R is a powerful, free open-source, multi-platform statistical analysis program put out by The R Foundation for Statistical Computing. The R foundation describes it as:
R provides a wide variety of statistical (linear and nonlinear modelling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, ...) and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible. The S language is often the vehicle of choice for research in statistical methodology, and R provides an Open Source route to participation in that activity.
One of R's strengths is the ease with which well-designed publication-quality plots can be produced, including mathematical symbols and formulae where needed. Great care has been taken over the defaults for the minor design choices in graphics, but the user retains full control.
It is used in our group to write statistical analysis programs and generate well-made graphics and reports as an alternative to SAS. R is used through a command line-esque console and can be downloaded here. Because some users are uncomfortable with using a command line console interface to use R, a number of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) have been developed, such as RStudio.
Michael Rueschman ([email protected]) and Kevin Gleason ([email protected]) at Sleep Medicine Epidemiology