SORITEC's programming capabilities follow.

5.2  Numeric Looping

Repetitive execution of commands in SORITEC is accomplished by DO loops.  The DO
loop has the following general format:

	DO [index = beginning_value TO end_value [BY increment]]
	 .
	 .
	 .
	(SORITEC commands)
	 .
	 .
	 .
	END

The DO loop index, beginning_value, end_value and increment may  be  integer  or
real  scalars  or parameters and you can proceed forward or backward through the
loop by assigning a positive or negative  value  to  the  increment.   Both  the
end_value  and  increment  may be reset dynamically within the loop.  If so, the
new values are used to determine whether the loop is executed again.  If the  BY
increment  is  omitted  from the DO command line, it is set to 1.  A DO command,
with no specified values for  "beginning_value",  "end_value"  and  "increment",
will cause the statements in the loop to be executed once.

If the DO variable's initial value exceeds its maximum value before  a  positive
increment is added, an error message is generated and the statements between the
DO and END statements are not executed.   The  same  situation  results  if  the
variable's  initial  value  is  set  lower  than  a final value to be reached by
negative increments.

You can construct a DO loop to index through members of a group.   For  example,
the commands:




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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 5 (1)



	GROUP VARS A B C D
	ON GROUP
	DO I = 1 TO 4
	REGRESS Y VARS(I)
	END

would regress the dependent variable Y against each of the  time-series  in  the
group VARS.

5.3  Unconditional Branching

SORITEC allows you to transfer control to any command prefixed  by  a  statement
number.  The format of the command is as follows:

	GO TO statement_number

Alternatively, the command may be specified as GOTO.

The argument of the GOTO command may be a number, constant,  or  parameter,  and
must be in the range from 1 to 9999.  A statement number may be prefixed to most
commands.

In batch mode, if the specified command number does not exist, an error  message
is  generated,  and  control  passes  to  the  statement which follows the GO TO
command.  In interactive mode, the system responds with a query for the  missing
statement number until the statement number is entered.

5.4  Conditional Branching

Conditional branching is enabled through an IF/THEN/ELSE command structure.  The
general format for the command sequence is:

	IF condition
	  THEN
	    task1
	  ELSE
	    task2

The "condition" must be an arithmetic expression that may  include  logical  and
relational  operators,  as  needed.   If  the  condition  is  satisfied, control
transfers to "task1".   Otherwise  control  is  transferred  to  "task2".   Both
"task1" and "task2" can be single statements, DO loops, or DOT loops.

Note that IF, THEN, and ELSE are three distinct commands.  So  if  you  wish  to
type  the  IF/THEN/ELSE  structure  on a single line, you must use semicolons as
follows:

	IF condition; THEN; task1; ELSE; task2

An IF/THEN/ELSE command structure can be nested provided it is enclosed in a  DO
or DOT LOOP.

Here is an example of an  IF/THEN/ELSE  structure  in  which  both  "task1"  and
"task2" are DO loops:



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 5 (1)



	IF A > B
	  THEN
	    DO
	      C = B*LOG(A)
	      PRINT A B C
	    END
	  ELSE
	  DO
	    C=A*LOG(B)
	    PLOT A # B *
	  END

Obviously, a DO loop in an IF/THEN/ELSE sequence can be executed repetitively by
specifying  the index, initial value, final value and, optionally, the increment
in the DO command line.

Either the THEN or the ELSE clause may be omitted from a  conditional  branching
command  sequence.   The  IF  command can also be used with the GO TO command to
control the order of execution, e.g.

	IF X < Y .AND. A > B; THEN; GO TO 300


5.5  Null (Continuation) Statement

The CONTINUE statement is generally used in  SORITEC  to  position  a  statement
number within a SORITEC program.  Its syntax is:

	statement_number CONTINUE

5.6  Alpha Looping

SORITEC will repetitively execute a sequence of commands by indexing over a  set
of  alphabetic  loop  control variables.  On each pass through the loop, SORITEC
supplies succeeding alphabetic arguments in the DOT command.  The DOT command is
functionally similar to a DO command.  The format of the command is:
	DOT variable...
	 .
	 .
	 .
	(SORITEC commands)
	 .
	 .
	 .
	ENDDOT

Alpha loop control variables are successively entered  into  expressions  within
the  DOT  loop by substituting all references to any colons (":") within the DOT
loop by the currently active alpha variable.  For example,

	DOT A B C				REGRESS Y A
	REGRESS Y :      is executed as 	REGRESS Y B
	ENDDOT  				REGRESS Y C




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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 5 (1)



You may also use the colons as prefixes or suffixes to construct  new  variables
within DOT loops, e.g.,

	DOT VAR1 VAR2 VAR3
	  OUT: = INP: * Z
	ENDDOT

is executed as

	OUTVAR1 = INPVAR1 * Z
	OUTVAR2 = INPVAR2 * Z
	OUTVAR3 = INPVAR3 * Z

All commands in the DOT loop are executed as many times as there  are  variables
in  the  DOT  command.   Note that if group expansion is enabled by the ON GROUP
switch, a DOT loop can index through a GROUP.  For example,

	GROUP VARS A B C
	ON GROUP
	DOT VARS
	REGRESS Y :
	ENDDOT

would regress the variable Y against each of the time series in the group VARS.

































4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 6 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 6 -- Special Generation and Transformation Commands

6.1  Introduction

SORITEC provides several commands that generate or transform time-series.  These
commands  create dummy variables or they transform existing data series into new
time-series.  They  include  facilities  for  converting  time-series  from  one
periodicity  to  another and for transforming continuous variables into discrete
variables.  SORITEC also provides commands that  perform  modular  division  and
invoke maximum and minimum functions.

6.2  Create a Time Trend Dummy Series

SORITEC generates a time trend dummy series with the TIME command.   The  syntax
of this command is:

	TIME [series_name]

TIME sets the  first  observation  of  the  "series_name"  associated  with  the
currently  active USE period equal to one and increments successive observations
by one, so that the second observation is set to two, the third to  three,  etc.
If  the  "series_name"  is  omitted  from the command line, TIME stores the time
trend dummy in a series named "time".  If a variable by that name already exists
in the workspace, it will be overwritten by the TIME command.

The TIME command may be invoked only when there are  no  internal  gaps  in  the
current  USE  period,  i.e.,  the current USE period must have been invoked with
only two arguments.

6.3  Create Seasonal Dummies

A periodic dummy variable can be created using the DUMMY command, which has  the
form:

	DUMMY output_series first_observation skip_increment

In the command line, "first_observation" is the first observation  set  to  one.
Series  elements  are  then  set  to  one every "skip_increment".  The remaining
values of the series are set to zero.


For example, the following commands create a dummy variable QTR1 that  is  equal
to one in the first quarter of each year:

	USE 1970Q1 1980Q4
	DUMMY QTR1 1970Q1 4

6.4  Recode a Variable

SORITEC allows you to convert a continuous variable into a discrete variable via
the RECODE command.  The form of the command is:

	RECODE output_series input_series number...




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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 6 (1)



In the above command line, "input_series"  is  the  series  to  be  recoded  and
"output_series"  is  the  categorized  output  variable.   The  numbers  are the
interval boundaries for the recoding process.

For example,

	SERIES A 3 17 21 28 31 35 26 41
	RECODE B A 10 20 25 30 35 40
	PRINT A B

produce these results:

		  A         B
	1         3         0
	2        17         1
	3        21         2
	4        28         3
	5        31         4
	6        35         5
	7        26         3
	8        41         6

Let p(1) through p(n) be the "n" numbers specified on  a  RECODE  command.   For
each element, i, of the series, RECODE uses the following formula:

	output_series(i) = k       if p(k-1) =< input_series(i) < p(k)
				   when p(k-1) < p(k), and

	output_series(i) = k       if p(k-1) = input_series(i) = p(k)

p(0) is always considered to be -infinity, and p(n+1) is always considered to be
+infinity.

6.5  Conversion of Time-Series from One Periodicity to Another

SORITEC converts time series from one periodicity to another  with  the  CONVERT
command.  The command has the following syntax:

	CONVERT [(modifier)] output_series = input_series

When the command is executed, data of  one  periodicity  are  converted  to  the
periodicity  specified  by  the  current  USE  statement.   In  other words, the
periodicity of the "input_series" does not  have  to  be  explicitly  specified,
since SORITEC determines it internally.

Lags are not allowed in CONVERT  arguments  and  the  entire  series  is  always
converted,  regardless  of  the  range  specified in the USE command.  While the
standard syntax of the convert command requires the  specification  of  both  an
output  (result) series and an input series, the converted series can be written
to the input series name simply by specifying:

	CONVERT [(modifier)] input_series

After  the  conversion,  the  old  values  of  the  input  series,  in  the  old



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 6 (1)



periodicity, are lost.

The modifier argument in the command line is optional and controls the  type  of
conversion  which  takes  place.   There  are  two  sets  of  modifiers, one for
aggregation (such as monthly to annual), and one  for  disaggregation  (such  as
annual  to  monthly),  plus  a  special MOVE modifier for converting to and from
undated data.  The modifiers are as follows:

			  AGGREGATION
	SUM     Sum observations in each period (default)
	AVERAGE Average observations in each period
	MIN     Find the minimum observation in each period
	MAX     Find the maximum observation in each period
	LAST    Use the last observation in each period

			DISAGGREGATION
	FILL    Use the data point for entire period for each sub-period
	SHARE   Divide the data value for the entire period equally
		across all sub-periods (default)

		 UNDATED TO DATED CONVERSIONS
	MOVE    Move the data from an undated to a dated variable or
		vice versa without alteration (default)

The default is selected whenever no modifier is entered on the command line.

Conversion is currently permitted only between annual,  semi-annual,  quarterly,
monthly,  ten-day  and undated data types.  In addition, conversion from monthly
to ten-day periodicity produces incorrect results because of the way the ten-day
data type is defined.

6.6  Maximum Function

SORITEC can determine the maximum of a series or the  observation-by-observation
maximum of a collection of series.

The maximum value of a series is found by entering the MAX command with only two
arguments, i.e.,

	MAX maximum_value input_series

When entered like this, "input_series" is the data series over which the maximum
is  to  be  taken.   The  result  is  stored  in "maximum_value" which must be a
constant or parameter.  If  the  "maximum_value"  name  is  undefined  prior  to
entering the command, SORITEC defines it to be a constant.

A new series consisting of the set of maximum values, by observation, associated
with several series is generated by the MAX command when more than two arguments
are entered in the command line, i.e.,

	MAX output_series input_series...






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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 6 (1)



In this case, all arguments in the  command  line  must  be  data  series.   The
resulting "output_series" contains the observation-by-observation maximum of all
the remaining arguments.

6.7  Minimum Function

The minimum  value  of  a  data  series  or  a  series  of  minimum  values,  by
observation,  of  several  series is obtained using the MIN command.  The format
and use of MIN is identical  to  the  MAX  command  except  for  the  result  it
computes.  In other words, the minimum value of a data series is determined when
the MIN command is followed by two arguments:

	MIN minimum_value input_series

where the first argument is a constant or parameter and the second is the series
you wish to evaluate.

A series containing observation-by-observation minima  is  generated  when  more
than two arguments, all of which must be data series, appear on the MIN command,
i.e.,

	MIN output_series input_series...

The same rules as apply to the MAX function apply to MIN.

6.8  Modular Division

SORITEC performs modular division via the MOD command, which has the format:

	MOD remainder dividend divisor

In mathematical notation, the formula used is:

	remainder = dividend - (INT(dividend/divisor) * divisor)

where INT is the function that computes the integer part of a number.

The dividend and divisor must  be  of  the  same  type  and  may  be  constants,
parameters, or series.  The resulting remainder will be the same type.

6.9  Compute Moving Average

The moving average of a series is calculated by the MA command.

	MA output_series input_series length

In the command line, "input_series" is the series to be  averaged,  "length"  is
the  length  of the moving average, and "output_series" is the resulting series.
The argument, "length", may be a constant, parameter,  or  a  numeric  quantity.
The  first  "length-1"  observations of the output_series are treated as missing
data.






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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 6 (1)



6.10  Compute Moving Sum

The MSUM command compute the moving sum of a series.

	MSUM output_series input_series length

Arguments in the command line have the same meaning  as  the  MA  command.   The
first "length-1" observations of the output_series are treated as missing data.

6.11  Statistical Operations

Several statistical functions are available for analyzing and manipulating data.
They are described in the following sections.

6.11.1  Correlation Matrix Calculation

A correlation matrix for the variables in an argument list is generated  by  the
CORREL command.  The format of the command is:

	CORREL series...

Only observations active in  the  currently  defined  USE  period  are  used  in
correlation matrix calculations.  While only the correlation matrix is output to
the terminal, the correlation matrix (COR), vector of means (MEANS),  vector  of
standard  deviations (DEVS) and covariance matrix (COV) are calculated by CORREL
and stored as SORITEC internal variables.  These results may be accessed with  a
RECOVER command.

6.11.2   Covariance Matrix Calculation

The COVA command computes, stores,  and  prints  a  covariance  matrix  for  the
variables named as arguments in the command line.  The format of the command is:

	COVA series...

Similar to the CORREL command, only observations associated with  the  currently
active USE period are used in calculations.  The vector of means (MEANS), vector
of standard deviations (DEVS) and covariance matrix (COV) are stored as  SORITEC
internal variables when the COVA command is executed, and may be accessed by the
RECOVER command.

6.11.3  Other Statistical Operations

Several specialized statistical operations are supported by SORITEC to  describe
the properties of a time-series.  The common format consists of the command name
followed by the output variable and the input series, i.e.,

	command_name output_constant input_series

Statistics are calculated over the currently active USE  period.   Some  of  the
statistical  operations available in SORITEC and the commands for executing them
are:





February 1, 1990						               5




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 6 (1)



	Command 				Description
	------- 				-----------
	MEAN mean input_series  		Arithmetic Mean
	RMS root_mean_square input_series       Root Mean Square
	SUM sum input_series			Arithmetic Sum
	SSR sum_squared_resids input_series     Sum of Squared Residuals



















































6								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 7 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 7 -- SORITEC Financial Functions

7.1  Financial Functions in SORITEC

SORITEC contains  most  of  the  common  financial  analysis  functions.   These
functions,  used alone or with SORITEC's forecasting commands, provide extremely
powerful tools for  performing  financial  project  evaluation.   The  functions
currently  provided  include internal rate of return, present value, and various
loan amortization schedules.

Note that in all SORITEC financial functions,  interest  rates  are  treated  as
decimal quantities unless otherwise noted; e.g., 15% is represented as 0.15.

7.2  Internal Rate of Return

The internal rate of return command calculates the internal rate of  return  for
an  arbitrary series via a modified Newton-Raphson search algorithm.  The format
of the command is as follows:

	IRR ([CAPITAL=scalar] [INITIALR=scalar]) interest_rate income [cost]

where "interest_rate" is a legal SORITEC constant name  for  the  interest  rate
that  discounts  the  "income" series (minus the "cost" series, if present) to a
net present value of zero.

The optional modifiers in the command line allow you to control  the  parameters
determining  convergence  for  the  algorithm  as  well  as  specification of an
arbitrary start-up capital cost.  Specifically:

	CAPITAL is the start-up cost of the project. It is automatically
	subtracted from the first-period profits.

	INITIALR allows you to specify a starting value for the internal
	rate  of  return.   This is of special value in finding multiple
	roots to the IRR equation when cash flows change signs more than
	once during the life of the project.

7.3  Present Value

The present value command, PV, calculates the net present value of a  stream  of
net  benefits  (or  profits)  associated with a financial venture.  PV will take
either a scalar value for the interest rate or a time series of forecast values.
This   later   feature,  when  combined  with  the  estimation  and  forecasting
capabilities of SORITEC, provides a powerful tool for simulating and  evaluating
financial projects.  The syntax of the command is:

	PV ([PERIOD=D|W|T|M|Q|S|A  SIMPLE|COMPOUND]) &
	present_value net_income_stream [costs] interest_rate

where "present_value" is a scalar value equal to the present value of the income
stream,  "net_income_stream"  is  the  net  income  stream to be discounted, and
"interest_rate" is the interest rate used in calculating the present value.  The
interest rate can be either a scalar, fixed for all periods, or a time series of
interest rates.  This allows for easy incorporation of interest  rate  forecasts



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 7 (1)



into project evaluation.

The "net_income_stream" can be followed by an optional cost series.  This second
argument  in the command line can be either a single net income stream or a pair
of series describing the revenues and costs of the project.

