· How to make a data set available
· Suggested research questions
· Formatting your research report for this web site
The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences is pleased to announce its new Data Library and Analysis Project. The goal of the project is to facilitate the testing of new software, algorithms, and computational procedures for nonlinear dynamical phenomena. The materials for the project will be housed on this web site, with exceptions as noted below.
1. All interested parties are invited to contribute data sets to the cause. Interested parties should read the next section, How to Make a Data Set Available.
2. Descriptions of the data sets will be housed on this web site. The section How to Make a Data Set Available gives a preview of the format of the data set descriptions that we wish to acquire.
3. The data sets themselves will be housed either on this web site or on the contributor's site, depending on which method represents the cybernetic path of least resistance. Downloading instructions will be (are) given at the point of access.
4. The Society will not provide analytic software or licenses for software. Fortunately, many options are available at no charge or involve facilities that you may own already. We invite the use of computational techniques that are not yet known to our web site.
5. The analytic strategy that a researcher might choose to pursue is dependent, of course, on the type of data being considered, and the programs that could be applicable to such data. Please refer to the following section, Suggested Research Questions, for a further discussion of possible options.
6. People who have downloaded data from the project are welcome to contribute their final reports to a section of this web site that is dedicated to housing such reports. Potential reports are not limited to those that use the available data from this site. Please refer to the following section, Formatting Your Research Report for this Web Site, for preparation and submission of these documents.
7. After a collection of reports has started to grow, some of these items will be selected for publication in Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences. The choice of papers will be based on the reviews of the Editors. The usual considerations of depth, clarity, originality, and topic coverage will apply. The authors whose work has been selected in this fashion will be contacted sufficiently in advance of publication to ascertain their interest in such publication.
How to make a data set available
If you would like to make a data set available for this project, please submit the following materials to Kevin Dooley, SCTPLS Webmaster. E-mail submission is required for all materials; if there is a problem using e-mail for this purpose, please describe the problem to Dr. Dooley, and alternative arrangements will be worked out if possible. Please do not send "go to my website" messages.
1. Cover letter/message. Please identify yourself and your institutional affiliation. Give the name of the data set that you are enclosing an attached file. Your message should clearly state an assurance from your that indeed you have the right to post this data set. The best case is where the person submitting the data is the one who made it. There are other acceptable conditions also, e.g., the data are already in the public domain.
2. The data file should be in formatted in ASCII or MS EXCEL spreadsheet. Dr. Dooley will be screening incoming material for format and web-worthiness. Large files may be ZIPPED or TAR COMPRESSED.
3. A description of your data set in 750 words or less giving:
1. a descriptive title of the data;
2. the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the people submitting the data;
3. a description of the variables, how they were measured,
4. and the conditions under which they were generated;
5. the format of the variables if not already given in 3.3 above;
6. the file type and any compression facility that may have been used;
7. a summary of the published research involving that data, if any; if none, so state;
8. bibliographic citations to #6, if any.
9. You may include up to 2 figures if there are important for understanding your data set, its peculiarities, or particular analytic challenges that it might present. Figures should be prepared in .jpg, .tif, .gif, or postscript. The Webmaster may convert them to another format. BITMAP files are, in usual circumstances, too large for the site; they may be submitted to the Webmaster, who will probably convert them to a different format.
The selection criteria for project data sets are simple. The general goal is to have good material available, to minimize redundancy, and to maximize variety. We encourage data sets for EEGs, EKGs, genomes, other biological phenomena, cognitive processes, clinical or other transcripts of human communication, other social and organizational behaviors, and economic phenomena.
There are many possible questions that one might pose concerning new computational techniques and different types of data. We can make some suggestions, nonetheless:
· If two computational techniques are meant to produce the same theoretical indicator (e.g., fractal dimension) by different means, is one method more suitable to one type of data than it is to another?
· Various filtering strategies have been suggested over the years. Do they actually improve the data by removing noise, or do they strip out true measurement, or true dynamics, as well?
· Sometimes we are interested in comparing entire modeling strategies. Does one computational system identify nonlinear systems more accurately than another?
· Are the results of any of the new computational strategies more robust under different conditions of sampling, stationarity, cross-validation, etc.?
· How are any of the questions given above modified when the researcher is faced with different types of data, such as EEGs, performance of work groups, hierarchically organized phenomena, etc.?
· Do any of the new analytic techniques convey any new *meaning* concerning the phenomena from which the data were taken?
At this point we wish to convey some idea of the type of analyses that we do not wish to actively encourage. Researchers who are familiar with the nonlinear dynamics literature are probably aware of the large supply of journal articles where, "We took data generated from the logistic map [Lorenz attractor, etc] equation, added X% IID noise, ran it through [our favorite] computational procedure, and looked at what come out." Although it is probable that "pure attractor" data sets will be part of the data library, the goal here is different: We wish to facilitate the solution of *substantive* problems that are encountered in the life and social sciences, which can only be solved by resolving problems that are encountered with real data.
