EIFACS will enable epidemiologists and other researchers to perform valid multivariate analyses on complex-sampling-design survey data within a visual user-interface PC environment. The survey data may be in character form or in special package-generated data sets (e.g., SAS) and either locally stored or at a connected workstation or mainframe (remote execution). Procedures include: weighted kappa, fourfold tables (fft), stratified fft, discriminant analysis, polytomous logistic regression, structural equations modeling, and proportional hazards survival analysis. Variances are estimated by Taylor series linearization or resampling. All practical sampling design specifications are permitted. Additionally, an interface is provided to SUDAAN (another complex survey package) which enables EIFACS defined data to be visually set up for foreign execution. This effort will expand on the earlier developed IFACS system which embodies the same concept. The research plan includes: requirements update, software functional specification, new and augmented procedures development (algorithms, code, alpha-test, Monte Carlo simulation), user-interface improvement, pre-analysis augmentation (transformation/recoding, missing value imputation, etc.), remote execution refinement, beta testing, documentation, and final installation at NIAAA.