The optional modifiers in the command line allow you to convert the  periodicity
of the interest rate to conform to the net income stream and to specify the type
of conversion to be performed.  Specifically,

	PERIOD allows an  interest  rate  conversion  to  be  specified;
	specifically, setting PERIOD equal to one of the options results
	in the specified interest rate being converted from the selected
	periodicity  to  the periodicity of the current USE period.  The
	periodicity may  be  (D)aily,  (W)eekly,  (T)en-Day,  (M)onthly,
	(Q)uarterly, (S)emiannual, or (A)nnual.

	A second option, specified either as SIMPLE or COMPOUND, is  the
	type  of  conversion  to  be  used.   The  default  is  COMPOUND
	conversion.

The PERIOD modifier used with the conversion option can  handle  transformations
between annual or effective interest rates and the effective periodic percentage
rates.  If the annual rate is given as 15%, the effective annual percentage rate
is  16.0754%  - calculated as .15/12  =  1.25% compounded monthly.  For example,
suppose that the current USE period is monthly.  In that case,

	PV (PERIOD=A, SIMPLE) PV PROFIT .15

will correctly convert the 15% annual percentage rate to a 1.25%   monthly  rate
before  calculating the present value.  If the available data are given in terms
of effective yields, the COMPOUND option should be  used  to  correctly  convert
rates  between periods.  A loan requiring 4% per quarter is equivalent to a loan
rate of 1.316% compounded monthly [exp(ln(1.04)/3)-1].   Here,  the  appropriate
command would be:

	PV (PERIOD=Q, COMPOUND) PV PROFIT .04

Again we suppose that the current USE period is monthly.

7.4  Loan Amortization

The loan amortization  command,  AMORT,  provides  a  convenient  technique  for
calculating  the monthly payment for a given loan situation.  In addition to the
standard loan value and interest rate setup,  AMORT  also  allows  an  arbitrary
number  of  loan  payment  series, balloon payments, variable interest rates, as
well as options for  dynamically  extending  the  amount  of  the  loan  through
additional borrowings.  The format of the command is:

	AMORT ( [PERIOD=D|W|T|M|Q|S|A  SIMPLE|COMPOUND] [RULEOF78]  &
	  [BALLOON=number] ) payment loan interest_rate [aux_pay]...

where "payment" is the resulting per period payment to fully amortize  the  loan
during  the  current USE period, and "loan" is the amount of the loan.  The loan



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 7 (1)



can either be a constant or a it can be a time series if the loan  is  allocated
over  the  time  period set in the USE command.  "interest_rate" is the interest
rate of the loan.  It must be the same type, either constant or time series,  as
the "loan".

The optional command line arguments, "aux_pay", are  time  series  of  auxiliary
payments  in  addition  to the monthly loan payment.  These can be used to enter
payments to principal that are awkwardly or randomly timed.  For example, a loan
which  required  balloon payments of $5000  every five years can be handled as a
time series with value 5000 for every fifth year and zeros elsewhere.

The optional modifiers in the command line allow you to change the  amortization
schedule as follows:

	PERIOD is the same as for the PV command.  It allows an interest
	rate  conversion  to  be specified; specifically, setting PERIOD
	equal to one of the options results in  the  specified  interest
	rate  being  converted  from  the  selected  periodicity  to the
	periodicity of the current USE period.  The periodicity  may  be
	(D)aily,    (W)eekly,    (T)en-Day,    (M)onthly,   (Q)uarterly,
	(S)emiannual or (A)nnual.

	RULEOF78  constructs a principal and interest payment series for
	the  loan  according  the  the "Rule of 78" (sum of the months).
	This option is valid only for loans  with  a  single  period  of
	borrowing and a fixed interest rate.

	BALLOON specifies the amount of a balloon payment in  the  final
	period.




























February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 8 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 8 -- Cross-Section Techniques

8.1  Introduction

SORITEC contains many common techniques  for  processing  and  analyzing  cross-
sectional  data  sets.  Access is provided to most of the intermediate and final
results.  The specific techniques currently implemented in SORITEC  and  SORITEC
SAMPLER are:

	SYNOPSIS provides a quick statistical summary of a data series.

	XTAB performs cross-tabulation analysis.

	FREQ  provides  a  complete  frequency  analysis,  including  an
	optional histogram display.

Techniques implemented only in the full SORITEC language include:

	ANOVA performs a two-way analysis of variance.

	BRKDWN performs a breakdown analysis on  a  pair  of  variables.
	This   procedure   provides   a  frequency  breakdown,  optional
	histogram, and ANOVA test.

	MWHITNEY carries out the Mann-Whitney U test for equality of the
	means  for  two  series  of  observation.  WILCOXON performs the
	equivalent Wilcoxon rank-sum test.

	NCOR provides Spearman's non-parametric correlation  coefficient
	and Kendall's tau statistic as general measures of association.

	PROBIT estimates a binary probit model.

	TTEST calculates grouped  and  paired  t-tests  for  a  list  of
	variables.

8.2  Synopsis

The SYNOPSIS command returns a  detailed  summary  analysis  of  a  data  series
including   mean,   standard  deviation,  median  (including  a  95%  confidence
interval), mode, quartiles, deciles, variance, skewness,  kurtosis,  coefficient
of  variation,  number  of  observations,  number  of  missing  values, minimum,
maximum, range, mode, and the frequency of the  mode.   The  command  format  of
SYNOPSIS is:

	SYNOPSIS series...

In addition to outputting them to the  terminal,  SYNOPSIS  stores  the  summary
statistics  as  SORITEC  internal  variables,  which  may  be  recovered  either
explicitly with the RECOVER command or by implicit  reference.   See  RECOVER(2)
for  the  method  of  retrieving  these  data.   Except  for decile and quartile
statistics, internal variables associated with the SYNOPSIS command  are  stored
as  vectors  that  have the same number of elements as arguments in the SYNOPSIS
command line.  Recoverable SORITEC internal variables stored as vectors are:



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 8 (1)



	^COUNTS = number of non-missing observations for each variable
	^MEDIAN = median value for each variable
	^MIN    = minimum values
	^MAX    = maximum values
	^MEANS  = mean values
	^VAR    = variances for each variable
	^DEVS   = standard deviations
	^CV     = coefficient of variation for each variable
	^KURT   = kurtosis of each variable
	^SKEW   = skewness for each variable
	^MODE   = mode values for each variable

Two other internal variables are stored upon execution of the SYNOPSIS  command.
The variables are:

	^DECILE  = decile values of a series
	^QUARTIL = quartile values of a series

The ^DECILE and ^QUARTIL internal variables are stored as matrices.

Quantiles are defined as the first observations less than or equal to  the  true
mathematical quantiles (n/4 and n/10) in both cases.

Note that SYNOPSIS  exercises  casewise  deletion  of  missing  values  on  each
variable  when  it  computes  the  summary  statistics.  Because  of  this,  the
statistics may not compare with those from  other  SORITEC  statistics  commands
like STATS, KURTOSIS, etc.

8.3  Crosstabulation Analysis

The XTAB command calculates the standard row-column crosstabulation report.  The
format of the command is:

	XTAB series_1 series_2

The arguments "series_1" and "series_2" must be discrete data.   If  the  series
you  wish to crosstabulate are continuous, they must be converted via the RECODE
command.  XTAB doesn't delete missing values, but instead,  reports  them  as  a
separate category "MISSING" in the appropriate row or column.

In addition to printer-oriented output, XTAB has an interactive  screen  display
mode which allows scrolling through the table in a "spreadsheet" mode.

8.4  Frequency Analysis

The FREQ command calculates a frequency distribution for a data series, and  can
optionally  produce  a  histogram  to display the distribution.  The command can
also recode the observations of the series from continuous  to  discrete  values
"on the fly".  The format of the command is:

	FREQ [( [HISTGRM] [CLASS=vector] )] series

The HISTGRM option generates the histogram of the  frequency  distribution.   If
there  are  ten  or  fewer  discrete values, the histogram is plotted across the



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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 8 (1)



screen or page.  Otherwise, the display runs down the screen.

The elements of the  CLASS  vector  are  used  as  the  endpoints  of  intervals
according  to  which the data series is categorized. For example, if "a" and "b"
are two adjacent elements of the CLASS vector, then FREQ would report the number
of observations that are greater than or equal to "a" and less than "b".



















































February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 9 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 9 -- Estimation and Forecasting

9.1  Introduction

SORITEC provides you with many single-equation estimation  techniques  for  both
single  equation  and  simultaneous  equation  models.  In this section, we will
discuss the most frequently  used  single-equation  techniques:  ordinary  least
squares  (REGRESS  command), two-stage least squares (TWOSLS), and the Cochrane-
Orcutt (CORC) and  Hildreth-Lu  (HILU)  autocorrelation  correction  techniques.
These  procedures  may be applied to either time series or cross-sectional data.
The structure of the equations in any model may be  recursive  or  simultaneous.
The  fitted  equations  estimated  by  SORITEC  can  be  recovered  and used for
forecasting.

The standard output from a SORITEC estimation command consists of a  coefficient
tableau  and  a  summary  tableau  of  regression diagnostics which includes the
number of observations, the standard error of the  regression,  sum  of  squared
residuals,  R-squared,  adjusted  R-squared,  Durbin-Watson,  F  test of overall
significance, the log-likelihood, and the  Akaike  and  Schwarz  statistics  for
model  selection.  You may have the estimator generate additional diagnostics by
setting one or more options with ON commands, which must be executed before  the
regression   command.   Use  of  these  options  is  described  above.   SORITEC
estimation procedures support ON VCOV, ON STATS, ON CCOR, ON ANOVA, ON PLOT,  ON
RESIDUAL  and  ON  BETA  commands.   These options are associated with SORITEC's
interactive tableaux and are described below.

When the ON CRT option  is  invoked,  all  estimation  commands  described  here
support  the  display  in interactive tableaux of regression diagnostics.  These
tableaux provide you with a greater number of regression  diagnostics  than  are
output by the estimation commands in their default modes.  Commands for invoking
the interactive tableaux and descriptions of their contents are detailed below.

9.2  Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Estimation

The ordinary least squares estimator is invoked by the  REGRESS  command,  which
has the following syntax:

	REGRESS [(ORIGIN)] dep_var ind_var...

The dependent variable must be the first argument in the variable list, with the
independent   variables   following  immediately  as  the  second  through  last
arguments.  The keyword ORIGIN is optional and, if specified, forces SORITEC  to
estimate  the equation without a constant term.  Otherwise, the constant term is
supplied automatically.  If ORIGIN is specified in the command line, it must  be
enclosed  within  parentheses.   When the regression plane is forced through the
origin, the regression diagnostics are adjusted accordingly.











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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 9 (1)



9.3  Autocorrelation Techniques for the Single Equation Model

Two estimation techniques are available for estimating  single  equation  models
when  you  believe  that  the  error  terms  are  not  independent,  but  that a
disturbance in one period depends on the previous  disturbance.   The  Cochrane-
Orcutt  (CORC) iterative technique and the Hildreth-Lu (HILU) scanning technique
estimate models assuming first order serial autocorrelation of the disturbances.

When either autocorrelation technique is invoked, SORITEC  temporarily  shortens
the  USE  period  by  one  observation at the beginning of the sample and by one
observation after every gap to calculate the required data transformations.  The
current  USE  period,  therefore,  should include the observations which will be
lost in the transformation of variables.  The USE  period  is  restored  to  its
original interval(s) after the command is completed.  Regression diagnostics are
calculated from the residuals of the regression on the transformed variables.

9.3.1  Cochrane-Orcutt Iterative Technique

The Cochrane-Orcutt estimator is invoked by the command:

	CORC [(ORIGIN)] dep_var ind_var...

Command syntax is identical to the REGRESS command  described  in  the  previous
section.   The  Hildreth-Lu  technique  is  often  to  be  preferred,  since the
Cochrane-Orcutt technique will occasionally result in a value for rho which is a
local rather than a global optimum, and of obviously wrong sign.  In particular,
if,  in   ordinary   least-squares   regression,   a   Durbin-Watson   statistic
significantly less than 2.0 is observed, yet the Cochrane-Orcutt technique gives
a negative rho value, the Hildreth-Lu technique should be used.

9.3.2  Hildreth-Lu Scanning Technique

In addition to the dependent and independent variable lists,  the  HILU  command
requires  that  the  lower and upper limits to the value of rho and its stepsize
during the scanning process be initialized.  These values are entered  onto  the
command  line through a set of optional positional modifiers.  The syntax of the
HILU command is:

	HILU [ ( [ORIGIN] [lowlim [uplim [inc]]] ) ] dep_var ind_var...

where the dependent and independent variable lists are positioned similar to the
other  regression  commands.   "lowlim"  is  the lower limit of rho.  Similarly,
"uplim" is the upper limit of rho.   Finally,  "inc"  is  the  stepsize  of  the
scanning process.

If omitted from the command line, these modifiers assume default values of  0.0,
1.0 and 0.1, respectively.  In previous versions of SORITEC and SORITEC SAMPLER,
you could use an asterisk ("*") to select defaults  for  "lowlim"  and  "uplim".
Since  the  generalization  of  wildcard  syntax  throughout  the  package, this
capability has been removed.







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SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 9 (1)



9.4  Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) Estimates

Consistent estimates for a single equation from a simultaneous  equation  system
can be obtained by using a two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimator.  Unlike the
other estimation commands in this section, the 2SLS procedure  requires  you  to
enter two commands to estimate an equation.  First, all exogenous variables must
be identified in an the EXOGENOUS statement, which has the form:

	EXOGENOUS exog_var...

All arguments associated with this command are exogenous  variable  names.   The
EXOGENOUS  command  must be specified before invoking the 2SLS estimator.  After
execution, all later 2SLS commands use the  same  list  of  exogenous  variables
until another EXOGENOUS command is entered.

Two-stage least squares estimation is invoked by the TWOSLS  command  which  has
the form:

	TWOSLS [(ORIGIN)] dep_var ind_var...

All arguments plus the  ORIGIN  keyword  in  the  command  line  have  the  same
interpretation as used in the REGRESS command.  Two-stage least squares commands
that detect omitted or mis-specified exogenous variables generate error messages
until a valid EXOGENOUS command is executed.

9.5  Forecasting Single-Equation Models

Any single-equation model that has been estimated by  SORITEC  can  be  forecast
using  the  fitted  equation  ^FOREQ,  which  is  stored  as  a SORITEC internal
variable.  To forecast  an  equation,  all  of  the  independent  or  right-hand
variables  that  were  used  to  estimate it must be defined for the period over
which the forecast is to be made.  These  values  may  be  observed,  projected,
assumed or may be the product of other forecasts.

To forecast using a single-equation model, the following steps are performed:

	(1) Estimate a single equation model using  the  REGRESS,  CORC,
	HILU or TWOSLS command.

	(2) RECOVER the fitted equation from its internal system name of
	FOREQ.

	(3) Change the active observation period to the forecast  period
	with the USE command.

	(4) Revise independent variables to include assumptions for  the
	forecast period, if the data is not already present.

	(5) Use the FORECAST command to  forecast  the  fitted  equation
	over the desired time period.

The format of the FORECAST command is:

	FORECAST fitted_equation_name



February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 9 (1)



Since SORITEC internal system names may be referenced directly from the FORECAST
command,  step  (2)  is  optional. In this case, the fitted equation is forecast
simply by entering:

	FORECAST ^FOREQ

Use of the RECOVER command is necessary, however, if you want  to  FORECAST  the
fitted equation after estimating other models since SORITEC replaces ^FOREQ each
time an equation is estimated.  Fitted equations can be saved on a databank like
any other SORITEC item.

Forecasting single-equation models in SORITEC is illustrated below.

	USE 1975Q1 1982Q4
	REGRESS GNP CONSUMPTION INVESTMENT{-1}
	RECOVER GNP_EQUATION FOREQ
	USE 1983Q1 1984Q3
	REVISE CONSUMPTION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	REVISE INVESTMENT 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
	FORECAST GNP_EQUATION
	PRINT GNP

If the fitted equation is not needed after being forecast, the command  sequence
is as follows:

	USE 1975Q1 1982Q4
	REGRESS GNP CONSUMPTION INVESTMENT{-1}
	USE 1983Q1 1984Q3
	REVISE CONSUMPTION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	REVISE INVESTMENT 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
	FORECAST ^FOREQ
	PRINT GNP

The FORECAST command provides a static forecast by  default.   This  means  that
lagged  dependent  variables are not automatically generated for each successive
period, unless the DYNAMIC flag is on.  In other words, the command sequence:

	USE 1980Q1 1989Q4
	REGRESS GNP GNP{-1}
	ON DYNAMIC
	USE 1990Q1 1990Q4
	FORECAST ^FOREQ

will produce a dynamic forecast for  GNP,  i.e.  the  1990Q2  forecast  will  be
computed  using  the  1990Q1  forecast  as  a  right-hand  variable.  If the "ON
DYNAMIC" statement was not present, then SORITEC will attempt to use the  actual
value  of  GNP  in  1990Q1  to  forecast  the 1990Q2 value.  If no data had been
entered before this sequence for 1990Q1, an error message  would  be  generated,
and the values of GNP from 1990Q2 to 1990Q4 would be missing values.  The 1990Q1
forecast value would, however, be the same as if the DYNAMIC flag were ON, since
it would rely only on the 1989Q4 value for GNP.

