MPC2XL - Data Transfer Utility

Introducing MPC2XL:

The purpose of this program is to create a fast and easy system for transferring the contents of MED-PC® data files to Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, statistical programs, or virtually any other target. The editor lets you create a "profile" or template for the layout of transferred data. After a profile is created and saved, the profile can then be used to automatically transfer data to Excel or other targets. The creation of profiles is highly automated, yet very flexible. No programming is required. Any MED-PC® data file may be transferred, regardless of the filenaming scheme or the internal file format.

There are two basic types of profiles that may be created. One is referred to as a row profile, and the other is known as a table profile. Row profiles organize the data from a session into a single spreadsheet row or column, table profiles create multiple rows and may fall into any of three different formats.

Creating and Editing Row Profiles:

Row profiles transfer data to Excel on a row-by-row basis. Every session that is transferred to Excel becomes a row in the spreadsheet. Excel spreadsheets are limited to 256 columns, but the number of rows is practically unlimited. The profile generator which may be easily edited as needed, automatically creates a sample profile. This format is useful for organizing data from many sessions so that summary statistics may be organized for analysis (shown at right). Formulas for summary statistics may be placed directly in the profile so the results are present the instant the data are transferred.

Creating and Editing Table Profiles:

Table profiles may be used in a variety of ways to transfer data in a tabular format to Excel. Table profiles provide a great deal of flexibility, but are not created automatically from sample MED-PC® data files in the same fashion as row profiles. There are three basic types of tables that can be created using the table editor: a freestyle table, a table style table, and a record style table.

Freestyles Tables:

The simplest table is a "Freestyle" report that may be created by clicking the "Freestyle" button. Clicking this button creates a blank table. The right click menu may be used to paste special identifiers into profiles. The are two types of identifiers. One type corresponds directly to data retrieved from MED-PC® data files. This includes the box and subject numbers and the year in which the session was started. The second type of identifier begins with an exclamation point and is constructed by MPC2XL from other identifiers. For example, !StartDate and !EndDate concatenate year, month and day into a single number, expressed YYMMDD (or YYYYMMDD) format. For example, July 3, 1998 would be expressed as 980703 or 19980703, depending upon whether the MSN code used to generate the data file contained the Y2KCOMPLIANT directive. The !CondensedStartTime and !Condensed-EndTime functions create a single number reflecting HHMMSS. For example, 10:14:32 would be expressed as 101432 (shown above).

Descriptive labels are not automatically entered for identifiers. This allows you to place a descriptive label (or even no label) wherever desired. Figure 2 is an example of a spreadsheet created with the freestyle profile.

Table Style Tables

The table profile style of table was designed to present trial-oriented data along with session identifying information (shown at right). Clicking the "Create Table" button creates this type of table. Session identifiers, as well as data, may be placed in the "Header Titles" and "Header Elements" rows. "Header Titles" may bear the same name as a data element or they may be different.

A key aspect of data tables is the ability to systematically extract data from an array variable without the need to explicitly type in every data element that should appear in the table. This facility is ideal for creating tables displaying the results of trial-oriented sessions. Figure 3 displays data from a "delayed non-match to sample" protocol. This hypothetical session consists of five trials. For each trial, eight entries were made into array "A": the trial number, trial duration, delay value, response tags, counts and latencies.

Record Style Tables:

The key to producing this type of data structure is to place session identifiers, such as "Subject," in the first few columns of the table, leaving the "Increment" and "Last Column Element" fields blank. The remaining columns contain data elements for each trial. This results in the identifier and data information being present in every row. Note that the "transfer labels" option should be unchecked when the data is transferred, except for the first time that data are transferred to a given sheet. This will ensure that only data are transferred once a header row has been placed in the spreadsheet.