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What's New?
Recent Changes to SCRC Data Capture and Analysis Software
(From February 1993 to January 1994)

G. R. Detillieux

Spinal Cord Research Centre,
The University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Canada R3E 0J9

Analysis

• New analysis methods were added: "Averaged inter-spike interval vs Train number" and "Averaged instantaneous spike frequency vs Train number".
• K test and significance test were added to "W.F. spike cross-correlation histogram". The cross-correlation now works correctly with single-unit data on both waveforms.
• The "Raw inter-spike interval vs step cycle" and "Raw instantaneous spike frequency vs step cycle" graphs can now, when normalisation is disabled, display data beyond the start or end of each cycle.
• For graphs using the step cycle, the program now includes the waveform name on the bottom title, rather than simply "vs Cycle".
• Trace analyses now indicate which tag values are included. The tag list is shown after the analysis range display in the top titles.
• The "W.F. activity burst duration vs cycle duration" and "W.F. spike train duration vs cycle duration" graphs now correctly calculate the burst positions when there are deleted sections.
• The error checking for the "Second ampl. trace #" and related parameters has been improved.
• New options have been added to the "Set/Range" menu. When the range is set to a portion of the run, "Next" and "Prev." will shift the range to the next or previous portion of the same length. A "Go" entry has been added here for convenience.
• When setting trace spike parameters visually, the initial values for these are no longer changed if currently out of range. The correct value for the hysteresis is displayed at the top. The next or previous frame can be selected directly from the cursor menu, with the current parameters still shown.
• While determining the fully-qualified pathname of the run file, the program no longer gets confused by unresolvable symbolic links in the root directory of a disk volume.
• Operations involving large waveforms can now be interrupted by a Control-C.
• Minor fixes to some initial parameter settings.

Qm

• The "Hardcopy/Interpolate" option is no longer ignored.
• In the X Window version, error messages from "Run/Calc" are now displayed in Qm's window, not in the xterm window.

Cap

• In the X Window version, the "kterm" setting of the TERM variable is now treated like "xterm", and the large window for parameter setting is now used when cap is run from either kterm or xterm.
• A bug in the auto-pause option has been fixed. This used to cause an occasional extra frame to be captured before pausing, when the trigger mode was "C" or "R".
• Leading spaces in the file name parameter are now ignored.
• Free disk space is now displayed correctly for NFS-mounted volumes.

Frmsel

• A new "Zero-adjust" feature has been added, to correct for DC shifts in traces.
• An "Interpolate" option for the display has been added.
• The program now rereads the run header when needed, so it can detect modifications made to it by other programs running at the same time.

Raster

• A "Vis-X-mark" option has been added to allow you to position the X markers visually, using the mouse.

Wtsum

• The "Weighted-sum" operation now allows you to exclude traces from the final display.

Layout

• When using the "-p" option, a file name of "-" will cause layout to read the layout file from the standard input, allowing you to pipe a layout file to "layout -p -".
• The "replot" program's output has been cleaned up somewhat, eliminating extraneous "PD" operators. An option has been added for specifying the maximum segment count allowed by "replot -s".

Miscellaneous

• Support for the X Window System has been extended to include Sun SPARC systems under SunOS and IBM's RS/6000 under AIX, for analysis only. Portability of xor and erase drawing modes was enhanced to support a wider range of X servers, such as Tektronix X terminals and PC X servers. A reverse video option and some optimisations were added.
• The X Window version of hpgl2mcd (also accessible as "xhpgl") now correctly waits for keystrokes, without becoming confused and reacting to other events.
• Katakana support has been added: Kana input mode is selectable during line input; X Window version can use Katakana display fonts; a Katakana plotter font is available in the layout program. ISO Latin 1 keyboard mapping (for Western Europe) is now available for the X Window version, not just the Masscomp version.
• File name length checking has been added to cavg and to the run file maintenance utilities renamerun, copyrun, and trimfrms.
• The fixcal and calibrate programs use a new environment variable (ADMAXLEV) to indicate the standard A/D input range.

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