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Data structure
This section describes the format that we have adopted for coding information related to multivariate discrete time series. It is a general purpose format and for this reason some people may find it too heavy for simple examples, especially if they do not need the possibility of coding multivariate data. If you have data in a special format and would like our assistance for translation into our format, please contact us. We are collecting users' suggestions and in the future we might offer translators on the Internet.
1. THE BASICS
In this simple example only one type of event with many qualifiers has been illustrated.
You may think to this example as a series of cars stopping to a gas station to fill the tank.
TYPE=1 would mean that the automobile is a car and the qualifier corresponds to the size of
car, e.g. QUALIFIER=1 to subcompact, QUALIFIER=2 to compact, and so on. In addition, TYPE=2
could correspond to pick-up cars, TYPE=3 to buses, TYPE=4 to trucks, etc.
In some circumstances the TYPE may be used to describe
one parameter of an event (such as its frequency),
while the QUALIFIER may be used to describe another
parameter (such as its intensity).
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