When you define a universe, CSPro will only tabulate data records in the questionnaires that meet the conditions stipulated by you. The universe specification acts as a filter, as the tables produced use only a subset of the data file's records. Therefore, values in the table may be lower than they would be with no universe specified, since the universe restricts the data available for tabulation. Note that each table has its own universe definition, but that a given universe specification may be extended to all tables in an application.