Free and open software for applied statistics. A comparison and a case study in biometrics

Abstract

This article is intended to be a position paper on advantages of free and open software for statistics and its applications to biometrics and biostatistics. Especially, the authors focus on the R package viewed as a new and still insufficiently recognized or received by the scientists, researchers, students, etc. Sample statistical computations and tests in biometrics are presented, and the most common functions and procedures are analysed and compared. Although this is a position paper from the point of view of applied computer science, the authors briefly present some original results within applied statistics (in particular: biometrics) and related computational methods using dedicated software.