PAST

PAST is a practical tool designed to help you analyze scientific data by calculating statistical indicators and drawing plots. The program comes with a large variety of analysis techniques that can be applied with just a few clicks. When running experiments or gathering demographic data, scientists often need to run in-depth analysis by calculating trends, correlating data or interpolate the samples in order to present the conclusions of their studies during conferences or seminars.

You can use this program to manipulate data and apply various analysis methods. To enter data, you can simply open an Excel worksheet, text file or a raw data file. You also have the option to paste the values from another application. Before processing the values, you can insert rows, specify a name for each column and remove details that are not relevant for your study. You can specify a counter and transpose the entire range. The program allows you to transform the data by subtracting the mean value or converting the values to 10-base logarithms. Advanced options such as Box-Cox transformations enable you to normalize the data distribution.

To visualize the results of a certain experiment, you can generate a histogram or percentile plot. It's possible to adjust the interval values, character orientation and overall size before exporting or printing the output. The statistics section includes univariate and multivariate analysis methods such as variance analysis, intraclass correlation or canonical correspondence. Moreover, the app is able to use linear or polynomial models and analyze the data diversity or geometric correlation. Although the basic statistical indicators such as mean, median or deviation are available, the program requires experience with data analysis in order to interpret the results of each analysis.

If you need to analyze statistical data, PAST is a powerful program that includes a large variety of tools. To understand the available methods, you should download the manual available on the developer’s website.