1254 
MONITORING 
by the SAMPLER and as each buffer is filled It 
is automatically read to an area on the RAD 
temporarily assigned for this purpose. Twelve 
such areas exist, each able to hold 3,060 words 
of data. This is sufficient to store six seconds of 
data sampled at the highest rate available to a 
user (500 samples/second). When sampling is 
required by a test, key-in of the # will cause 
the sampling to be performed prior to loading 
of the test processor. The processor then re- 
trieves data from the RAD, processes it, places 
results in the DAYFILE and then releases the 
RAD area for use by other processors. 
Status of the System 
The terminal system has been designed to 
handle biochemical, electronic, and physiologi- 
cal data acquisition and processing. To date, 
most biochemical data processing has been con- 
verted to the terminal system. Electronic and 
physiological data acquisition and processing 
have not yet been added to the terminal system, 
although some preliminary work in the area of 
physiological monitoring has been conducted. 
The physiological monitoring had as its goal 
computation of A.C. peripheral and pulmonary 
resistance of a calf. Two analog channels of 
data were sampled at a 500 per second rate for 
five seconds. One channel monitored pressure 
and the second channel monitored flow. Each 
channel was calibrated at three values, and lin- 
ear regression analysis was used to obtain cali- 
bration curves for each signal. A peak picking 
algorithm was used to detect signal cycles, and 
Fourier analysis was used to obtain ten har- 
monics of each wave. The harmonics were then 
used to compute peripheral or pulmonary resist- 
ance of the calf. 
A list of the tests currently implemented on 
the Sigma-3 is given in Table IV. These tests 
fall into several categories. In one category are 
the tests used strictly to key in data and their 
identifiers. These are the tests which require 
neither instrument reading or data processing. 
In another category are the tests which use 
the Gilford SOON to obtain optical density of a 
sample. These tests generally require calibra- 
tion data to be prestored in the REFERENCE 
FILE either daily or bi-weekly. The stored cali- 
bration data is stored as a series of line seg- 
ments which approximate the measured calibra- 
tion data. The Gilford processor obtains its 
result by using the calibration data to interpolate 
the test variable value from the read value of 
optical density. 
A third category of tests includes those which 
read no instrument but which compute results 
from keyed-in data values or data stored in the 
DAYFILE by another test. Thus, the Albumin 
and A/G ratio test obtain their results by look- 
ing up Total Protein and Globulin of each speci- 
men in the DAYFILE and performing simple 
arithmetic operations on this data. Another ex- 
ample, is the Serum Glutamic Pyruvic Tran- 
sami test described earlier in which the com- 
puter calculates SGPT from keyed in values of 
optical density. 
A more complex test is the Lactate Dehydro- 
genase Isoenzymes test which reads the densi- 
tometer for 60 seconds at a rate of 10 samples 
per second. The six hundred points are sampled 
and stored on the RAD and then the densitometer 
processor is called. The processor finds the five 
distinct waves in the densitometer data corre- 
sponding to LDH isoenzymes, integrates each 
wave to obtain its area, and computes the ratio 
of each area to the total curve area. 
Automated tests which require careful coor- 
dination between lab technician and the user 
are the red and white blood count tests. In these 
tests, the coulter counter is used repeatedly 
until three readings agree to within 10%, and 
then the average of the agreeing readings is 
taken and a correction factor applied to obtain 
the corrected blood count. The average and cor- 
rected counts are stored in the DAYFILE and 
displayed on the terminal. Each time the com- 
puter is instructed to read the Coulter counter, 
it prints the current and previous two readings 
of the counter and informs the lab worker of 
the test status. 
SUMMARY 
We have described a terminal data acquisi- 
tion system used to acquire laboratory data and 
to aid scientific workers in performing experi- 
ments. The features of the system which make 