Note that the FORECAST command stores the forecasted  values  of  the  dependent
variable under the same name as the dependent variable previously defined.  This



4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						 PRIMER -- Chapter 9 (1)



means that any existing values for the  dependent  variable  over  the  forecast
period  are  replaced  and  cannot  be  retrieved.   All existing values for the
dependent variable outside the forecast period are retained, however,  with  the
result that forecasted values are spliced into the original series as though the
REVISE command has been  used.   To  preserve  existing  values,  the  dependent
variable  forecast should be deflected to another variable with the TAG modifier
on the FORECAST command:

	USE 1975Q1 1982Q4
	REGRESS GNP CONSUMPTION INVESTMENT{-1}
	RECOVER GNP_EQUATION FOREQ
	USE 1983Q1 1984Q3
	FORECAST(TAG=TEMP_GNP)GNP_EQUATION
	PRINT GNP TEMP_GNP











































February 1, 1990						               5




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 10 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 10 -- Interactive Print Server

10.1  Introduction

SORITEC allows complete  control  over  the  output  presentation  for  selected
procedures.   In  the  REGRESS and XTAB commands, the user can control the order
and depth of the presentation of results.  REGRESS generates ten separate output
summaries  which  may  be  selected,  or repeated, in any order that you desire.
XTAB allows you to scroll through the crosstabs table in a  "spreadsheet"  mode.
A menu is provided which describes each display option.

The  interactive  regression  display  supports  10  different  screen  displays
including 3 tables of residual summaries, a residual plot, the covariance matrix
of coefficients, the correlation matrix  of  coefficients,  extended  regression
reports  (beta  coefficient,  partial  r and elasticities), a regression summary
table, the ANOVA table for goodness of fit, means and standard deviations of the
independent variables and of course the regression estimates.

When the interactive mode is in effect, a selection menu  appears  on  the  last
line  of  the screen.  Entering a question mark(?) will bring up a more detailed
help menu regarding the contents of each display.  Selecting an  invalid  choice
sounds  the  "bell"  and  prompts  you  for  another  choice.  There are several
additional special keystrokes, in addition to those in the selection menu,  that
control  interactive  display.   Entering  a carriage return, a "+",  or a space
advances the display to the next tableau in  the  selection  menu.   Entering  a
backspace  returns  you  to  the  previously  displayed tableau.  Entering a "-"
displays the previous screen in the selection menu.

The interactive option is available for REGRESS, TWOSLS, CORC, and  HILU,  which
are supported by both SORITEC and SORITEC SAMPLER.  In SORITEC only, this option
is also available for CORC2, HILU2, TSCORC, TSCORC2, TSHILU, and TSHILU2.

10.2  Entering Interactive Mode

To enable the interactive mode you must turn  on  the  option  by  entering  the
command:

	ON CRT

When this option is enabled, SORITEC  automatically  switches  into  an  screen-
oriented   presentation  whenever  a  command  is  executed  that  supports  the
interactive tableaus.

To stop the interactive presentation, enter OFF CRT.   SORITEC  will  switch  to
printer-oriented output.

10.3  Tableau Descriptions

The following sections discuss each tableau and their associated menu  selection
codes available with SORITEC estimation commands.







February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 10 (1)



10.3.1  Coefficient Display (E)

Coefficient estimates are automatically displayed when the  regression  equation
is  estimated.  The presentation shows the technique, the current sample period,
coefficients, standard errors, t-values and the significance  levels  of  the  t
statistic.

10.3.2  Regression Summary Table (G)

The regression summary table provides a quick synopsis of the  regression.   The
table reports the number of observations, sum of squared residuals, the value of
the log-likelihood function, Schwarz and Akaike  criteria,  R-squared,  adjusted
R-squared,  the standard error of the regression, Durbin-Watson and F-statistics
and the significance of the F-statistic.  If the ORIGIN option is specified, the
statistics are adjusted appropriately.

10.3.3  Regression ANOVA Table (A)

This is the standard ANOVA table  showing  the  derivation  of  the  F-statistic
reported   in   the   summary  table.   All  reported  statistics  are  adjusted
appropriately when the regression equation is constrained  through  the  origin.
ON  ANOVA  will  activate  this output when the OFF CRT flag, or non-interactive
mode, is set.

10.3.4  Beta Coefficients, Elasticities and Partial R (B)

This  tableau  presents  coefficient  estimates  and   their   associated   Beta
coefficients,  elasticities  and  partial  correlation  coefficients.   ON  BETA
enables this display when the OFF CRT option is set.

10.3.5  Correlation Matrix of Coefficient Estimates (C)

Although there is little theory regarding this matrix,  which  is  a  normalized
variance-covariance  matrix  of the coefficients (which we call the "correlation
matrix of coefficient estimates", it does provide a quick  way  to  examine  the
relationship  between  pairs  of coefficients, and detect multicollinearity.  ON
CCOR will present this display when SORITEC is in OFF CRT mode.

10.3.6  PDF and Histogram of Standardized Residuals (H)

This table provides a quick summary of the distribution  of  the  residuals  for
quick  identification  of  outliers  or  a  skewed  distribution,  and shows the
percentage of residuals falling between each integer multiple of the  regression
error  variance,  including  a histogram of the same information.  The histogram
information has a higher resolution than the table since each line of the screen
represents  1/3  of a standard deviation.  Therefore, the scale of the histogram
is about 1/3 that of the residual PDF table; specifically, if  the  maximum  PDF
table value is 50%, the maximum vertical value on the plot would be on the order
of 17%.








2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 10 (1)



10.3.7  Convergence Path for Autocorrelated Estimators (M)

This display shows the path of values  of  the  coefficient  of  autocorrelation
("rho")  for  the  Cochrane-Orcutt and Hildreth-Lu techniques (CORC and HILU) in
the SORITEC SAMPLER, and in most of the CORC- and HILU-related techniques in the
full SORITEC language.

10.3.8  Non-Parametric Residual Distribution Tests (N)

This table provides a set of statistical tests on the normalcy of  the  residual
distribution as well as tests of the randomness of the residuals.  Specifically,
SORITEC Sampler carries out a "Run of Signs" test for randomness,  a  chi-square
test  against  the  normal  distribution,  and  a  Kolmogorov-Smirnov  test  for
normality.

10.3.9  Actual vs Fitted Plot and Standardized Residuals (P)

This display shows the actual versus fitted and standardized residuals  for  the
regression.   The  plot  is  produced  in  a  form  that is reproducible by line
printers, except that on an IBM PC or compatible, the plots  appear  in  3-color
medium  resolution  mode.  ON PLOT activates this output when the OFF CRT option
is set.

10.3.10  Residual Autocorrelation Summary (R)

The residual summary table provides  information  on  the  distribution  of  the
residuals   (sum  of  squared  residuals,  skewness,  kurtosis,  etc.)  and  the
autocorrelation structure of the residuals with Durbin-Watson (for one, four and
12  periods)  and  every  fourth one of the first 24 Box-Pierce statistics.  All
these statistics, along with the first 24 autocorrelation coefficients,  may  be
recovered for later analysis.

10.3.11  Statistical Summary of Exogenous Variables (S)

This table reports the mean and standard deviation of the independent variables,
as  well as the mean of the dependent variable.  When the OFF CRT option is set,
this display is activated by ON STATS.

10.3.12  Covariance Matrix of Coefficient Estimates (V)

This tableau displays a covariance matrix of the coefficients.  It is equivalent
to the display produced by the ON VCOV option when the OFF CRT option is set.

10.3.13  Exogenous Variables List (X)

This display lists the variables named in the most  recent  EXOGENOUS  statement
and used in the current TWOSLS.

10.4  Interactive Crosstabs

The XTAB command allows  for  interactive  scrolling  through  the  table  in  a
spreadsheet manner.  In this mode, keys are interpreted as follows:





February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 10 (1)




	       Key      Interpretation
		X       Move down one screen
		S       Move left one screen
		D       Move right one screen
		E       Move up one screen
		Q       Quit the XTAB command


















































4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 11 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 11 -- Simulation

11.1  Introduction

SORITEC allows you to simulate simultaneous systems of equations, either  linear
or  non-linear.   SORITEC  offers  you a choice of either Newton's method or the
Gauss-Seidel algorithm for simulating your  model.   In  this  article  we  will
consider only the latter option.


11.2  Defining the Equations of your Model

The first step in simulating a model is to specify the  equations.   When  using
the  Gauss-Seidel  algorithm the equations must be in normalized form.  That is,
each endogenous variable must appear as the left-hand variable  in  exactly  one
equation.   (Newton's  method  allows  you  to  simulate  models  that  are  not
normalized.)

Let's consider a two-equation model of demand and supply.  We'll need to use  an
EQUATION  command  to  define  a  demand equation and another to define a supply
equation.  Let's suppose that both equations are linear, and are  shifting  over
time.  The following commands could be used to specify our equations:

	EQUATION DEMAND PRICE = a + b*QUANTITY + c*TIME
	EQUATION SUPPLY QUANTITY = d + e*PRICE + f*TIME

Note that PRICE and QUANTITY each appear as a left-hand variable.  Now  we  need
to  tell  SORITEC  that  a,  b,  c, d, e, and f are parameters, and to give them
values.  We use the PARAMETER command as follows:

	PARAMETER a 100 b -4 c .75 d 10 e 3 f 1

(Note that we follow the SORITEC convention of defining as parameters quantities
that  we may wish to estimate in the future.  For the immediate purposes of this
example, we could have defined a, b, c, d, e, and f as constants.)

11.3  Combining the Equations into a Superformula

The next step is to use the SUPERF command to combine the equations of the model
into  a  superformula suitable for simulation by the Gauss-Seidel algorithm.  We
simply specify a name for the superformula and list the equations:

	SUPERF superformula equation1 equation2 ...

In the demand and supply example, the following command would be used to  create
a superformula:

	SUPERF D_AND_S DEMAND SUPPLY

The previous command would combine our  equations  into  a  superformula  called
D_AND_S.   You might think of a superformula as a system of equations.  Once you
have created the superformula, the individual equations are no longer needed for
simulation.




February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 11 (1)



11.4  Simulating a Model Using the Gauss-Seidel Algorithm

Before simulating our model, we need  to  specify  the  period  over  which  the
simulation  is to be performed.  Let's assume that we want to simulate the model
from the first quarter of 1988 through the final quarter of 1989.  Then we would
enter the following command:

	USE 1988Q1 1989Q4

We also have to supply values for the exogenous variables.  In our model we have
only one such variable, namely TIME.  We could supply values as follows:

	SERIES TIME 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Now we are ready to simulate the model.  To do so we use the FORECAST command:

	FORECAST D_AND_S

The general form of the FORECAST command is as follows:

	FORECAST [ ( [TOL=s1] [MAXIT=n1] [MAXPRT=n2] [TAG=name1]
		     [STATIC|DYNAMIC] [NOBASE] ) ] superformula

The modifier TOL specifies the convergence criteria.   Convergence  is  declared
when  the  maximum  absolute  relative  error  is no greater than s1.  {Default:
.0001}

The modifier MAXIT  specifies  the  maximum  number  of  iterations  within  any
simultaneous block.  {Default: 50}

The modifier MAXPRT specifies the maximum number  of  iterations  for  which  to
print  intermediate solution values.  {Default: 0 if the PRINT flag is off, 5 if
the PRINT flag is on}

The TAG modifier specifies a tag to give to all solution values.   For  example,
if you were to specify TAG=ALT, and one of the left-hand variables was GNP, then
the simulated values for GNP would be stored in the variable ALT^GNP.   The  TAG
modifier  therefore  allows you to run several versions of a model and store the
results in different variables.  The default action is to store the  results  in
the variables specified in the equations.

The STATIC modifier instructs SORITEC to perform a  static  simulation,  whereas
the  DYNAMIC  modifier  instructs  SORITEC to perform a dynamic simulation.  The
default is to perform a DYNAMIC simulation.

The NOBASE modifier instructs SORITEC to not use any existing values as starting
values for solutions within simultaneous blocks.  The default is to use all such
values as starting values.









2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 11 (1)



11.5  Putting Add Factors into Equations

SORITEC allows you to specify add factors for your equations.  To do so you  use
the ADDFAC command, whose general form is as follows:

	ADDFAC equation...

ADDFAC inserts an add factor into each equation specified.  The add factor  will
have  the  same  name as the left-hand variable of the equation, prepended by an
ampersand (&).

For example, to put add factors into the equations  of  our  demand  and  supply
model, you would use the following command:

	ADDFAC DEMAND SUPPLY

Since PRICE is the left-hand variable of the equation DEMAND, the add factor for
that  equation would be &PRICE.  And since QUANTITY is the left-hand variable of
the equation SUPPLY, the add factor for that equation would be &QUANTITY.

ADDFAC does not declare or initialize the add factor.  It only  places  the  add
factor  into  the  equation.  Thus an add factor can be any type of item that is
legal in the equation.  To suppress the effect of the add factor, set its  value
or values to zero.

If you place an add factor in an equation that was previously  combined  into  a
superformula,  and  you  then  want  to  simulate  the  model with the new (add-
factored) equation, you must  first  use  the  SUPERF  command  to  re-make  the
superformula.   Remember, the superformula, once created, does not reference the
individual equations.  Thus, changes to the equations are not reflected  in  the
superformula unless the SUPERF command is run again.

11.6  Comparing Scenarios

The TAG modifier of the FORECAST command allows you to run  different  scenarios
of  a model and store the results in different variables.  Once you have done so
you can use the COMPARE command  to  compare  the  various  scenarios  with  the
baseline  values.  For example, we could run the demand and supply example above
with different values for the  parameters,  and  then  compare  the  results  to
historical data.

The general format of the COMPARE command is as follows:

	COMPARE [( [TAG=name] [REVERSE] [DIFF|%CH] )] series...

The modifier TAG compares each series to the  corresponding  series  whose  name
begins  with  the  tag.   For  example,  the  following  command would result in
comparisons between PRICE and BULL^PRICE, and QUANTITY and BULL^QUANTITY:

	COMPARE (TAG=BULL) PRICE QUANTITY

The modifier REVERSE reverses the comparison values from "baseline vs. scenario"
to "scenario vs. baseline".




February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 11 (1)



The DIFF or %CH  options  perform  a  comparison  of  the  first  difference  or
percentage growth between the baseline and simulation values, respectively.























































4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 12 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 12 -- Forecasting with Time Series Techniques

12.1  Introduction

SORITEC provides you with the ability to forecast time series using  Box-Jenkins
techniques.   The  INSPECT  command  will  provide  you  with a correlogram with
autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation information, which will aid  you  in
the identification of an appropriate model.  The MARMA command will allow you to
estimate your model and forecast with it.

12.2  Identification of a Time Series Model

Identification of the lag structure of a time  series  model  is  aided  by  the
INSPECT command, which has the following syntax:

	INSPECT [(YULE)] data numlag [ ndiff [ nseasonal lseasonal ]]

The YULE modifier specifies a Yule-Walker approximation to  partial  correlation
coefficients.   These  are  calculated more rapidly than the exact coefficients,
but are significantly less accurate, particularly in small samples.

The  "numlag"  argument  specifies  the  number   of   lags   over   which   the
autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation coefficients are to be calculated.

The "ndiff" argument is optional and specifies the order of regular differencing
to be applied to the time series before calculation of coefficients.

The  "nseasonal"  and  "lseasonal"  arguments  specify  the  order  of  seasonal
differencing  and season length, respectively.  They are optional, but must both
be specified if they are to be used at all.

Issuing the ON PLOT command before executing INSPECT causes the  correlogram  to
be produced, in addition to a table containing the calculated coefficients.

A detailed discussion of the identification of a time series model is beyond the
scope of this document, but here are a few simple guidelines:

	1) A moving average (MA) process is characterized by a small
	number of significant spikes in the Autocorrelation Function (ACF)
	and a gradual approach to zero by the Partial Autocorrelation
	Function (PACF).  The number of significant spikes provides an
	estimate of the order of the MA process.

	2) An autoregressive (AR) process is characterized by a small
	number of significant spikes in the Partial Autocorrelation
	Function and a gradual approach to zero by the Autocorrelation
	Function.  The number of significant spikes provides an
	estimate of the order of the AR process.

	3) An ambiguous pattern, with significant spikes in both the
	ACF and the PACF, may signify an ARMA or ARIMA process.

