I have a question. I am working with a dataset with 4 variables, A, B,
C, and D, which vary continously from 0 to 1. These variables represent
set theoretic conditions (i.e., they are "fuzzy set" values). What I
would like to do is combine them into 16 new variables, each of which
represents a Boolean "ideal type." Capital letters represent the
presence of the set and lowercase represents the absence of the set.
But since we're dealing with fuzzy sets (not Boolean sets), "trueness" =
X and "falseness" = (1-X). I hope that's enough background. Anyway,
here's what I'm doing manually:
gen ABCD = min(A,B,C,D)
gen ABCd = min(A,B,C,(1-D))
gen ABcd = min(A,B,(1-C),(1-D))
etc.
Is there an easier way to do this so that Stata takes these 4 and makes
16 new variables? Doing it manually isn't so bad when you have 3 or 4
variables, but with 5 or 6 (32 or 64 combinations), it gets tiresome.
Thanks!
Steve
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Stephen B. Vaisey
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow
Caroline H. and Thomas S. Royster, Jr. Fellow
Department of Sociology
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
CB #3210, Hamilton Hall
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
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