APPENDIX B 

 COMPUTER PROGRAMS FOR ANALYZING FIELD AND LABORATORY DATA 



1. Special Program for Ecological Science (SPECS): System Overview 

 a. Introduction 



Long-term field studies in which diverse habitats are regularly sampled 

 for a variety of organisms and physical-chemical factors amass large amounts of 

 data. Organization and presentation of such data in a useful form has been 

 aided significantly by modern high-speed computers. 



At Florida State, we have designed and developed a computer software 

 system specifically for use with long-term biological data. Primary design 

 criteria have been storage of a large data base, retrieval of virtually any 

 subset of the data, and rapid access to a diverse group of biological, 

 statistical, and graphical data. 



The SPECS system has been written mostly in the FORTRAN programming 

 language. A few subroutines are written in the Control Data Corporation (CDC) 

 COMPASS assembly language. SPECS operates on a CDC 6500 or CYBER 74 computer 

 under the KRONOS operating system. 



b. Organization of the System 



Data storage 



Field and laboratory data on physical-chemical parameters and fish, inver- 

 tebrate, and plant populations are assembled and punched on standard 80-column 

 cards or entered directly via a computer terminal. Upon completion of a preli- 

 minary edit a program is executed to add the raw data to a data-base tape. 



Two data base tapes are maintained, each with four files (one each for the 

 four types of data). One tape is always the "current" data base, the other 

 serves as a backup. Upon each addition of new information the taoes reverse 

 roles. 



Raw data information is also copied to a raw-data tape. This tape serves 

 as an additional backup copy of information (although it is not in data-base 

 format). 



User Programs 



All user programs, procedure files (predefined sets of often-used 



operating system commands), program libraries, and active data files reside on 



computer-center disk packs (for rapid access). Most of the SPECS system is 

 stored as a single file on one of- these disks. 



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