Raymond Bisdorff CRP-GL, Luxembourg The development of the SODAS
software based on symbolic data analysis was extensively described in
the previous chapters of this book. It was accompanied by a series of
benchmark activities involving some official statistical institutes
throughout Europe. Partners in these benchmark activities were the
National Statistical Institute (INE) of Portugal, the Instituto Vasco de
Estadistica Euskal (EUSTAT) from Spain, the Office For National
Statistics (ONS) from the United Kingdom, the Inspection Generale de la
Securite Sociale (IGSS) from Luxembourg 1 and marginally the University
of Athens . The principal goal of these benchmark activities was to
demonstrate the usefulness of symbolic data analysis for practical
statistical exploitation and analysis of official statistical data. This
chapter aims to report briefly on these activities by presenting some
signifi- cant insights into practical results obtained by the benchmark
partners in using the SODAS software package as described in chapter 14
below.