The purpose of this proposal is to establish a Data Acquisition and Management Network at the University of Arizona, College of Nursing which would encompass a uniquely configured local computer network within the College of Nursing designed to serve as the host system and a constellation of remote workstation terminals. Through the workstations host network it will be possible to share (1) peripherals (disk storage, printers, plotters, etc.); (2) application software for data collection, processing and analysis; (3) information between computers and with other users within the College of Nursing; and (4) information between outside computer systems including the mainframe computer system of the University of Arizona, the data management network at the College of Engineering and Mines and other accessible computer systems in the country. The remote elements of the network are portable computers and can be carried """"""""off site"""""""" to hospital and clinical laboratories which are serving as data collection sites. The objectives for establishing this Data Acquisition and Management Network with its portable features include: 1. to provide each user with a uniquely configured, state of the art, workstation that is designed for the advanced computer applications planned by the investigator (e.g., computer-driven analysis of analog data; computer-driven research protocols, graphical analysis procedures); 2. to provide each user with centralized hardware and software resources for cost-effective data manipulation, storage and retrieval; 3. to provide each user with a shared, centralized computer facility which is microcomputer-based and sufficiently powerful to pool the data sets and to create the data bases required for performing meta-analysis and for psychometric analysis procedures; 4. to provide each user with a vehicle for facilitating communication among data collection sites in multi-site studies and among researchers within the College and researchers in other parts of the country; 5. to provide the user group with shared, portable units that will be used for """"""""bedside"""""""" administration of computer-delivered experimental treatments and for the collection of digital and analog data that can be transferred to the host system for analysis and storage.
