Zerowaarden

Zerowaarden is a term used in Dutch-language data science and statistics to refer to numeric values that are exactly zero within a dataset. It is a practical label for zero observations and is not a formal mathematical category, but a convenient shorthand in discussions about data preparation and analysis.

Zeros can represent different realities: they may be legitimate measurements indicating absence of quantity, or placeholders for missing, undetected, or censored data. Distinguishing these origins is important for accurate modeling, imputation, and interpretation.

Statistical implications of zerowaarden include their impact on distributions, correlation, and model assumptions. In count data, zeros contribute to overdispersion. In compositional or log-transformed analyses, zeros pose technical challenges; researchers often use zero-inflated models or introduce small pseudocounts to enable transformations.

Applications span finance, engineering, and social science. Examples include a bank balance of zero, a sensor reading of zero, or survey results where no respondent selected a category. Data pipelines may flag zerowaarden with an indicator variable to preserve information about zero observations.

Careful documentation of the meaning of zerowaarden in datasets helps avoid misinterpretation, especially when sharing data or reproducing analyses. See also: zero, missing value, sentinel value, zero-inflated model.