This Core D is designed to disseminate and provide technical support for a number of basic research resources for the aging research community in general. This is done in a series of five basic tasks -- all of them related through the use of an intelligent electronic bulletin board system for data and software dissemination and for providing documentation for the items disseminated. The first task is to disseminate the 1982, 1984, 1989, and 1994 NLTCS linked to Medicare Part A and B service use files. This data base will contain considerable technical documentation on issues such as measurement, nonresponse, and sample weight calculations. The data base will be updated as the file is modified with additional data, or the technical results of various research activities. The second task is to disseminate information on, and the results of, several different health forecasting activities. This dissemination will include both additional results of forecasting efforts that are too detailed and extensive to put into journals and access to a selected set of health forecasting programs that will allow interactive modeling sessions. In addition, we will provide the necessary technical support for such activities. The third task involves disseminating both a version of Grade of Membership software and an intelligent bulletin board system that will guide new users through the use of the program in specific applications. Both cross sectional and longitudinal forms of the GOM model will be available. The fourth task is to develop a journal on the demography of aging to provide more rapid dissemination of research results used to fill a substantive area not currently covered by demographic or gerontological journals. The fifth task is to assemble, in a data base, a number of technical reports and tables that can be accessed through the bulletin board system. The bulletin board system will also have functions in supporting other activities such as data base transfers for the ODEN networking project described in Myers' Core. The bulletin board system will be managed by Professors Woodbury and Lowrimore, each of whom have extensive computer science backgrounds. They will monitor development in interactive software systems so that innovation in the system can be made as they emerge.
