[R-pkgs] acs package: analyze data from the U.S. American Community Survey

[Ezra Haber Glenn]

We are pleased to announce version 0.8 of the acs package for R, now
available on CRAN
(<http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/acs/index.html>.

The package provides a general toolkit for managing, analyzing, and
presenting data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey
(ACS). Confidence intervals provided with the data are converted to
standard errors and bundled with estimates in complex "acs-class"
objects. The package provides new methods to conduct standard
operations, plots, and tests on acs objects in statistically
appropriate ways.

In addition to improved documentation and bug-fixes, highlights include:

    * An improved "read.acs" function for importing data downloaded
      from the Census American FactFinder site.

    * "rbind" and "cbind" functions to help create larger acs objects
      from smaller ones.

    * A "sum" method to aggregate rows or columns of ACS data, dealing
      correctly with both estimates and standard errors.

    * A new "apply" method to allow users to apply virtually any
      function to each row or column of an acs data object.

    * A snazzy new "plot" method capable of plotting both density
      plots (for estimates of a single geography and variable) and
      multiple estimates with errors bars (for estimates of the same
      variable over multiple geographies, or vice versa).

    * New functions two deal with adjusting the nominal values of
      currency from different years for the purpose of comparing
      between one survey and another.

    * A new prompt method to serve as a helper function when changing
      geographic rownames or variable column names.

For more info, examples, and demo plots, see the package documentation
and/or
<http://eglenn.scripts.mit.edu/citystate/2012/03/acs-package-updated-version-0-8-now-on-cran/>.

--
Ezra Haber Glenn, AICP
Lecturer in Community Development
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Ave., Room 7-337
Cambridge, MA 02139
eglenn at mit.edu 
http://dusp.mit.edu/faculty/eglenn | http://eglenn.scripts.mit.edu/citystate/
617.253.2024 (w)
617.721.7131 (c)