Open AccessManaging clinical research data: software tools for hypothesis exploration.
Author(s) -
C. Frank Starmer,
M A Dietz
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
environmental health perspectives
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.257
H-Index - 282
eISSN - 1552-9924
pISSN - 0091-6765
DOI - 10.1289/ehp.90875
Subject(s) - computer science , unix , software , data file , data management , context (archaeology) , external data representation , file format , data science , data mining , database , information retrieval , programming language , operating system , paleontology , biology
Data representation, data file specification, and the communication of data between software systems are playing increasingly important roles in clinical data management. This paper describes the concept of a self-documenting file that contains annotations or comments that aid visual inspection of the data file. We describe access of data from annotated files and illustrate data analysis with a few examples derived from the UNIX operating environment. Use of annotated files provides the investigator with both a useful representation of the primary data and a repository of comments that describe some of the context surrounding data capture.