The objective of the Emory ACE Data Management &Analysis Core is to create an optimal scientific and technical environment for creating growth charts of social engagement from densely-sampled longitudinal data sets co-registered across multiple domains in order to explore mechanisms of risk and resilience in autism, a key aim of Projects l-V as well as the whole program project. To accomplish this goal, the Core will provide shared resources, facilities and expertise for data collection, processing, analysis, storage and retrieval to serve the entire program project, as well as acting as a common repository for sharing data between individual projects and transmitting results to NDAR.
The specific aims of the Core are: (1) Data Management: to meet the uniquely challenging data processing, management, storage and transmission needs of the entire program project;(2) Data Analysis: to provide a common methodological framework and shared computational infrastructure for carrying out state-of-the-art developmental profiling and statistical analysis of experimental measures collected across Projects l-V;(3) Training and Reliability: to provide common training in all of the novel data analysis techniques employed across projects, and to ensure that those techniques are deployed consistently and reliably across projects, using appropriate procedures for data management;and (4) Quality Control: to ensure that all data arising from the program project are of uniformly and exceptionally high quality, suitable for publication, submission to NDAR, and immediate use by other scientists. Key personnel will provide expertise in mathematical analysis, biostatistics, software engineering, and data processing needed to achieve the specific aims of each project. Shared facilities and infrastructure will be made available to support the data management and analysis needs of each project, including a central supercomputing facility, local workstations, and a suite of software tools customized for the data processing required in each project. Data management will be centralized on a common data server using RexDB, a custom-designed database commissioned from Prometheus Research specifically to handle large-volume clinical, behavioral, and experimental data sets, and their transmission to NDAR.
This research will generate a unique collection of large-scale data sets based on clinical, behavioral, and experimental measures that map out the developmental unfolding of autism over the first years of life. The Emory ACE Data Management &Analysis Core will ensure that the full potential for sharing our data, extracting new information about autism, and rapidly translating that information into practice is realized, addressing the Interagency Autism Committee objectives for Early Detection, Data Sharing and Resources.
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