For a more detailed discussion of identification of and  forecasting  with  Box-
Jenkins  models,  please  refer  to Business Forecasting by J. Holton Wilson and



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 12 (1)



Barry  Keating  (Richard  D.  Irwin,  Inc.,  1990),  or  Time  Series  Analysis,
Forecasting  and  Control  by  G.  E.  P. Box and Gwilym M. Jenkins (Holden-Day,
1976).

12.3  Estimation and Forecasting of Time Series Models

Estimation and forecasting of a time series model is accomplished by  the  MARMA
command which has the following syntax:

	MARMA ([P=nar] [Q=nma] [D=ndiff] [S=nseas SL=seasl]
	       [F=fper] [ORIGIN] [CENTER]) data

The P modifier specifies the order of the AR process.

The Q modifier specifies the order of the MA process.

The D modifier specifies the order of regular differencing to be applied to  the
time series.

The S and SL modifiers specify the order of seasonal differencing and the season
length, respectively.  They are optional, but must both be specified if they are
to be used at all.

The F modifier specifies the number of periods at the end of your active  period
for  which  to  calculate  forecast values.  If you do not specify extra periods
beyond your sample in the last  USE  command  before  MARMA,  the  final  "fper"
observations will be written over with forecast values.

The ORIGIN modifier specifies suppression of the constant term.

The CENTER modifier removes the mean from the variable "data" before  doing  the
analysis.

The MARMA command places residuals from the estimation in ^RES.  You can  obtain
the  correlogram for the residuals from the INSPECT command, as discussed above.
If the correlogram indicates none of the patterns discussed above, then all that
is  left  in the residuals is white noise, and your model specification explains
the data well.  If there is a noticeable  pattern  in  the  correlogram  of  the
residuals, you should try another model specification (different P, Q, etc.).


















2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 13 (1)



PRIMER -- Chapter 13 -- Forecasting with Smoothing Techniques

13.1  Introduction

SORITEC provides you with facilities to forecast  time  series  using  smoothing
methods.  The MA and CMA commands will calculate the regular and centered moving
averages of a time series, respectively.  The SMOOTH  command  will  forecast  a
time series by exponential smoothing.

13.2  Moving Average of a Time Series

The moving average of a time series can be calculated by the MA  command,  which
has the following syntax:

	MA result data length

The "result" argument specifies the time  series  where  the  calculated  moving
average is placed.

The "data" argument specifies the original time series.

The "length" argument specifies the length of the moving average.

The CMA command has the same syntax, but computes the  centered  moving  average
instead of the regular moving average.

13.3  Exponential Smoothing

Exponential smoothing of a time series is accomplished  by  the  SMOOTH  command
which has the following syntax:

	SMOOTH ( type F=nper [L=seasl] ) result data

The "type" modifier specifies the type of smoothing required.  Valid  types  are
SIMPLE, HOLT, and WINTER.

The F modifier specifies the number of periods after  the  end  of  your  active
period for which to calculate forecast values.

The L modifier specifies the the season length.  This modifier is used only with
WINTER specified as the type of smoothing.

SIMPLE smoothing  does  not  take  trend  or  seasonality  into  account.   This
technique is a one-parameter method that calculates a simple weighted average of
past values, assigning a greater weight to recent values than to older values.

HOLT smoothing takes trend into account, but not seasonality.  This technique is
a  two-parameter method that calculates a weighted trend component of the series
in addition to a simple weighted average of past observations.

WINTER smoothing takes both trend and seasonality into account.  This  technique
is  a  three-parameter  method  that  calculates  a weighted seasonal component,
weighted trend component, and simple weighted average of past observations.




February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 						PRIMER -- Chapter 13 (1)



In all types of exponential smoothing, SORITEC automatically selects the optimal
values  for  all  parameters, allowing you to avoid trial and error in parameter
value selection.






















































2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							        FLAGS(2)



FLAGS -- GLOBAL OPTION SETTINGS

Many SORITEC commands and operations are controlled in part by flags, which  are
global SORITEC option switches.  These flags can be used to increase or decrease
the amount of standard output from a command, reset default options for ways  of
handling data, turn journalling on and off, or otherwise reconfigure the SORITEC
computing environment to suit the user and the task at hand.  The flags can also
be  stored,  retrieved  and  printed.  Flags are primarily manipulated using the
following commands:


ON/OFF -- Change One of the Flags
ON or OFF is used to turn on or off one or more of the flags , or to display the
current settings.

	ON|OFF [flagname...]


RECOVER
RECOVER initializes and names the current value stored under an internal name so
that  it  can  be  preserved  from being overwritten by a new operation.  In the
context of flag manipulation, the internal name  ^FLAGS  can  be  recovered  for
restoration with the FLAGS command:

	RECOVER vector FLAGS

It is often desirable, when writing procedures, to routinely  recover  the  flag
settings  and  the USE period upon entering the procedure, and to reset both the
flags and the USE period upon exiting the procedure.

FLAGS -- Specification of Global Flag Configuration
FLAGS resets an entire flag configuration, which was dumped into a vector by the
use of the RECOVER command:

	FLAGS vector


FLAG CONTROL AND PRINTING
The ON and OFF commands turn flags on and off.   Any  number  of  flags  can  be
turned  on or off with a single command, but there is no way in a single command
to turn some flags on and others off.  Two commands, one ON and one OFF command,
would be needed.

Entering an ON or OFF command without any arguments prints a table  showing  the
current status of the selectable options:

	ON










February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							        FLAGS(2)



Flag settings:

    OFF ALIAS    ON  DIVZERO  ON  HEAD     OFF PRINT    OFF STREAMIO
    OFF ANOVA    OFF DOLLAR   ON  JOURNAL  ON  PROMPT   OFF TOKENS
    OFF AUTOLOG  OFF DYNAMIC  OFF LOG      OFF QUIET    OFF TRAIL
    OFF BETA     OFF ECHO     ON  MISSING  OFF RAGGED   ON  UPRINT
    ON  BREAK    OFF ECS      OFF NOEJECT  OFF RAWEQ    OFF USE
    OFF BRIEF    OFF EXACT    OFF NOERROR  OFF REPLACE  OFF VCOV
    ON  CAUTION  OFF EXPDAMP  ON  NOTE     OFF RESIDUAL
    OFF CCOR     OFF FASTDIF  OFF PATH     OFF REVISE
    OFF CRT      ON  GLOBAL   OFF PERFECT  OFF ROBUSTSE
    OFF DETAIL   OFF GROUP    OFF PLOT     OFF STATS

Every ON or OFF command that changes an option stores an internal vector  called
^FLAGS.   This  vector  contains  enough  information  for  the FLAGS command to
restore the option values to those  in  effect  immediately  after  the  command
executed.   RECOVERed  ^FLAGS  vectors  may  be  stored in SORITEC databanks and
subsequently used to restore the flags environment with the FLAGS command.

The FLAGS command has one argument, the name of a vector containing the  options
settings.   The only way to create an options vector is by RECOVERing the ^FLAGS
vector.

			      CAVEATS:

    The ^FLAGS vector must NOT be changed in any way, or unreliable or
    unpredictable results may occur.   The FLAGS command exists solely
    to restore a previous ON/OFF pattern.

    The ordering and number of the ON/OFF options may change in future
    releases,  so flag vectors stored in databanks may not restore the
    options desired if used by a later release of SORITEC.   Any  flag
    vectors  residing  as vectors on databases should be reconstructed
    and replaced whenever a new SORITEC release is received.

Flag settings:

 FLAG         DEFAULT   FUNCTION WHEN TURNED ON
---------     -------   ------------------------------------------------------
 ALIAS  	OFF     Aliases of names rather than the names themselves
			appear in all output.
 ANOVA  	OFF*    ANOVA table is printed for all regressions in which
			it is calculated.
 AUTOLOG	OFF     This is an experimental flag.  Allows logarithmic
			expressions to be used as a command argument, i.e.
			"REGRESS LN(Y) LN(X)".  This is not a formally
			released facility.
 BETA		OFF*    Beta coefficients, partial r's, and elasticities are
			printed for all regressions in which they are
			calculated.
 BREAK  	ON      Enables keystroke interrupt (usually CTRL-C).
			When ON, eight successive interrupts will terminate
			SORITEC.  This is a system-dependent feature.
			There may be system-specific information regarding



2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							        FLAGS(2)



			this feature in the Section 7 article specific to
			your computer.
 BRIEF  	OFF     Suppresses interactive prompt and other output which
			the user might not want when designing a SORITEC
			job to be run by a non-SORITEC user.
 CAUTION	ON      Print CAUTION level error messages.
 CCOR		OFF*    Correlation matrix of the coefficient are printed for
			all regressions in which it is calculated.  This flag
			also affects the printing of the ^CCORT matrix, which
			is generated by the ANALYZE command.
 CRT		OFF     Causes SORITEC to generate screen-oriented output
			for many commands, and to pause every PAGESIZE lines
			for commands not using screen-oriented output.
			This is a system-dependent feature.  There may
			be system-specific information regarding this feature
			in the Section 7 article specific to your computer.
 DETAIL 	OFF     Causes SORITEC to print details of particular
			calculations, particularly non-linear estimation.
			May cause voluminous output.
 DIVZERO	ON      Not used.
 DOLLAR 	OFF     Dollar signs are interpreted as semicolons.
 DYNAMIC	OFF     Transformations involving lags of the result variable
			are computed dynamically, not statically.
 ECHO		OFF     Echoes each line typed in or read from a file.
 ECS		OFF     Extended Character Set -- allows ASCII characters
			128 to 255 to be entered in a command.  This enables,
			on an IBM PC and some other systems, the "national"
			character sets, including accented characters, umlaut
			characters, and currency symbols, such as the pound
			sterling symbol.
 EXACT  	OFF     Suppresses standardization of validation mode round-
			off treatment (used only by Sorites Group in testing).
 EXPDAMP	OFF     Makes EXP and LOG functions become very, very steep
			outside the "normal" range encountered in well-behaved
			nonlinear problems.  Both functions will then not issue
			error messages, but will generate function values that
			are extreme in value.  The first derivatives of the
			damped functions have the same first derivative as the
			EXP and LOG functions at the tie points, so they are
			well-behaved substitutes for EXP and LOG in many
			nonlinear problems.
 FASTDIF	OFF     Makes DIF files read much more quickly.  However,
			error messages produced by the FASTDIF facility
			are relatively unhelpful in identifying problems.
			Should only be used as part of completely debugged
			processing systems.
 GLOBAL 	ON      Unreleased facility.
 GROUP  	OFF     Groups are expanded, so that a command containing a
			group is interpreted as if the elements of the group,
			not the group name, were all present in the command.
 HEAD		ON      The batch page heading appears in batch jobs.
 JOURNAL	ON      A journal file is produced containing all interactive
			commands entered.
 LOG		OFF     Will write most SORITEC output on an output log file.



February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 							        FLAGS(2)



 MISSING	ON      Missing values are recognized, and various commands
			deal with them by casewise deletion, imputation, or
			error processing, as the case may be.  When this flag
			is OFF, missing values are treated as zero.
 NOEJECT	OFF     Suppresses all page ejects in batch jobs.
 NOERROR	OFF     Kills a SORITEC batch job on any error message.
			Obsolete flag, being replaced by PERFECT.
 NOTE		ON      Print NOTE level error messages.
 PATH		OFF     Cause printing of the iteration log for iterative
			autocorrelation estimators.
 PERFECT	OFF     Kills a SORITEC batch job on any error message.
 PLOT		OFF*    A plot of actual values, fitted values, and residuals
			is produced after every regression, and other plots
			of relevant data is produced after every use of certain
			other commands, such as INSPECT.
 PRINT  	OFF     Data from SAL files is printed as it is read in, and
			many intermediate results from the more complicated
			commands (e.g., FIML, MARMA) are printed during command
			execution.
 QUIET  	OFF     Suppresses much of SORITEC's output.  This flag is
			generally used when the user wishes to take control
			of the output screen for a fourth-generation language
			application.
 PROMPT 	ON      SORITEC prompts for user input in interactive mode.
 RAGGED 	OFF     SORITEC will NOT enforce the usual requirement that
			the number of data values processed by a FILL, READ
			or LOAD command be compatible with the USE period.
			An error message will still be produced if too much
			data is entered, but too little data will result in
			padding with missing values.
 RAWEQ  	OFF     The SORITEC internal result ^RAWEQ, and all necessary
			accompanying parameters, will be produced after each
			regression.  This uses a lot of symbol table space.
 REPLACE	OFF     An attempt to KEEP a variable on a databank which
			already contains a variable with that name will be
			successful, and no error message will be produced.
 RESIDUAL       OFF*    A residual analysis table will be produced after
			each regression.
 REVISE 	OFF     Every command which would ordinarily create a time
			series will be treated as a revision.  This means
			that every time series which would have been created
			by, for instance, a transformation (COMPUTE command)
			must already exist so long as this flag is ON, and
			values of the series outside the current USE interval
			will be preserved, and merged with the new values.
 ROBUSTSE       OFF     Regression standard errors will be computed in
			accordance with a robust technique developed by
			Halbert White.
 STATS  	OFF*    A table showing the mean and standard deviation of
			all independent variables will be produced for each
			linear regression.
 STREAMIO       OFF     During a formatted read in which the number of fields
			in the format being used does not conform to the number
			of variables being read, SORITEC normally will reuse



4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							        FLAGS(2)



			the format from the start for each new observation.
			When this flag is ON, all data for the command will
			be read using the format once, or reusing the format
			according to the way FORTRAN reuses a format when more
			data is read than specified by the number of fields in
			the format statement.
 TOKENS 	OFF     Not used.
 TRAIL  	OFF     Produces a sometimes voluminous trail of internal
			temporary results and debug output.  Much of what
			is produced would only be meaningful to Sorites
			personnel, but it may occasionally be helpful or
			suggestive to the user.
 UPRINT 	ON      Underscores in variable names are printed whenever
			the variable name appears in SORITEC output.
 USE		OFF     The USE period will be printed out whenever it is
			changed.
 VCOV		OFF*    The variance-covariance matrix is printed after each
			regression.  This flag also affects the printing of
			the ^VCOVT matrix, which is generated by the ANALYZE
			command.

* Not relevant when (a) the CRT flag is ON, AND (b) the computer system
supports the tableau form of presentation of results.  See CRT(2).

EXAMPLES AND EXTENDED DISCUSSION

ON/OFF REVISE      [DEFAULT OFF]
When the REVISE flag is turned ON, new  time  series  may  not  be  created  and
attempts  to  assign values to undefined variables with any command whose result
would be a time series will result in an error. With REVISE set  ON,  all  time-
series  assignment  and FILL statements will behave as though they were prefixed
by a REVISE command.

When the REVISE flag is ON ,observations are added to  existing  series  if  the
current  USE  period  is a superset of the USE period under which the symbol was
last defined; if the current USE period is a subset  of  the  USE  period  under
which  the  variable  was created, or if the current USE period does not overlap
the old USE period at all, none of the old values of the series are lost.

ON/OFF REPLACE     [DEFAULT OFF]
When the REPLACE flag is ON, the databanking KEEP command will KEEP items on the
currently  ACCESSed  databank  regardless  of  whether name conflicts occur with
previously stored items.  In other words, KEEP acts like a REPLACE command  when
necessary to do an unconditional KEEP.

ON/OFF DOLLAR      [DEFAULT OFF]
When the DOLLAR  flag  is  turned  ON,  dollar  signs  appearing  in  input  are
interpreted  as  semicolons  (command  separators).   Use of this feature is not
recommended; this flag will be removed in a future release.

ON/OFF JOURNAL     [DEFAULT ON]
When SORITEC is executing in interactive mode, each command entered by the  user
from  the  keyboard is written to a journal file, provided that the JOURNAL flag
is ON (which is the default).  When an interactive session is finished, it is  a



February 1, 1990						               5




SORITEC 							        FLAGS(2)



simple matter to re-create the session or extract a portion  of  the  journalled
commands for later re-use by editing the journal file.

Since user discretion in controlling the journal file is contrary to  the  whole
journal file philosophy, using the ON/OFF JOURNAL command is not recommended.

A new journal file is written each time SORITEC is  executed  with  the  JOURNAL
flag  ON.   On some systems, such as the IBM PC, the journal file always has the
same name (in this case, SORITEC.JNL), and thus each  session  of  SORITEC  that
uses  journalling  will  overwrite the previous session's journal file.  On most
UNIX systems, the file name used for each journal is constructed from either the
system  time  and  date  or  the  process  identifier  for  SORITEC.   It is not
guaranteed to be unique, but it is likely that overwrites  of  the  old  journal
will  be rare. This does mean, however, that one must occasionally clean out the
accumulated old journal files, usually with the command "rm *.jnl".