More generally, we can anticipate 4 strategic approaches to any of the data analysis objectives listed above:
1. One data set, one method of analysis, with interpretation relative to something that is known about the data.
2. Two or more data sets used, one method of analysis, with interpretations that address (in part) some aspect of the data that are different.
3. One data set used, two or more methods of analysis, with interpretations that address some aspect of the analyses that is different.
4. Two or more data sets, two or more methods of analysis.
This last type of strategy lends itself to comprehensive thinking, which is good. From a practical standpoint, however it will be unwieldy. Analysts should be advised to break up their material into smaller chunks, as defined by 1, 2, 3 above. The next section, Formatting Your Research Report for this Web Site should provide additional useful information for framing your research questions and organizing your results.
Formatting your research report for this web site
When you are ready to write up and post your research report, please prepare your document according to the instructions below. For the most part, you should follow the NDPLS Instructions for Authors with the following exceptions:
1. Text should be single-spaced instead of double-spaced.
2. Place the tables and figures in the text where they are meant to appear, rather than at the end of the manuscript.
3. Begin your article with a title, list of authors, their institutional affiliations, and the address and e-mail of the corresponding author. In the case of multiple-author works, there will be only one "corresponding author."
4. The author/title information is followed by an abstract of approximately 150-250 words summarizing the nature of the research question, the data used and programs used, and the highlights of results.
5. References in the text and reference list should conform to the NDPLS/APA style.
6. If you are working with a data set that was downloaded from this website, cite the contributing authors, their data set, and URL as it appears on this web site. Include other bibliographic citations to publications involving the data as given in the data description if such publications exist.
7. Research reports are accepted in English only. Both the British and United States dialects are acceptable.
8. Electronic formats for your reports are limited to the following preparations: MS WORD, Word Perfect, .PDF (for Adobe Acrobat Readers), and postscript. TEX users should prepare the postscript version of their document.
9. Figures take up a lot of space if wrong format is chosen. For those using MS WORD, convert your graphics to .jpg, .gif, or .tif before inserting them into your manuscript. BITMAP files tend to be overly large. Scanner documents tend to be large and incompatible with other software.
10. If you cannot convert your figures to a small format that is compatible with your word processor, put a MARKER in your text where figures should go (see NDPLS Instructions for Authors), and send the figures to the Webmaster in separate files. The Webmaster will make the necessary conversions and post the document in a suitable format.
As we mentioned in the introductory message, About the Project, the Society intends to collect a set of manuscripts culled from the web site postings for publication in its research journal, Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences. It is assumed that a posting to this website constitutes submission for journal review, UNLESS YOU SPECIFY OTHERWISE. To specify otherwise, your title page must acknowledge that the paper is under review by another journal, or has been accepted for publication in another journal.
If you do in fact wish to have your manuscript considered for a special collection in NDPLS, it is required that your manuscript has not been accepted for publication elsewhere, and is not under review by another journal. Publication on your own website, or access through the SCTPLS website does not constitute "publication." Distribution of your work through an "electronic journal" DOES constitute publication, however. Presentations at conferences, or publication of abstracts in conference documents do NOT constitute publication. Publication of the full text in a conference proceedings books USUALLY DOES constitute publication. NDPLS cannot accept previously published material even if the original language of publication was not English. Contact the NDPLS Editor [stephen.guastello@marquette.edu] for any clarifications of the foregoing policy.
The provisions of the United States Copyright Law will apply to all documents loaded to this site. The US Code is generous to authors, and most of its provisions have been adopted as an international standard. The following points are particularly pertinent:
1. All rights to the paper belong to the authors until such time as a transfer of copyright has been signed between an author and another entity, such as a publisher. SCTPLS intends to honor the nature of agreements that exist between authors and other entities as a result of a transfer of copyright.
2. If the copyright has not been transferred, there is no problem with posting your paper to the SCTPLS site. If the paper has been accepted for publication, publishers typically allow authors to supply preprints through sites such as this one. When the paper is published, however, it is necessary for the authors to remove their paper from the site OR request permission from the publisher to leave it on the site.
3. It is the author's responsibility to request permission from their publisher to continue to make their paper available on the SCTPLS site. To obtain such permission, contact the Permissions Office of the Publisher of the journal or book. Such permission is not usually authorized from the office of the Journal Editor.
4. If your document contains someone else's copyrighted materials other than the data provided on this site (e.g., figures, tables, or text excerpts greater than 99 words), it is the author's permission to secure such permission from the original publisher and/or authors. Journals typically give permission information on one of the inside covers of the journal.