To use this help function, click on the topic in the left of this window which you would like help with. In general, the manual will be much more useful than this help function, and references to the manual are given at the end of each help item like this:
<section 8>
§§§§
§About I Ching§
I Ching Squared
version 2.0
This program was written by Eli Meir for the laboratory of Avis Cohen. Last revised on February 21, 1992.
For more information, bug reports, etc., write to
Eli Meir
149 Grandview Ct.
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-273-5025
<section 1>
§§§§
§Data Processing§
Periods
Phases
Differences
Burst Lengths
Histograms
Filtering
Data Type
Saving Processing
Cutting Data
Multiple Files
Currently I Ching can process a data file to extract any of the types of data shown on the left. To process a file, select that type of processing in the Statistics menu. You can also control certain aspects of the processing using commands in the Options menu.
<section 4>
§§§§
§Periods§
Periods are the distance from one data point to the next.
<section 4-2>
§§§§
§Phases§
Original Phases
One to One Phases
Clean Phases
Phase Algorithm
Picking File Pairs
Phases are a measure of the relatedness of the data points between two files. They calculate where a data point in one file falls in relation to the two data points around it in another file.
There are currently three phase calculation algorithms included in the program, original phases, one-to-one phases, and clean phases. The manual gives an explanation of each.
<section 4-4>
§§§§
§Original Phases§
Original phases move through the data points in the lead and following files, and calculate a phase whenever a point from the following file falls between two points on the lead file. The phase is calculated as a percentage of the cycle (the period).
<section 4-4.1>
§§§§
§One to One Phases§
One to one phases are similar to original phases, except that only a maximum of one phase is calculated for each data point in the lead file.
<section 4-4.2>
§§§§
§Clean Phases§
Clean phases are designed to better analyze data where the phases that you are interested in should all be approximately the same. The following file is shifted over so that the data points in the two files should line up, and then any data points which do not line up between the two files are thrown out. This should throw out some 'noisy' data points. It is not very well tested, and it is not clear that it works any better than the other algorithms.
<section 4-4.3>
§§§§
§Phase Algorithm§
You can use the Phase Type command in the Options menu to pick which type of phases will be calculated. A dialog box will appear where you can select the phase algorithm you would like used.
<section 6-4>
§§§§
§Differences§
Picking File Pairs
Differences are a measure of the relatedness of data points between two files. It is calculated in the same way as the original phases, except that the time between the data point in the lead file and the point in the following file is not converted into a percentage of the cycle (the period).
<section 4-3>
§§§§
§Burst Lengths§
The burst length gives the distance from each onset to offset in the file.
<section 4-1>
§§§§
§Histograms§
Use the Make Histograms command to make histograms out of any type of data found using the processing functions, or a set of data in a file.
<section 4-5>
§§§§
§Filtering§
You can make a new file from an onset/offset file which just includes the onsets or the offsets, or has the midpoints between the onsets and offsets. Use the Filter Files function in the Statistics menu to do this.
<section 4-6>
§§§§
§Menus§
File Menu
Edit Menu
Statistics Menu
Options Menu
Font Menu
Style Menu
The file, edit, font and style menus are all very similar to these menus in any word-processing program. In fact, the I Ching program is built around a simple word-processing program.
The statistics menu contains all the processing commands. The options menu contains functions which allow you to change parameters of the processing.
§§§§
§File Menu§
The file menu contains all the normal functions you would find in a word-processors file menu. You can create new documents to store statistics, open a data file, save files that you currently have open, print files, and so on.
<section 8>
§§§§
§Edit Menu§
The edit menu contains the normal macintosh cut, copy, and paste commands.
§§§§
§Statistics Menu§
Data Processing
The statistics menu contains all the processing commands of the program.
<section 4>
§§§§
§Options Menu§
Data Type
Saving Processing
Cutting Data
Multiple Files
Phase Algorithm
Picking File Pairs
The options menu allows you to choose different parameters which will affect the processing. You can pick which data point to use from each onset/offset pair, what type of phase calculation algorithm to use, whether to process files one at a time or by condition or experiment, whether to save processed data, and whether to cut data before processing. You can also select the file pairs for difference and phase processing.
<section 6>
§Font Menu§
You can change the font being used in the program using the font menu, just as in any other word-processor. This is not reccommended, however.
§§§§
§Style Menu§
You can change the style of text being used in the program using the style menu, just as in any other word-processor. This is not reccommended, however.
§§§§
§Files§
File Names
File Format
I Ching will accept data in text files in a variety of formats, and saves data out into text files in a format which is easily interpreted by other programs. To use I Ching to process multiple files, the filenames must follow a very specific pattern.
<section 3>
§§§§
§File Names§
For processing by condition or experiment, filenames must follow a very specific format. You can set what this format will be using the Change Format function in the File menu. When you select this function, a dialog box will appear where you can define the file format.
<section 3-4>
§§§§
§File Format§
All files that I Ching deals with must be text files. Input data files are generally onset/offset files. For an onset/offset file, each onset must be followed by an offset, which is seperated from it by one or more non-numeric characters. Processed data is saved in a column, with precision to the third decimal place.
<section 3-1, section 3-2>
§§§§
§Data Type§
You can use the Data Type function in the Options menu to select whether onsets, offsets, or midpoints will be used from the data files. In addition, you can tell the program to use every data point, or indicate that you are intending to find statistics on files that contain already processed data.
<section 6-2>
§§§§
§Saving Processing§
When you process a data file, you can save the results of the processing in another file. To do this, use the Save Types function in the Options menu to indicate that you would like to save this data from this type of processing. You can also indicate that you would like time stamps saved with the processed data.
<section 6-3>
§§§§
§Cutting Data§
You may only want to use a certain number of data points from the beginning of a data file when processing it, cutting of the last data points, or vis-versa. You can do this using the Cut Data function in the Options menu. Type in the number of data points that you would like files cut to, and whether you would like them cut off the beginning or the end.
<section 6-5>
§§§§
§Multiple Files§
File Names
One of the powerful parts of I Ching is that it will process multiple files with one command. To indicate that you would like more than one file processed with the next processing command, check Condition or Experiment in the Options menu. For multiple file processing to occur, files must be named properly.
<section 6-1>
§§§§
§Picking File Pairs§
When processing for differences or phases over a condition or an experiment, the program will give you a dialog box where you can pick file pairs to be processed. Use the buttons in the dialog box to add, delete, and change file pairs. When adding a pair, another dialog box will appear where you will type the labels and roots of the pair you want to add.
<section 3-5>
§§§§
§Statistics§
Several statistics are printed on the screen each time some processing is done. These include the mean, median, and standard deviation of the processed data, and can also include a chi-square calculation where appropriate. For phases, these calculations are done in a slightly non-standard way.