ON/OFF ALIAS       [DEFAULT OFF]
SORITEC can show either the actual or formal parameter name of items  passed  to
procedures.  This is controlled by the ALIAS flag.

The ALIAS option controls the printing of variable names in output  produced  by
commands  invoked  from  within  a PROCEDURE.  When ALIAS is OFF, arguments to a
PROCEDURE are shown with the name of the formal parameter used in the procedure,
i.e. with exactly the same name as the dummy variable in the PROCEDURE statement
defining the subroutine.  When ALIAS is ON, variables are shown bearing the name
used in the CALL statement that invoked the procedure.

Parameter passing in most languages transmits only values  to  formal  procedure
arguments.   SORITEC  also  passes  the  symbolic  identity of the actual passed
parameters as well.  This facility is called aliasing.

Example:
	PROCEDURE SIMPLE(X)
	PRINT X
	END SIMPLE
	PARAMETER A 3.0
	OFF ALIAS ; CALL SIMPLE(A)
	ON ALIAS ; CALL SIMPLE(A)

Parameter X = 3.000000

Parameter A = 3.000000

NOTE: It is anticipated that the default ALIAS setting will be changed to ON  at
a later release.


ON/OFF CRT         [DEFAULT OFF]
The ON CRT command is used with the PAGESIZE command to control  output  to  the
CRT  terminal.   When  the CRT option is ON, SORITEC will print only PAGESIZE or
fewer lines of information before pausing.  Entering a carriage  return  resumes
output.

Many SORITEC commands will produce screen-oriented output when the CRT  flag  is



6								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							        FLAGS(2)



ON.  For instance, most of the linear regression variations,  such  as  REGRESS,
TWOSTAGE,  HILU,  CORC,  and  so  on, will produce information on the regression
being performed in sections that  will  fit  on  a  CRT  screen.   Using  single
keystrokes,  the user may page back and forth among the various reports, such as
the estimated coefficients, the ANOVA  table,  residual  plots,  and  so  forth,
without any re-calculation of those results being done.

SEE ALSO
CRT(2), FLAGS(3), ON(3)
















































February 1, 1990						               7




SORITEC 							      RECOVER(2)



RECOVER -- Recoverable Results
Many SORITEC commands not only print results, but store those results, and other
secondary  results that are normally not printed, under "internal names".  These
internal names start with a caret (^), and you generally  do  not  change  them.
For  example,  the  coefficients from an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression
are automatically stored  under  the  name  "^COEF",  so  that  you  may  easily
reference the coefficients without having to type them back into SORITEC.

RECOVER(3) may be used to change the internal names to  a  legal  SORITEC  name.
However,  in  most  instances,  the internal name may simply be used directly in
SORITEC commands.  For instance, the fitted values from an  OLS  regression  can
recalled by referencing ^YFIT.  For example:

	  resid = y - ^yfit

will calculate the residuals for an estimated equation.  Note that it  is  still
necessary  to  use the RECOVER command to reassign the names of non-mathematical
items, such as equations and groups.  Internal variables may not be saved  on  a
databank without being assigned a new name, e.g. KEEP ^YFIT will fail.

Results stored under an internal name need not be  recovered  immediately  since
all such results remain available until a later command overwrites the values by
using the same internal name.

These are the internal names which are created by SORITEC:

INTERNAL   CREATED   ITEM DIMENSIONS
 RESULT      BY      TYPE OR  LENGTH DESCRIPTION
--------   -------   ---- ---------- --------------------------------------
^A         SCURV      C 	     Intercept term of linearized model
	   EXGRO
^ACOR      INSPECT    V   **         Autocorrelation coefficients
^ACORSE    INSPECT    V   **         Standard error of autocorrelation
					  coefficients
^ACOV      INSPECT    V   **         Autocovariance coefficients
^AKAIKE    (1-3)      C 	     Akaike information criterion
^AUTOCOR   (1-3)      V   24         First 24 autocorrelation coefficients
					  for residual series
^B         SCURV      C 	     Slope term of linearized model
	   EXGRO
^BPQ       (1-3)      V   24         First 24 Box-Pierce Q statistics for
					  residual series
^CCOR      PROBIT     P   (^NV,^NV)  Correlation matrix of coefficient
	   (1-6)
^CCORT     ANALYZE    M   (^NV,^NV)  Correlation matrix of transformed
					  coefficients
^COEF      (1-6)      V   ^NV        Estimated coefficients
	   MARMA3
	   MINIMAX
	   PROBIT
	   ACTFIT
^CONST      *(a)      T 	     Time series predefined to 1.0
^COR       CORREL     M   (^NARGS,   Correlation matrix
			   ^NARGS)



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							      RECOVER(2)



INTERNAL   CREATED   ITEM DIMENSIONS
 RESULT      BY      TYPE OR  LENGTH DESCRIPTION
--------   --------  ---- ---------- --------------------------------------

^COUNTS    TTEST      V   ^NV        Number of non-missing observations
	   SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV		  in each variable
^COV       COVA       M   (^NARGS,   Covariance matrix
	   CORREL          ^NARGS)
^COVTR     MVR        P   (^NEQ,     Covariance matrix of transformed
	   THREESLS        ^NEQ)     residuals
^COVUTR    MVR        P   (^NEQ,     Covariance matrix of untransformed
	   THREESLS        ^NEQ)     residuals
^CV        SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Coefficient of variation of each variable
^DATE       *(b)      S 	     Today's date
^DECILE    SYNOPSIS   V   10         Derived decile points
^DEP       (1-5)      G   1          Name of dependent variable
	   RIDGE
	   PROBIT
^DEVS      (1-)       V   ^NARGS     Standard deviation of each variable
	   CORREL
	   STATS
	   SYNOPSIS
	   TTEST
^DF1,^DF2, DISCRIM    E 	     Equations that represent the various
  ^DF3, etc.			     discriminant functions
^DLEST     MARMA      V 	     SGI internal use
^DURBINH   (1-3)      C 	     Durbin's H statistic
^DW        (1-6)      C 	     Durbin-Watson statistic
^DW12      (1-3)      C 	     Durbin-Watson statistic, order 4
^DW4       (1-3)      C 	     Durbin-Watson statistic, order 12
^ENDOG     ENDOGENOUS G 	     Current endogenous variable list
^EQORD     BUILD      G 	     Optimal equation block ordering
					for Gauss-Seidel solution
^ERRNO      *(c)      C 	     Error number last encountered
^EXOG      EXOGENOUS  G 	     Current exogenous variable list
^FACTOR    ADJUST     T 	     Seasonal factor series
^FINFUNC   MARMA      T 	     Final white noise function values
					  in transformed model
^FINFUNC   DISCRIM    M   (^OBS,     Matrix that contains for each
			   #classes) observation the values of all of
				     the discriminant functions
^FLAGS     ON         V   n/a        Vector to use in restoring flag settings
	   OFF
^FOREQ     (1-5)      E 	     Forecasting equation
	   MINIMAX
^FRAG      DBGROUP    n/a **         Largest possible subset storable
^FSTAT     (1-3,6)    C 	     F-statistic for estimation
^GAPS      USE        C 	     Number of gaps in USE period
	   USEADD
	   USEALL
	   USEIF
^I         AMORT      T 	     Interest series for RULEOF78 method
^IFCONV    CORC       C 	     1 if last CORC-class command converged,
	   TSCORC			  else 0



2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							      RECOVER(2)



INTERNAL   CREATED   ITEM DIMENSIONS
 RESULT      BY      TYPE OR  LENGTH DESCRIPTION
--------   --------  ---- ---------- --------------------------------------

	   CORC2
	   TSCORC2
	   ARC
^INFAR     MARMA      V   **         SGI internal use
^INFMA     MARMA      V   **         SGI internal use
^ITERS     (2,3,6     C 	     Number of iterations used
	    except
	    FIML)
^KENDALL   NCOR       M   (^NV,^NV)  Kendall correlation coefficients
^KURT      (1-3)      C 	     Kurtosis of residuals
^KURT      SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Kurtosis of each variable
^LAGCOi    (4)        V   ^NDEG(i)+1 Lag coefficients on the i'th distributed
					  lag structure
^LAGSEi    (4)        V   ^NDEG(i)+1 Standard errors of lag coefficients
					  stored in ^LAGCOi
^LAGSUMi   (4)        C 	     Sum of lag coefficients for i'th
					  distributed lag variable
^LENGTH    INPUT      C 	     Length of item read in
^LOGDET    MCOMPUTE   C 	     Natural log of determinant
	   MINV
^LOGLIK    (1-6)      C 	     Log-likelihood function
	   PROBIT
^MAPE      SMOOTH     C 	     Mean absolute percentage error
	   TREND			of forecasted values
	   SCURVE
^MAX       SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Maximum of each variable
^MAX       DISCRIM    T 	     Maximum of the values of the
					  discriminant functions
^MAXSDB     *(a)      C 	     Maximum number of databanks that
					can be active during run
^MEANABS   (1-3)      C 	     Mean absolute error
	   ACTFIT
^MEANERR   ACTFIT     C 	     Mean error
^MEANS     (1-3)      V   ^NV        Mean of each independent variable
^MEANS     SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Mean of each variable
	   TTEST
^MEANS     CORREL     V   ^NARGS     Mean of each variable
	   STATS
^MEANSE    TTEST      V   ^NV        Standard error of the mean for
					  each variable
^MEDIAN    SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Median of each variable
^MIN       SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Minimum of each variable
^MINMAX    MINIMAX    C 	     Maximum absolute error achieved
^MLAGi     (4)        C 	     Mean lag for i'th distributed lag variable
^MODE      SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Mode of each variable
^NAMES     (1-3,5,6)  G 	     Independent variable names
	   RIDGE
	   PROBIT
^NARGS     GROUP      C 	     Number of arguments in command
	   COVA



February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 							      RECOVER(2)



INTERNAL   CREATED   ITEM DIMENSIONS
 RESULT      BY      TYPE OR  LENGTH DESCRIPTION
--------   --------  ---- ---------- --------------------------------------

	   CORREL
	   STATS
	   INPUT
^NCOL      XTAB       C 	     Number of columns in crosstabs table
^NDEG      (4)        V   **         Degree of i'th distributed lag variable,
					  reduced if necessary for calculability
^NEQ       MVR        C 	     Number of equations estimated
	   THREESLS
^NET       CAPITAL    T 	     Net investment series
^NGAPS     (4,5)      C 	     Value of ^GAPS at time of last command
				     which stores this internal result
^NOBS      (1-6)      C 	     Number of observations actually used
	   RANK 			  by analysis command
	   ACTFIT
	   CORREL
	   COVA
^NPER      (4)        V   **         Number of periods for i'th distributed
					  lag variable
^NROW      XTAB       C 	     Number of rows in crosstabs table
^NV        (1-3,5)    C 	     Number of variables used in command
	   SYNOPSIS
	   TTEST
^NV        (4,6)      C 	     Number of coefficients actually estimated
^OBS       USE        C 	     Number of observations in USE period
	   USEADD
	   USEALL
	   USEIF
^ORIGIN     *(d)      C 	     1.0 if ORIGIN modifier present in last
					  command which could have had one,
					  else 0.0
^P         AMORT      T 	     Payment series for RULEOF78 method
^P         DISCRIM    T 	     Estimated probability of being in
					  the class predicted by ^PRED
^PACOR     INSPECT    V   **         Partial autocorrelation coefficients
^PACORSE   INSPECT    V   **         Standard errors of partial autocorrelation
					  coefficients
^PERYR     USE        C 	     Number of time periods per year under the
	   USEALL			  current USE period
^PRED      DISCRIM    T 	     Predicted classes (class
					  corresponding to the maximum
					  value of any discriminant
					  function)
^PV        IRR        C 	     Present value
^QUARTIL   SYNOPSIS   V   4          Derived quartile points
^R2ADJC    (2,3)      C 	     R-squared from differenced model
^RAWEQ     (1-5)(f)   E 	     Raw forecasting equation
	   MINIMAX
^REGSE     (4-6)      C 	     Standard error of regression (see ^SEE)
^REP       CAPITAL    T 	     Net replacement series
^RES       MARMA      T 	     Residual series



4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							      RECOVER(2)



INTERNAL   CREATED   ITEM DIMENSIONS
 RESULT      BY      TYPE OR  LENGTH DESCRIPTION
--------   --------  ---- ---------- --------------------------------------

^RESID     (1-3)      T 	     Estimated residual series
^REVERR    REVISE     T 	     Values that you attempted to REVISE
					  into a non-existent variable
^RHO       (2)        C 	     First-order autocorrelation coefficient
	   ACTFIT
^RHO       (3)        V   2          First-order and second-order
					  autocorrelation coefficients
^RHO1      (3)        C 	     First order autocorrelation
					coefficient
^RHO2      (3)        C 	     Second order autocorrelation
					coefficient
^RHOSE     (2)        C 	     Standard error of ^RHO (first-order only)
^RMEANS    (1-4)      V   ^NV        Means of independent variables
	   FASTREG
	   FAST2SLS
^RMSERR    (1-3)      C 	     Root mean squared error between actual
	   ACTFIT			  and fitted values
^RSQ       (1-6)      C 	     R-squared
^RSQADJ    (1-6)      C 	     R-squared adjusted for degrees of freedom
^SCHWARZ   (1-3)      C 	     Schwarz information criterion
^SE        (1-6)      V   ^NV        Standard errors of estimated coefficients
	   MARMA
^SEE       (1-3)      C 	     Standard error of estimate (see ^REGSE)
^SEED       *(e)      C 	     Random number generator seed
^SIGNDET   MCOMPUTE   C 	     Sign of determinant of last matrix
	   MINV 			  inverted
^SKEW      (1-3)      C 	     Skewness of residuals
^SKEW      SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Skewness of each variable
^SPEARMAN  NCOR       M   (^NV,^NV)  Spearman correlation coefficients
^SSR       (1-6)      C 	     Sum of squared residuals
^SUM       SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Sum of each variable
^SUMR      (1-6)      C 	     Sum of residuals
^SYSERR    SYSTEM     C 	     System error code (machine-dependent)
^THEILU    ACTFIT     C 	     Theil U statistic
^TIME       *(b)      S 	     Time of day
^TYPE      INPUT      C 	     Type code of item read in
^USE       USE        V   2*^GAPS+2  Current use specification
	   USEADD
	   USEALL
	   USEIF
^VALIMAG   EIGEN      V 	     Imaginary portion of eigenvalues
^VALREAL   EIGEN      V 	     Real portion of eigenvalues
^VAR       SYNOPSIS   V   ^NV        Variance of each variable
^VCOV      (1-6)      P   (^NV,^NV)  Variance-covariance matrix of coefficient
	   PROBIT
^VCOVT     ANALYZE    M   (^NV,^NV)  Variance-covariance matrix of
					  transformed coefficients
^VECIMAG   EIGEN      P 	     Imaginary portion of eigenvectors
^VECREAL   EIGEN      P 	     Real portion of eigenvectors
^WGT       MVR        P   (^NEQ,     Weighting matrix



February 1, 1990						               5




SORITEC 							      RECOVER(2)



INTERNAL   CREATED   ITEM DIMENSIONS
 RESULT      BY      TYPE OR  LENGTH DESCRIPTION
--------   --------  ---- ---------- --------------------------------------

	   THREESLS        ^NEQ)
^XCOR      CROSSCOR   V   **         Vector of cross-correlations
^XTABLE    XTAB       M   (^NROW,    Cross-tabulation matrix, containing
			   ^NCOL)         cell counts
^YFIT      (1-6)      T 	     Fitted values
^YMEAN     (1-6)      C 	     Mean of dependent variable
^YVAR      (1-3)      C 	     Variance of dependent variable
^ZVALUE    PROBIT     T 	     Fitted Z-values

* Indicates an internal result for which one of the following applies:
  (a) predefined by SORITEC
  (b) updated every time it is referenced
  (c) affected by most or all commands
  (d) stored according to syntactic considerations rather than command name
  (e) changed every time any command causes a random number to be generated
  (f) only stored if RAWEQ flag is ON

** Indicates that the length of an item is dependent on an argument or the
number of arguments you supplied in the command which created the item.

Classes of commands:
(1)  Linear REGRESS and TWOSLS
(2)  CORC, HILU, TSCORC, TSHILU, ARC, ARH
(3)  CORC2, HILU2, TSCORC2, TSHILU2
(4)  ALMON, ALMONC, ALMONH
(5)  FASTREG, FAST2SLS, GLS, MIXED, RLS, SHILLER
(6)  MVR, THREESLS, FIML, nonlinear REGRESS and TWOSLS

Variable types:
C -- Constant
E -- Equation
G -- Group
M -- Matrix
P -- Pseudo-matrix
S -- String
T -- Time series
V -- Vector
















6								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							        BUILD(3)



BUILD -- Build a SORITEC Simulation Model

DESCRIPTION
BUILD links all the necessary elements together into a  model  for  use  by  the
SIMULATE  command.   In  essence, BUILD constructs a "road map" that directs the
simulation routine to the variables,  parameters,  and  equations  necessary  to
simulate the model.

