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，该平台允许在多个研究领域进行最先进的计算。该实验室将由高端Macintosh计算机组成，其配置和联网用于以下目的：具有数字协处理能力的通用微型计算机; X-windows终端;能够录制和播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。 该系统将促进文本分析，会话和交互分析以及统计计算的研究-教师专注于所有领域。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进行搜索和分析-这是一个非常耗时的过程。有了这个新系统，就可以把这些材料扫描到电脑里，进行快速和有效的搜索。这将促进目前的工作，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。互动分析的重点是个人之间的关系，这将由两个实验室提供视听设备。诸如医生和病人之间的关系等问题可以进行研究，反馈在医生培训中直接有用。在很大程度上，由于缺乏适当的仪器，统计学家开发的强大的新技术很少用于社会科学，所提供的设备将使许多这些技术不仅提供给高级研究人员，而且也提供给研究生和本科生。

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.