Here, <v.name> is the short name of a variable from Table 2 and xxx is a number or category selected by MARS. Form 1 is used for variables that enter into the MARS models as linear functions. Form 2 is used to describe dummy variables formed from a categorical variable. In this context "EQ", "GT", "LT", "GE", "LE" stand for "equal", "greater than", "less than", "greater than or equal to", and "less than or equal to". For example, Race.EQ.BLACK designates a variable that is one for blacks and zero otherwise. Alcohol consumption.GT.1 PER WEEK designates a variable that is one for subjects who have more than one drink per week and 0 otherwise. Form 3 is used for transformed continuous variables. For example, CRCL.IFGT.100 (read CRCL if greater than 100) indicates a variable that is equal to CRCL if CRCL is greater than 100 and 100 otherwise. Similarly, CRCL.IFLT.100 is a variable that is equal to CRCL when CRCL is < 100 and equal to 100 otherwise.