SYNTAX
	BUILD eqs vars mdl [density]

ARGUMENT TYPES
	ARGUMENT	TYPE		I/O     DESCRIPTION
	eqs		group		 I      group of equations
	vars		group		 I      group of endogenous variables
	mdl		model		 O      model being built
	density 	scalar  		density

DISCUSSION
The first two arguments are SORITEC groups containing  lists  of  the  equations
and  identities  in  the  model  and the list of the endogenous variables in the
model, respectively.  These  two  groups  should  contain  the  same  number  of
elements, i.e. there must be as many equations as unknowns.

This version of SORITEC requires that the model be  normalized,  that  is,  that
each  equation  have a different left-hand variable.  Also, although SORITEC can
accept equation definitions in implicit form for use, for example, in  the  FIML
command, the simulation facility cannot handle such equations.

The third argument is the name to be given to the model.  Models can be saved on
a  databank by KEEPing the model name.  If a model is kept in this fashion, then
all the component equations, and all SORITEC  variables  which  appear  in  them
(time series, constants, and parameters) must also be kept.

The "density" argument needs to be specified only when an "insufficient  memory"
message  is  generated during the BUILD command.  The density must be set higher
than the density of the linkage matrix, which SORITEC prints  out  before  doing
its  internal  memory  calculations.  (If this item is not printed out, then the
use of the density argument will not correct the problem.)  Generally,  rounding
up  to  the next integer will suffice.  A discussion of the linkage matrix is in
section 5.

ALGORITHM USED
Stewart's algorithm is used to order the model equations  into  separate  blocks
for solution.

LIMITATIONS
The current algorithm does not optimally order equations within  a  simultaneous
block,  but  rather  leaves  the  equations in each block in the order that they
appear in the equations group.  Judicious work by the user  to  order  logically
related  equations  in  such  a  way  that  each variable is computed as soon as
possible after other variables upon which depends  will  greatly  improve  model
performance.   This applies only to simultaneous blocks, as recursive blocks are
optimized by the current procedure.



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							        BUILD(3)



NOTES
The syntax of this command does not follow the usual convention  of  the  result
being the first argument.

EXAMPLES
	EQUATION EQ1 A=X1+X2*B+X3*C
	EQUATION EQ2 D=Y1+Y2*D+Y3*E
	GROUP G1 EQ1 EQ2
	GROUP G2 A D
	BUILD G1 G2 SIMPLE_MODEL

Linkage Statistics
     2 Equations
     3 Endogenous Linkages
Density of Linkage Matrix is       1.50


    Equations will be solved in the following order:

       Equation 	     Associated Variable

   1    1 EQ1			  1 A
   2    2 EQ2			  2 D


	     Recursive block    1 contains    2 equations.

SEE ALSO
SIMULATE(3), SOLVE(3), ADDFAC(3), SIMULATION(6)




























2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							      COMPUTE(3)



COMPUTE -- Transformations of Time Series Data

DESCRIPTION
COMPUTE is used to evaluate one or more expressions involving time  series.   It
is the time series analogue of the MCOMPUTE and SET commands.

SYNTAX
	Single equation form:
	[ COMPUTE ] formula|equation|identity

	Multiple equation simulation form:
	[ COMPUTE ( [TOL=s1] [MAXIT=n1] [MAXPRT=n2] [TAG=name1]
		    [STATIC|DYNAMIC] [NOBASE] ) ] superformula

MODIFIERS
Modifiers are used in the multiple equation simulation form only.

TOL=s1  	:  Convergence criterion for simultaneous equation
		   blocks.  This is a maximum absolute relative error
		   criterion.  {Default:  .0001}
MAXIT=n1	:  Maximum number of iterations within any single
		   simultaneous block.  {Default:  50}
MAXPRT=n2       :  Maximum number of iterations to print intermediate
		   solution values.  {Default:  0 if PRINT flag is OFF;
		   5 if PRINT flag is ON}
TAG=name1       :  Tag to give to all solution values.  For instance,
		   if TAG is FITTED, and one of the variables to be
		   solved for is GNP, the solution values for that
		   variable will be stored in FITTED^GNP.  {Default:
		   null, i.e. solutions are stored in the variables
		   used in the equations, wiping out any values already
		   there.}
STATIC  	:  Perform a static simulation.  {Default:  not selected.}
DYNAMIC 	:  Perform a dynamic simulation.  {Default:  selected.}
NOBASE  	:  Do not use any existing variable values as starting
		   values for solutions within simultaneous blocks.
		   {Default:  not selected, i.e. values already existing
		   in the variables are used as starting values.}

DISCUSSION
In single equation usage: The COMPUTE keyword is almost always omitted.  It need
not  appear  if  the formula, equation, or identity contains at least one right-
hand side operand that has been previously defined as a time series.

In multiple equation usage (superformula simulation): The COMPUTE  command  name
is usually omitted whenever modifiers are not needed.

In all usages: The COMPUTE  command  takes  one  argument,  either  an  explicit
formula, or an equation, identity, or superformula.  For example, the statement:

	X=Y/T

Could also be expressed as:




February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							      COMPUTE(3)



	EQUATION DIVIDE X=Y/T
	DIVIDE
		-or-
	EQUATION DIVIDE X=Y/T
	COMPUTE DIVIDE

The elementary math operations, "+", "-", "*", and "/", are defined in a  manner
consistent  with  intuitive  notions of time series manipulation.  For each time
period in the current USE period, the transformation is carried  out  using  the
values  of  the  right-hand  variables  in  that  time  period  (unless a lag is
specified explicitly in the formula, equation, identity, or superformula).   The
result  in  each  period  is then stored in the corresponding observation of the
left-hand variable(s) for that period.

Scalars and single vector elements are allowed in time series  expressions,  but
vectors  are not.  Scalars are treated as time series for which each observation
has the value indicated by the scalar.

Let "x" and "y" be time series or scalars, and "n" be a pos_integer.   Then  the
available time series operations are:

x+y         : addition of "x" and "y".
x-y         : subtraction of "y" from "x".
x*y         : multiplication of "x" by "y".
x/y         : division of "x" by "y".
x**y        : raising of "x" to the "y" power.
-x          : negate "x".
x.EQ.y      : one if "x" equals "y", zero otherwise.
x.NE.y      : one if "x" does not equal "y", zero otherwise.
x.LT.y      : one if "x" is less than "y", zero otherwise.
x.LE.y      : one if "x" is less than or equal to "y", zero otherwise.
x.GT.y      : one if "x" is more than "y", zero otherwise.
x.GE.y      : one if "x" is more than or equal to "y", zero otherwise.
x.OR.y      : one if "x" or "y" is one, zero otherwise.
x.AND.y     : one if "x" and "y" are one, zero otherwise.
ABS(x)      : absolute value of "x".
EXP(x)      : exponential of "x".
LOG(x)      : natural log of "x".
SIN(x)      : sine of "x".
COS(x)      : cosine of "x".
TAN(x)      : tangent of "x".
ASIN(x)     : arc sine of "x".
ACOS(x)     : arc cosine of "x".
ATAN(x)     : arc tangent of "x".
ATAN2(x,y)  : arc tangent of "x" divided by "y", where some values of
		"y" can be very small or zero.
SINH(x)     : hyperbolic sine of "x".
COSH(x)     : hyperbolic cosine of "x".
TANH(x)     : hyperbolic tangent of "x".
ACOSH(x)    : arc hyperbolic cosine of "x".
ASINH(x)    : arc hyperbolic sine of "x".
ATANH(x)    : arc hyperbolic tangent of "x".
CEILING(x)  : rounds "x" to the next higher integer.
FLOOR(x)    : rounds "x" to the next lower integer.



2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							      COMPUTE(3)



LEGAL(x)    : zero if "x" is missing, one otherwise.
LOG10(x)    : logarithm base 10 of "x".
RANDOM(x)   : uniform random number generator, distributed [0,"x")
ROUND(x)    : rounds "x" to the nearest integer.
SIGN(x)     : -1 if "x" is negative; 1, if positive; 0, if zero.
SQRT(x)     : square root of "x".
TRUNC(x)    : truncates fractional part of "x".

EXAMPLES
	! This example illustrates the single-equation form of
	! the COMPUTE command, and omits the COMPUTE command name,
	! which is normal SORITEC programming practice.  For an
	! example of superformula simulation using the COMPUTE
	! command, see SUPERF(3).

	USE 1 5
	SERIES Y 3 5 4 4 5
	TIME T
	X=ABS(Y**2-24)/T
	P X

			X
		 ................
     1  	 .    15.0000
     2  	 .   0.500000
     3  	 .    2.66667
     4  	 .    2.00000
     5  	 .   0.200000

SEE ALSO
EXPRESSIONS(2), TRANSFORMATIONS(2)
FORECAST(3), MCOMPUTE(3), REVISE(3), SET(3), SUPERF(3)
Section 4
























February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 							     FORECAST(3)



FORECAST -- Basic Forecasting Command

DESCRIPTION
FORECAST takes one or more equations that have either been pre-specified or have
been  estimated  and  recovered,  and  computes  the  values  of  the  left-hand
variable(s) over the current USE period.

SYNTAX
	Single-equation form:
	FORECAST [ ( TAG=name1 ) ] equation|identity

	Multiple-equation simulation form:
	FORECAST [ ( [TOL=s1] [MAXIT=n1] [MAXPRT=n2] [TAG=name1]
		     [STATIC|DYNAMIC] [NOBASE] ) ] superformula

MODIFIERS
Single-equation form:
TAG=name1       :  Tag to give to the computed values.  For instance,
		   if TAG is FITTED, but the name of the left-hand
		   variable in the equation or identity is GNP, then
		   the computed values will be stored in FITTED, not
		   in GNP.  {Default: null, i.e. computed values are
		   stored in the variable whose name appears on the
		   left-hand side of the equation or identity, wiping
		   out any values already there.}

Multiple-equation simulation form:
TOL=s1  	:  Convergence criterion for simultaneous equation
		   blocks.  This is a maximum absolute relative error
		   criterion.  {Default:  .0001}
MAXIT=n1	:  Maximum number of iterations within any single
		   simultaneous block.  {Default:  50}
MAXPRT=n2       :  Maximum number of iterations to print intermediate
		   solution values.  {Default:  0 if PRINT flag is OFF;
		   5 if PRINT flag is ON}
TAG=name1       :  Tag to give to all solution values.  For instance,
		   if TAG is FITTED, and one of the variables to be
		   solved for is GNP, the solution values for that
		   variable will be stored in FITTED^GNP.  {Default:
		   null, i.e. solutions are stored in the variables
		   used in the equations, wiping out any values already
		   there.}
STATIC  	:  Perform a static simulation.  {Default:  not selected.}
DYNAMIC 	:  Perform a dynamic simulation.  {Default:  selected.}
NOBASE  	:  Do not use any existing variable values as starting
		   values for solutions within simultaneous blocks.
		   {Default:  not selected, i.e. values already existing
		   in the variables are used as starting values.}









February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							     FORECAST(3)




DISCUSSION
FORECAST acts like a COMPUTE command for the equation, identity or  superformula
specified.  It  will  produce  values  for  the  dependent variable(s) that will
overwrite or be spliced onto the existing series, depending on the USE period in
force.   The  REVISE flag does not have to be on for the splicing to occur.  For
equations with lagged values, these must exist outside the USE period, which  is
not shortened as with CORC to ensure that values are available.

In single equation usage:
FORECAST performs a static computation (i.e. all the independent variables
must exist throughout the required period) unless the DYNAMIC flag is ON.

EXAMPLES
	! This example illustrates the single equation form of the
	! FORECAST command.  For an example of superformula simulation
	! using the FORECAST command, see SUPERF(3).

	SERIES X 2 4 6 8
	SERIES Y 1 2 3 4
	USE 2 4
	EQUATION EQ Y = 10 + 5*X**2
	FORECAST EQ
	FORECAST Y2 = X+17
	USE 1 4
	PRINT Y Y2

			Y              Y2
		 ...............................
     1  	 .    1.00000        MISSING
     2  	 .    90.0000        21.0000
     3  	 .    190.000        23.0000
     4  	 .    330.000        25.0000

SEE ALSO
SIMULATE(3), COMPUTE(3)





















2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							        MARMA(3)



MARMA -- Rational Distributed Lag Estimation

DESCRIPTION
MARMA performs nonlinear estimation of a variety of dynamic time series  models.
Most common time series models can be handled by using a subset of the extensive
modifiers to the MARMA command.

SYNTAX
	MARMA ( [P=num1] [Q=num2] [S=num3 SL=num4] [D=vect1] [F=num5]
		[ORIGIN] [CENTER] [NDEG=vect2] [DDEG=vect3] [CRF]
		[LINFORM] [INITIAL=vect4] [MISSLAG=vect5]
		[MAXIT=num6] [TOLB=num7] [TOL=num8]
		[EZERO] [EVEC=vect6] [ZERO] [HOLDOUT=num9] ) depvar [indvar...]

ARGUMENT TYPES
	ARGUMENT	TYPE		I/O     DESCRIPTION
	depvar  	series  	 I      dependent variable
	indvar  	series  	 I      independent variable

MODIFIERS
Model specification modifiers:

P=num1  	  : number of terms in AR lag structure.
Q=num2  	  : number of terms in MA lag structure.
S=num3  	  : order of seasonal differencing.
SL=num4 	  : seasonal length - used with S above.
F=num5  	  : number of forecast periods included at the end of the
		    current USE period.  For examples, if the USE period is
		    1970Q1 to 1990Q4, and F=8, then forecasts are produced
		    for 1989Q1 to 1990Q4.  MARMA will overwrite the dependent
		    variable with the forecast values in these periods.
D=vect1 	  : order of differencing to be applied to dependent and
		    independent variables.  The differencing order for the
		    variables must be the same in this vector as in the
		    arguments list.  For an ARIMA model (i.e. no independent
		    variables), supply a simple integer or a constant containing
		    an integer.
NDEG=vect2        : number of terms in the numerators of linear filters
		    to be applied to the independent variables.  Do not confuse
		    this with the order of the numerator polynomials.  In
		    general, the number of terms is one greater than the order
		    of the polynomial, due to the appearance of the parameter
		    representing the coefficient of the unlagged variable (but
		    see MISSLAG).
DDEG=vect3        : number of terms in the denominators of linear filters to be
		    applied to the independent variables.  In general, the order
		    and number of terms in the denominator of each filter are
		    the same, since the implied zero-order parameter is
		    identical to one (but see MISSLAG).
ORIGIN  	  : suppress the constant term.  In contrast to regression
		    techniques, this is often appropriate for MARMA models.
MISSLAG=vect5     : includes only specified lags in the structure of some of
		    the lag polynomials.  See BOXJENKINS(6).
CENTER  	  : centers each variable around a mean of zero, generally



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							        MARMA(3)



		    making the inclusion of a constant term unnecessary.

Estimation initialization modifiers:

MARMA models are very sensitive to starting values.  Final specifications should
be estimated with different initializations, and solutions should be examined
for stability.

INITIAL=vect4     : initial parameter estimates for the non-linear optimization
		    process.  For the order in which these initial estimates
		    are presented, see BOXJENKINS(6).
EZERO		  : all starting values for the disturbance series before the
		    sample period are set to zero.
EVEC=vect6        : provides a set of starting values for the disturbance
		    series before the sample period.
ZERO		  : if specified, all values of the independent variables before
		    the sample period are considered to be zero.
HOLDOUT=num9      : The USE period is effectively shortened by this value on
		    the "front" end.  This allows the actual values of the
		    independent variables to be used to initialize the
		    estimation process.

Estimation technique modifiers:

CRF		  : if specified, common rational coefficients are assumed.
		    All denominator polynomials are constrained to be the same
		    for all dependent variables.
LINFORM 	  : if specified, the linearized form rather than the rational
		    lag form is estimated.  This modifier is not recommended
		    unless the user is thoroughly familiar with the technique.
		    SHILLER and ALMON are preferable.

Iteration control modifiers:

MAXIT=num6        : maximum permitted number of iterations (default 20)
TOLB=num7         : convergence criteria (default .0001)
TOL=num8	  : convergence criteria (default .0001)

DISCUSSION
SORITEC uses the conventions established by Box and Jenkins for assigning  signs
to the various parameters in the model.  The user should be aware that the signs
of the coefficients may thus differ from the traditional regression conventions.
Familiarity with the Box and Jenkins notation is assumed.

