Where can I find the units for the dataset carsmall?

I am playing around with the dataset 'carsmall'. Apparently I am unable to find the units for accelaration, weight and displacement.

[Dyuman Joshi]

The only page where units of any quantities are mentioned seems to be - https://in.mathworks.com/help/stats/visualizing-multivariate-data.html, where units for fuel efficieny (miles per gallon), accelaration (time for 0-60 mph in sec) and engine displacement (in cubic inches) are given.

Note that carsmall is a subset of carbig, thus the same units apply for carsmall as well.

Judging by the values, I'd say the weight is in Pounds.

If you want a definitive answer, you will have to ask TMW about that.

[Cris LaPierre]

Correcting the link so it doesn't include the comma.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/stats/visualizing-multivariate-data.html

[Gabriele]

Thank you! That is exactly what I was looking for!

Answer 1

[Cris LaPierre]

You can see on this page that carsmall.mat is a subset of carbig.mat.

Unofficial answer here, but it seems this data set ultimately tracks back to the StatLib library maintained by Carnegie Melon.

• https://lib.stat.cmu.edu/datasets/

You can find the description here: https://lib.stat.cmu.edu/datasets/cars.desc

• There are 406 observations on the following 8 variables: MPG (miles per gallon), # cylinders, engine displacement (cu. inches), horsepower, vehicle weight (lbs.), time to accelerate from O to 60 mph (sec.), model year (modulo 100), and origin of car (1. American, 2. European, 3. Japanese). These data appear on seven pages. Also provided are the car labels (types) in the same order as the 8 variables on seven separate pages. Missing data values are marked by series of question marks.

Answer 2

[Joe Vinciguerra]

Since the dataset is just used for calculation examples it's not important, and thus not clearly documented. But doing a quick search, some of the functions that use it as an example in their help pages refer to weight as being in "pounds", and displacement as "cubic inch". I can't find anything explicitly describing the units for accelartion, but considering the context and the magnitude of the numbers I would assume it's in "seconds to go from 0-60 mph".