Acquisition of a Multi-Media Computing Environment

在国家科学基金会的支持下，加州大学洛杉矶分校的社会学系将创建一个基于Macintosh平台的集成、共享计算环境，该平台允许在几个研究领域进行最先进的计算。该实验室将由配置和联网的高端麦金塔计算机组成，用于下列目的：具有数字协同处理能力的通用微型计算机；X-WINDOWS终端；能够记录和回放音频和视频的多媒体设备；可用于分析文本和图片文件的多媒体设备。这个系统将促进文本分析、对话和互动分析以及统计计算的研究--所有这些都是教职员工擅长的领域。历史社会学家在很大程度上依赖于文本，并根据特定的作品和短语来搜索和分析它们-这是一个非常耗时的过程。有了新的系统，就可以将这些材料扫描到计算机中，并进行快速有效的搜索。这将有助于当前的工作，如研究农民经济学和农业生产实践与一系列社会变量之间的关系。互动分析侧重于个人之间的关系，这将由两个拥有视觉和声音设备的实验室提供便利。可以研究医患关系等问题，反馈在医生培训中直接有用。因为在很大程度上，由于缺乏适当的工具，统计学家开发的强大的新技术很少在社会科学中使用，所提供的设备将使许多技术不仅适用于高级研究人员，而且也适用于研究生和本科生。

With National Science Foundation support, the Sociology Department at UCLA will create an integrated, shared computing environment based on the Macintosh platform which allows for state-of-the-art computing in several research areas. The laboratory will consist of high-end Macintosh computers configured and networked for the following purposes: general use microcomputers with numeric co-processing capabilities; X-windows terminals; multimedia devices capable of audio and video recording and playback; multimedia devices usable for the analyses of documents, both textual and pictorial. This system will facilitate research in textual analyses, conversation and interaction analysis and statistical computing - all areas in which faculty members specialize. Historical sociologists rely heavily on texts and search and analyze them based on particular works and phrases - a very time consuming process. With the new system, it will be possible to scan such materials into the computer and conduct quick and efficient searches. This will facilitate current work such as the study of peasant economics and the relationship between agricultural production practices and a range of social variables. Interaction analyses focus on the relationship between individuals and this will be facilitated by two laboratories with visual and sound equipment. Issues such as the relationship between doctors and patients can be studied and feedback is directly useful in physician training. Because, in good part, of lack of appropriate instrumentation, powerful new techniques developed by statisticians are rarely used in the social sciences and the equipment provided will make many of these available not only to senior researchers, but to graduate and undergraduate students as well.