This command covers a family of techniques rather than a single one.  For a full
discussion, see BOXJENKINS(6).

ARMA and ARIMA models may be specified within MARMA, and this is to be preferred
due  to  the  greater  degree  of  control  that  is possible.  At this release,
forecasting is not available with ARIMA(3).

ALGORITHM USED
The minimization technique used is a modified Marquardt search routine.




2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							        MARMA(3)



EXAMPLES
	!
	! This is the gas furnace example from Box and Jenkins (BJ).
	! The entire data series is not used, since SORITEC is implemented
	! on some systems which cannot run the full example as presented
	! by BJ.  The truncated estimation is provided to give an example
	! which will run identically (and successfully) on all machines.
	! Therefore, the coefficients arrived at here will not match the
	! BJ results.
	!
	USE 4 120
	ACCESS 'bj'

*** File opened  ( 2): bj.sdb

	VECTOR INIT .1 .1 .1 -.1 -.1 .1 .1
	MARMA (ORIGIN CENTER INITIAL=INIT NDEG=3 DDEG=2 P=2) JY JX(-3)

	 Multivariate ARMA Estimation
	 ----------------------------

Using        4   -   120

	    1 Independent Variables
	    2-Term Autoregressive Process
	      Data Centering Selected
	      Number of Terms in   1 Numerators
		     3
	      Number of Terms in   1 Denominators
	      (of which   1 are of nonzero length)
	      Orders are
		     2
	      Constant Term Suppressed
	    7 Parameters to be Estimated

Initial parameter values and their associated subscripts
(  1) 0.10000     (  2) 0.10000     (  0) 0.10000     (  1)-0.10000
(  2)-0.10000     (  1) 0.10000     (  2) 0.10000

Non-linear Gaussian Estimation Procedure

 117 Observations,    7 Parameters

Convergence achieved at    6 iterations.
Relative change in sum of squares less than  0.1000d-03

Variance of residuals =      0.2432d-01, 110 degrees of freedom

Parameter Estimates
-------------------

	 Dependent Variable is JY

     Coefficient	 Estimated      Standard	   t-



February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 							        MARMA(3)



     Description	Coefficient      Error         Statistic
     /JY(-1)		0.192089       0.238528       0.805309
     /JY(-2)		0.305170       0.157192        1.94138
      JX(-3)           -0.986701       0.596770d-01   -16.5340
      JX(-4)		0.451271       0.238678        1.89071
      JX(-5)		0.217134       0.928007d-01    2.33979
     /_AR-TERM(-1)      0.874158       0.318978d-01    27.4050
     /_AR-TERM(-2)     -0.589668d-02   0.219979d-02   -2.68056

Transfer Function Information for JX(-3)

Distributed Lag Estimates in Final Form

-0.98670    -0.64080    -0.64133    -0.31874    -0.25694    -0.14662
	    -0.10657    -0.65219d-01-0.45052d-01-0.28557d-01-0.19234d-01
	    -0.12409d-01-0.82534d-02-0.53724d-02-0.35507d-02-0.23215d-02
	    -0.15295d-02-0.10023d-02-0.65928d-03-0.43250d-03-0.28427d-03
	    -0.18659d-03-0.12259d-03-0.80491d-04-0.52873d-04-0.34720d-04
	    -0.22805d-04-0.14976d-04-0.98360d-05-0.64596d-05-0.42425d-05
	    -0.27862d-05-0.18299d-05-0.12018d-05

Total Multiplier =  -3.2921
t-value =   55.166

Coefficients in the Infinite Moving Average

  1.0000     0.87415     0.75825     0.65768     0.57044     0.49478
	     0.42915     0.37223     0.32285     0.28003     0.24289
	     0.21067     0.18272     0.15849     0.13747     0.11923
	     0.10342     0.89703d-01 0.77804d-01 0.67484d-01 0.58533d-01
	     0.50769d-01 0.44035d-01 0.38194d-01 0.33128d-01 0.28734d-01
	     0.24923d-01 0.21617d-01 0.18750d-01 0.16263d-01 0.14106d-01
	     0.12235d-01 0.10612d-01 0.92043d-02 0.79835d-02 0.69245d-02
	     0.60061d-02 0.52094d-02 0.45184d-02 0.39191d-02 0.33993d-02
	     0.29484d-02 0.25573d-02 0.22181d-02 0.19239d-02 0.16687d-02
	     0.14474d-02 0.12554d-02 0.10889d-02 0.94445d-03 0.81918d-03
	     0.71052d-03 0.61628d-03 0.53454d-03 0.46364d-03 0.40214d-03
	     0.34880d-03 0.30253d-03 0.26241d-03 0.22760d-03 0.19741d-03
	     0.17123d-03 0.14852d-03 0.12882d-03 0.11173d-03 0.96910d-04
	     0.84056d-04 0.72907d-04 0.63236d-04 0.54849d-04 0.47573d-04
	     0.41263d-04 0.35790d-04 0.31043d-04 0.26925d-04 0.23354d-04
	     0.20256d-04 0.17570d-04 0.15239d-04 0.13218d-04 0.11465d-04
	     0.99439d-05 0.86249d-05 0.74809d-05 0.64887d-05 0.56280d-05
	     0.48815d-05 0.42340d-05 0.36724d-05 0.31853d-05 0.27628d-05
	     0.23963d-05 0.20785d-05 0.18028d-05 0.15637d-05 0.13563d-05
	     0.11764d-05 0.10203d-05

Total Multiplier =   7.5907

Autocorrelations of Residuals

   Lags 					     N SUM(R(k)**2)

   1- 5   0.108   0.099   0.029  -0.118  -0.105       5.58



4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							        MARMA(3)



   6-10  -0.185  -0.182   0.042  -0.047   0.070       14.5
  11-15   0.076   0.154   0.191   0.045   0.002       22.5
  16-20  -0.059  -0.056   0.027  -0.097  -0.028       24.6
  21-25  -0.077   0.037  -0.077  -0.039   0.128       28.3
  26-30   0.026   0.009   0.065  -0.076   0.007       29.5

Sum of Squares of Residuals =   2.6751
Variance of Residuals =       0.24319d-01
Durbin-Watson Statistic =      1.79632


R-Squared =    0.9980

SEE ALSO
TESTDATA(2)
ARIMA(3), CROSSCOR(3), INSPECT(3)
BOXJENKINS(6)








































February 1, 1990						               5




SORITEC 							       REVISE(3)



REVISE -- Revision and Splicing of Data

DESCRIPTION
REVISE modifies active  observations  of  one  or  more  existing  series  while
preserving the non-active observations.

SYNTAX
	Single-equation form:
	REVISE equation|identity

	Multiple-equation simulation form:
	REVISE [ ( [TOL=s1] [MAXIT=n1] [MAXPRT=n2] [TAG=name1]
		    [STATIC|DYNAMIC] [NOBASE] ) ] superformula

MODIFIERS
Modifiers are used in the multiple equation simulation form only.

TOL=s1  	:  Convergence criterion for simultaneous equation
		   blocks.  This is a maximum absolute relative error
		   criterion.  {Default:  .0001}
MAXIT=n1	:  Maximum number of iterations within any single
		   simultaneous block.  {Default:  50}
MAXPRT=n2       :  Maximum number of iterations to print intermediate
		   solution values.  {Default:  0 if PRINT flag is OFF;
		   5 if PRINT flag is ON}
TAG=name1       :  Tag to give to all solution values.  For instance,
		   if TAG is FITTED, and one of the variables to be
		   solved for is GNP, the solution values for that
		   variable will be stored in FITTED^GNP.  {Default:
		   null, i.e. solutions are stored in the variables
		   used in the equations, wiping out any values already
		   there.}
STATIC  	:  Perform a static simulation.  {Default:  not selected.}
DYNAMIC 	:  Perform a dynamic simulation.  {Default:  selected.}
NOBASE  	:  Do not use any existing variable values as starting
		   values for solutions within simultaneous blocks.
		   {Default:  not selected, i.e. values already existing
		   in the variables are used as starting values.}

DISCUSSION
The  REVISE  command,  in  either   single   equation   or   multiple   equation
(superformula)  usage, acts exactly as the corresponding COMPUTE command does if
the REVISE flag is ON.  The only difference between REVISE and COMPUTE  is  that
COMPUTE  erases  values of the variable(s) being calculated for all time periods
outside the current USE period, while REVISE  preserves  those  values.   REVISE
cannot  create  a  variable,  i.e.  the  left-hand side variable(s) must already
exist.

EXAMPLES
	! This example illustrates the single equation form of the
	! REVISE command.  For an example of superformula simulation
	! using the REVISE command, see SUPERF(3).

	USE 1 10



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							       REVISE(3)



	TIME T
	USE 2 4
	REVISE T = T + 3
	EQUATION EQ T = T**2
	USE 9 10
	REVISE EQ
	USE 1 10
	PRINT T

			T
		 ................
     1  	 .    1.00000
     2  	 .    5.00000
     3  	 .    6.00000
     4  	 .    7.00000
     5  	 .    5.00000
     6  	 .    6.00000
     7  	 .    7.00000
     8  	 .    8.00000
     9  	 .    81.0000
    10  	 .    100.000

SEE ALSO
REVISE flag in FLAGS(2)
COMPUTE(3), FORECAST(3)
































2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							       SMOOTH(3)



SMOOTH -- Exponential Smoothing

DESCRIPTION
SMOOTH applies one of six methods to smooth a time series  and  to  project  the
smoothed series forward for the a specified number of periods.

SYNTAX
	SMOOTH ( SIMPLE|LINEAR|QUAD|HOLT|ADRES|WINTER ALPHA=num1 [BETA=num2]
		 [GAMMA=num3] F=num4 [L=num5] [SEARCH] ) result data

ARGUMENT TYPES
	ARGUMENT	TYPE		I/O     DESCRIPTION
	result  	series  	 O      smoothed and projected series
	data		series  	 I      original data

MODIFIERS
	num1		: smoothing constant (0 < num1 < 1)
	num2		: trend and season smoothing constant
			  for HOLT and WINTER (0 < num2 < 1)
	num3		: linear trend smoothing constant
			  for WINTER (0 < num3 < 1)
	num4		: integer number of forecast periods
	num5		: integer number for season length
	SEARCH  	: search, from the initial values, if provided,
			  for the parameters which best fit the data

DISCUSSION
Smoothing techniques are used primarily for short-term projection of time series
in  situations  where  data  on  other  potential  explanatory variables are not
available.  These techniques smooth data by assigning  exponentially  decreasing
weights  to  past values of a given series, and then assembling projected values
which are wholly determined by the past values  of  that  series,  appropriately
weighted.  SORITEC provides six smoothing methods:

	SIMPLE performs single exponential smoothing for a stationary series.

	LINEAR performs Brown's  one  parameter  linear  exponential  smoothing,
	which estimates and smooths a linear trend in non-stationary data.

	QUAD performs Brown's one parameter quadratic method, for  a  non-linear
	trend.

	HOLT performs Holt's two parameter linear method, which  is  similar  to
	LINEAR  except  that  the  user  must  supply a constant to estimate the
	linear trend.

	ADRES  performs  the  adaptive  response  method,  where  ALPHA  is  not
	specified but automatically adjusts to the pattern of residual errors of
	successive observations.  The response rate parameter BETA is  typically
	set at .1 or .2.

	WINTER performs Winter's three parameter  linear  and  seasonal  method,
	which expands HOLT to cover both season and trend.  Note that values for
	BETA and GAMMA are usually smaller than the value chosen for ALPHA.  "L"



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							       SMOOTH(3)



	is used only with the last method.

SORITEC automatically appends the projected  values  and  prints  out  the  full
series,  i.e.  existing  plus  smoothed  and projected.  The USE command remains
unchanged.  If the "result"  is  omitted,  the  smoothed  and  projected  values
overwrite the existing "data".

Small values of the smoothing constants are usually best when a  great  deal  of
randomness  is  present,  and larger values when there are small fluctuations in
the data.

ALGORITHM USED
When the SEARCH modifier is used, the parameters entered by the  user  with  the
ALPHA,  BETA,  and GAMMA modifiers are taken to be starting values, and a search
is performed to find the parameter combination which minimizes the  mean  square
error, i.e. which best fits the data.  The BFGS (Broyden, Fletcher, Goldfarb and
Shanno) algorithm is used to find the best parameter set.

LIMITATIONS
If the user specifies the SEARCH modifier, but does not give initial guesses for
the  parameters,  then  SORITEC uses a starting value of 0.1 for each parameter.
This will generally,  but  not  always,  produce  useful  results.   Exponential
smoothing  is,  in  fact,  a  minimization  problem  that  is  non-linear in the
parameters, and is sometimes badly behaved.

SORITEC restricts each parameter to the range (.001,.999).  If the  lower  bound
is  attained  for  any  parameter,  minimization  is  attempted  for  the  other
parameters.  If the upper bound is attained, a failure to converge is  declared.
It  is often the case that the mean square error has a single local minimum at a
set of small parameter values, rises as you move away, attains a maximum  within
the  permitted range (i.e. between .001 and .999), then declines with a very low
slope "forever".  Only repeated attempts to start with  a  small  parameter  set
will attain convergence in these situations.

NOTES
The older modifiers for method selection are still recognized by  SORITEC.   The
correspondences between old and new method modifiers are:

	EXP  <==> SIMPLE       EXP2 <==> LINEAR       EXP3 <==> QUAD
	EXP4 <==> HOLT         EXP5 <==> ADRES        EXP6 <==> WINTER


EXAMPLES
	USE 1 7
	SERIES A 4 6 5 7 6 7 8
	SMOOTH ( QUAD ALPHA=.2 F=3 ) B A

 Brown's One Parameter Quadratic Exponential Smoothing -- Alpha=0.200


 Period        Actual       Forecast        Error        Pct Error

     1  	4.0000
     2  	6.0000        4.0000        2.0000       33.3333%



2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC 							       SMOOTH(3)



     3  	5.0000        5.2000       -0.2000        4.0000%
     4  	7.0000        5.3200        1.6800       24.0000%
     5  	6.0000        6.5600       -0.5600        9.3333%
     6  	7.0000        6.6720        0.3280        4.6857%
     7  	8.0000        7.2774        0.7225        9.0320%
     8  		      8.1823
     9  		      8.7663
    10  		      9.3822

 Mean Pct Error (MPE) or bias   =           9.6196%
 Mean Squared Error (MSE)       =          1.30094
 Mean Absolute Pct Error (MAPE) =          14.0640%

	SMOOTH ( QUAD SEARCH ) B A

 Brown's One Parameter Quadratic Exponential Smoothing -- Alpha=0.229


 Period        Actual       Forecast        Error        Pct Error

     1  	4.0000
     2  	6.0000        4.0000        2.0000       33.3333%
     3  	5.0000        5.3751       -0.3751        7.5021%
     4  	7.0000        5.4323        1.5676       22.3949%
     5  	6.0000        6.7903       -0.7903       13.1719%
     6  	7.0000        6.7936        0.2063        2.9480%
     7  	8.0000        7.3961        0.6038        7.5484%
     8  		      8.3333
     9  		      8.9819
    10  		      9.6692

 Mean Pct Error (MPE) or bias   =           7.5917%
 Mean Squared Error (MSE)       =          1.27167
 Mean Absolute Pct Error (MAPE) =          14.4831%

SEE ALSO
EXGRO(3), SCURV(3)
PROJECTION(6)



















February 1, 1990						               3




SORITEC 							       SUPERF(3)



SUPERF -- Superformula Construction (Gauss-Seidel Method)

DESCRIPTION
SUPERF combines a set of equations and identities into a single  "super-formula"
which  calculates  many  variables  with  a  single  command.  It is the primary
command used for simulation.

SYNTAX
	SUPERF result eqname...

ARGUMENT TYPES
	ARGUMENT	TYPE		I/O     DESCRIPTION
	result  	superformula     O      resulting superformula
	eqname  	equation	 I      the equations or identities
			   |identity		   making up the superformula

DISCUSSION
The superformula is a much faster way of solving a set of simultaneous equations
than  SIMULATE(3).   The  SIMULATE  command  will  be  removed,  as  soon as the
superformula facility can do everything that SIMULATE now does.

The SIMULATE command allows "ragged" simulation, and  allows  several  different
convergence  criteria  to  be used.  It also has a KILL facility for simulations
that are obviously not converging.

Doing simulations with a superformula is about fifteen times  faster  than  with
SIMULATE.   The  superformula is also more space efficient.  Model storage takes
about one-fourth as much space with a superformula as with a SIMULATE command.

Unlike the SIMULATE facility, when a model is linked with SUPERF, the individual
equations  that  make  up that model need not be kept any longer.  The SIMULATE-
type model is simply a "map" telling SORITEC in what order to solve the  various
equations,  which  retain  their  individual  names.   The superformula actually
combines the various equations into one large named entity.

Using SIMULATE, it was possible (although not recommended) to make minor changes
in  an  equation that did not alter the basic structure of the model without re-
BUILDing the model.  This  is  not  possible  with  a  superformula,  since  the
equations  are  combined  at  the  time that the superformula is created.  Later
changes to the equations are  not  incorporated  into  the  superformula  unless
another SUPERF command is executed.

The SUPERF command generally is used in conjunction with a BUILD  command.   The
default  output  from  BUILD is a SIMULATE-type model, which will not be kept or
used in the process of linking a model together  using  a  superformula.   BUILD
creates  an  internal  result, ^EQORD, which specifies the various recursive and
simultaneous blocks into  which  the  model  can  be  resolved.   This  ordering
minimizes  the  size of each set of simultaneous equations in the model.  SUPERF
uses this information to build the superformula, and takes added  steps  to  (a)
move  as  many  recursive equations outside the Gauss-Seidel "loop" as possible,
and (b) reorder the equations in each block to  reduce  the  number  of  forward
references  in  each  block.   Therefore,  the order in which BUILD arranges the
equations is not the same as the order in which SUPERF  arranges  them.   SUPERF
does  a  superior  job of in-loop optimization, but BUILD does a superior job of



February 1, 1990						               1




SORITEC 							       SUPERF(3)



block decomposition.

It is not required that the equations be ordered with BUILD before using SUPERF.
However, for any but the smallest models, or models known to consist of just one
simultaneous block, using BUILD to derive ^EQORD will result in a great increase
in solution speed.

A superformula is solved by using it as the argument of a  COMPUTE,  REVISE,  or
FORECAST  command,  just as if it were a simple equation or identity.  As with a
simple equation or identity, a  COMPUTE  command  name  may  be  omitted  if  no
modifiers are used.

ALGORITHM USED
A superformula is constructed with embedded looping instructions that cause  the
COMPUTE,  FORECAST  and  REVISE commands to perform Gauss-Seidel iterations over
those operations that require simultaneous solution.   Operations  that  involve
only  operands  that  are not changed within the loop (i.e. exogenous variables,
scalar constants, and variables that have already been  solved  for)  are  moved
outside  the  loop.   As a result, much of the benefit of ordering the equations
will be achieved by the loop optimization done by SUPERF, even if BUILD  is  not
used.

LIMITATIONS
At this release, the convergence criteria (TOL) used in the solution phase  (see
COMPUTE(3),  FORECAST(3),  REVISE(3))  tends  to  be  too  tight for the default
maximum number of iterations (MAXIT).  The default for TOL is .0001; for  MAXIT,
50.   It  is  suggested  that  a  TOL  of  .001  is  more  appropriate  for most
applications.

EXAMPLES
	! This is the simple form, not using the BUILD command
	! to order the equations.  The model is obviously a single
	! simultaneous block.

	USE 1 3
	SERIES U 11 12 13
	SERIES V -2 -1 0
	EQUATION EQ1 Y = ALPHA*X + U
	EQUATION EQ2 X = BETA*Y + V
	PARAMETER ALPHA .25 BETA .5
	SUPERF MDL EQ1 EQ2
	MDL
	P X Y

			X              Y
		 ...............................
     1  	 .    3.99998        12.0000
     2  	 .    5.71423        13.4285
     3  	 .    7.42852        14.8570

	! The next example is a bit more complicated, and more typical
	! of the steps that are generally used in model construction
	! and simulation of a model that is more involved.  This example
	! uses Klein Model I.  The coefficients are entered here in



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SORITEC 							       SUPERF(3)



	! numeric form, as if each had been processed by FREEZE(3).
	! This is only for clarity of presentation.  All the coefficients
	! could be specified as parameters with the corresponding values.
	! (Frozen equations do run faster, though, and are generally used
	! for models that are going to be run many times between
	! re-estimations.)

	FORGET *
	USE 1922 1941
	ACCESS 'klein'

*** File opened  ( 2): klein.sdb

	EQUATION CEQ C = 18.3411 - 0.232351*P + 0.385697*P(-1) + 0.801809*W
	EQUATION IEQ I = 27.2765 - 0.801452*P + 1.05221*P(-1) - 0.148196*K(-1)
	EQUATION WEQ W1= 5.78943 + 0.234238*X + 0.284589*X(-1) + 0.234766*A
	IDENTITY PID P=X-T-W1
	IDENTITY WID W=W1+W2
	IDENTITY XID X=C+I+G
	GROUP EQS CEQ IEQ WEQ PID WID XID
	GROUP VARS C I W1 P W X
	BUILD EQS VARS ZZZ

Linkage Statistics
     6 Equations
    15 Endogenous Linkages
Density of Linkage Matrix is       2.50


    Equations will be solved in the following order:

       Equation 	     Associated Variable

   1    1 CEQ			  1 C
   2    2 IEQ			  2 I
   3    3 WEQ			  3 W1
   4    4 PID			  4 P
   5    5 WID			  5 W
   6    6 XID			  6 X


	     Recursive block    1 is empty.
   Linear simultaneous block    1 contains    6 equations.

	ON GROUP
	SUPERF MDL ^EQORD
	! Although FORECAST is used here, REVISE or COMPUTE would
	! produce the same answers, except that COMPUTE would
	! erase the values for C, I, W1, P, W, and X outside the
	! USE period.
	FORECAST(TAG=FIT TOL=.001)MDL
	USE 1939 1941
	DOT VARS
	   COMPARE : FIT^:



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SORITEC 							       SUPERF(3)



	END
		      1939          1940	  1941
		 ---------------------------------------
C		|    61.6000       65.0000       69.7000
FIT^C		|    61.5355       63.4028       65.4778
     Difference |   0.644800d-01   1.59715       4.22213
Pct. Difference |      0.10%         2.51%         6.44%

		      1939          1940	  1941
		 ---------------------------------------
I		|    1.30000       3.30000       4.90000
FIT^I		|    1.68737       1.85620     -0.506301d-01
     Difference |  -0.387371       1.44379       4.95063
Pct. Difference |     22.95%        77.78%      >1000.0%

		      1939          1940	  1941
		 ---------------------------------------
W1		|    41.6000       45.0000       53.3000
FIT^W1  	|    42.8406       44.7910       47.3741
     Difference |   -1.24068      0.208960       5.92583
Pct. Difference |      2.89%         0.46%        12.50%

		      1939          1940	  1941
		 ---------------------------------------
P		|    19.0000       21.1000       23.5000
FIT^P		|    18.0877       18.2610       20.2576
     Difference |   0.912234       2.83891       3.24233
Pct. Difference |      5.04%        15.54%        16.00%

		      1939          1940	  1941
		 ---------------------------------------
W		|    49.4000       53.0000       61.8000
FIT^W		|    50.6406       52.7910       55.8741
     Difference |   -1.24068      0.208960       5.92583
Pct. Difference |      2.45%         0.39%        10.60%

		      1939          1940	  1941
		 ---------------------------------------
X		|    69.5000       75.7000       88.4000
FIT^X		|    69.8228       72.6590       79.2272
     Difference |  -0.322891       3.04094       9.17276
Pct. Difference |      0.46%         4.18%        11.57%

SEE ALSO
BUILD(3), FREEZE(3), NEWTON(3), SIMULATE(3)












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SAMPLER MANUAL INDEX

Articles with numeric names refer to chapters of the Primer (Section 1).

TOPIC					Article(Section)Page

ACCESS command  			4(1)1
ADDFAC command  			11(1)3
ALIAS flag				FLAGS(2)2
ALIAS flag, discussion  		FLAGS(2)6
AMORT command				7(1)2
ANOVA flag				FLAGS(2)2
AUTOLOG flag				FLAGS(2)2
Accented characters			FLAGS(2)3
Add factors				11(1)3
Arithmetic operators			2(1)6
Autocorrelation, ARIMA models		MARMA(3)
Autoregression, ARIMA models		MARMA(3)
BETA flag				FLAGS(2)2
BREAK flag				FLAGS(2)2
BRIEF flag				FLAGS(2)3
BUILD command				BUILD(3)
Batch mode				1(1)3, 1(1)4
CAUTION flag				FLAGS(2)3
CCOR flag				FLAGS(2)3
CLOSE command				4(1)2
COMPUTE command 			2(1)3, 2(1)5, COMPUTE(3)
CONTENTS command			4(1)5
CONTINUE command			5(1)3
CONVERT command 			6(1)2
COPY command				4(1)3
CORC command				9(1)2
CORREL command  			6(1)5
COVA command				6(1)5
CREATE command  			4(1)1
CRT flag				FLAGS(2)3
CRT flag, discussed			FLAGS(2)6
Character set				FLAGS(2)3
Comments				2(1)1
Comparison of scenarios 		11(1)3
Constants				2(1)2
Cross-section techniques		8(1)1
DETAIL flag				FLAGS(2)3
DIF files				3(1)3
DISCARD command 			4(1)4
DO command				5(1)1
DOLLAR flag				FLAGS(2)3
DOLLAR flag, discussion 		FLAGS(2)5
DOT command				5(1)3
DUMMY command				6(1)1
DYNAMIC flag				FLAGS(2)3
Databanks				4(1)1
ECS flag				FLAGS(2)3
END command				1(1)4



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EQUATION command			11(1)1
EXACT flag				FLAGS(2)3
EXECUTE command 			1(1)5
EXOGENOUS command			9(1)3
EXPDAMP flag				FLAGS(2)3
Equations				2(1)3, 2(1)5, COMPUTE(3),
					FORECAST(3), REVISE(3)
Exponential smoothing			SMOOTH(3)
FASTDIF flag				FLAGS(2)3
FLAGS article				FLAGS(2)1
FORECAST command			9(1)3, 11(1)2, FORECAST(3)
FORGET command  			2(1)12
FORMAT command  			3(1)6
Financial functions			7(1)1
Flags					2(1)12, FLAGS(2)1
Flags, resetting entire configuration   FLAGS(2)1
Forecasting				FORECAST(3)
Frequencies				8(1)2
Functions				2(1)6
GLOBAL flag				FLAGS(2)3
GOTO command				5(1)2
GROUP flag				FLAGS(2)3
Gauss-Seidel method			11(1)2, SUPERF(3)
Groups  				2(1)4
HEAD flag				FLAGS(2)3
HILU command				9(1)2
Histogram				8(1)2
IF command				5(1)2
IMPUTE command  			2(1)10
INSPECT command 			12(1)1
IRR command				7(1)1
Input/output				3(1)1
Input/output, databanks 		3(1)10
Interactive mode			1(1)3, 10(1)1
Internal names  			FLAGS(2)1
JOB command				1(1)4
JOURNAL flag				FLAGS(2)3, FLAGS(2)5
Journal files				1(1)3
KEEP command				4(1)2
LEGAL function  			2(1)9
LIBRARY command 			4(1)2
LOG flag				FLAGS(2)3
Lags					2(1)1
Leads					2(1)1
Logical operators			2(1)6
MA command				6(1)4, 13(1)1
MARMA command				12(1)2, MARMA(3)
MAX command				6(1)3
MAXERR command  			2(1)13
MIN command				6(1)4
MISSING command 			2(1)9
MISSING flag				FLAGS(2)4
MOD command				6(1)4
MSUM command				6(1)5



2								February 1, 1990




SORITEC



Matrices				2(1)3
Missing values  			2(1)9
NOEJECT flag				FLAGS(2)4
NOERROR flag				FLAGS(2)4
NOTE flag				FLAGS(2)4
Names of variables			2(1)1
Names, printing (UPRINT)		FLAGS(2)5
National character sets 		FLAGS(2)3
OFF command				FLAGS(2)1
OFFLIST command 			2(1)13
ON CRT command  			10(1)1
ON REVISE command			2(1)8
ON command				FLAGS(2)1
ONLIST command  			2(1)13
Operators				2(1)6
PAGESIZE command, with ON CRT		FLAGS(2)6
PARAMETER command			11(1)1
PATH flag				FLAGS(2)4
PERFECT flag				FLAGS(2)4
PLOT command				3(1)9
PLOT flag				FLAGS(2)4
PRINT command				3(1)8
PRINT flag				FLAGS(2)4
PROMPT flag				FLAGS(2)4
PUNCH command				3(1)2
PURGE command				4(1)2
PV command				7(1)1
Parameters				2(1)2
Periodicities				2(1)5
Pound sign				FLAGS(2)3
Printing, in procedures 		FLAGS(2)6
Procedures, use of PRINT command	FLAGS(2)6
Programming				5(1)1
QUIET flag				FLAGS(2)4
QUIT command				1(1)4
RAGGED flag				FLAGS(2)4
RAWEQ flag				FLAGS(2)4
READ command				3(1)2, 3(1)6
READDIF command 			3(1)3
RECODE command  			6(1)1
RECOVER article 			RECOVER(2)1
RECOVER command 			2(1)11, RECOVER(2)1
REGRESS command 			9(1)1
RENAME command  			4(1)3
REPLACE command 			4(1)3
REPLACE flag				FLAGS(2)4, FLAGS(2)5
RESIDUAL flag				FLAGS(2)4
REVISE command  			2(1)7, REVISE(3)
REVISE flag				2(1)8, FLAGS(2)4, FLAGS(2)5
ROBUSTSE flag				FLAGS(2)4
Recovering ^FLAGS			FLAGS(2)1
Regression, rational distributed lags   MARMA(3)
Regression, with ARMA errors		MARMA(3)
Revising series 			REVISE(3)



February 1, 1990						               3




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SAL files				3(1)1
SCAN command				1(1)3, 2(1)13
SCATTER command 			3(1)9
SERIES command  			3(1)8
SET command				2(1)2
SMOOTH command  			13(1)1, SMOOTH(3)
STATS flag				FLAGS(2)4
STREAMIO flag				FLAGS(2)4
SUPERF command  			11(1)1, SUPERF(3)
SWITCH command  			4(1)3
SYMBOLS command 			2(1)12
SYNOPSIS command			8(1)1
Series  				2(1)2
Series, forecasting			FORECAST(3)
Series, periodicities			2(1)5
Series, revising			REVISE(3)
Series, smoothing			SMOOTH(3)
Series, splicing			REVISE(3)
Series, transformation  		COMPUTE(3)
Simulation				11(1)1, COMPUTE(3), FORECAST(3),
					REVISE(3), SUPERF(3)
Simulation, building a model		BUILD(3)
Simultaneous equations, solution	SUPERF(3)
Smoothing of series			SMOOTH(3)
Splicing series 			REVISE(3)
Standard errors (ROBUSTSE)		FLAGS(2)4
Superformula				11(1)1, BUILD(3), COMPUTE(3),
					FORECAST(3), REVISE(3), SUPERF(3)
Symbols, ampersand [&]  		2(1)2
Symbols, asterisk [*]			2(1)2, 2(1)10
Symbols, comma [,]			2(1)2
Symbols, dollar sign [$]		FLAGS(2)5
Symbols, ellipsis [...] 		2(1)2
Symbols, equal sign [=] 		2(1)2
Symbols, exclamation mark [!]		2(1)1
Symbols, left angle-bracket [<] 	2(1)2
Symbols, left curly bracket [{] 	2(1)2
Symbols, left parenthesis [(]		2(1)2
Symbols, minus sign [-] 		2(1)2
Symbols, period [.]			2(1)2
Symbols, plus sign [+]  		2(1)2
Symbols, question mark [?]		2(1)10
Symbols, question mark [?]		2(1)2
Symbols, right angle-bracket [>]	2(1)2
Symbols, right curly bracket [}]	2(1)2
Symbols, right parenthesis [)]  	2(1)2
Symbols, semi-colon [;] 		2(1)1
Symbols, slash [/]			2(1)2
TIME command				6(1)1
TITLE command				1(1)4
TOKENS flag				FLAGS(2)5
TRAIL flag				FLAGS(2)5
TWOSLS command  			9(1)3
Two-stage least squares 		9(1)3



4								February 1, 1990




SORITEC



Tableau mode				10(1)1
Transfer functions			MARMA(3)
Transformation  			2(1)5
Transformation, series  		COMPUTE(3)
UPRINT flag				FLAGS(2)5
USE command				2(1)4
USE flag				FLAGS(2)5
USE period, resetting after PROCEDURE   FLAGS(2)1
USEIF command				2(1)5
VCOV flag				FLAGS(2)5
Variable names  			2(1)1
Vectors 				2(1)3
WIDTH command				1(1)3, 2(1)13
WRITE command				3(1)7, 3(1)9
WRITEDIF command			3(1)4
Wildcards				2(1)10
XTAB command				8(1)2








































February 1, 1990						               5