INTEGRATE BLOCK...
Finds the area under the curve
within the defined block.
There is a choice of time units (seconds, minutes, hours, days, none)
and baseline values. The baseline for integration can be set at zero,
the initial value of the block, the final value of the block,
a user-specified value, or a proportional linear correction
between initial and final block values. Because of the different baseline
options, this operation is considerably more versatile than the integration
feature including in BASIC STATS, MINIMUM, MAXIMUM, and LEVEL.
In this example, the block is integrated using the zero baseline
option with the time unit set as minutes. Note that the start, end,
and proportional options apply to the block defined with the left and
right limit functions.
- Keep in mind that if the data you are analyzing are a rate (i.e., meters/sec or mL/min), you need to pick the time unit that matches the rate
unit used in the analyzed channel, or the results will not be valid.
If you are using a rate unit for which a matching time unit is not available,
you will need to adjust the results manually. For example,
if your data are in units of Kilojoules/day, you will need to divide the
results by the factorial difference between days and whatever unit you select.
To continue with this example, if you set the units to 'Days' and
your data are in KJ/week, you must divide the results by 7 (since there
are 7 days per week). Similarly, if you set the units to 'minutes',
you would need to divide by the number of minutes per week (10,080).
This can be done conveniently using the 'Store'
and 'Scale' buttons.
- If your data are not in rate units, use the 'None' button.
If you select the "∑ plot"
option (button in the bottom row), the computer generates a plot of the
integrated values over time. This plot will change whenever a new
channel, right or left limit, or baseline option is selected.
Additional considerations:
- If the open file has more than one channel, you can switch channels by clicking on the small numbered channel selection buttons. You can see the channel labels if you 'float' the cursor over these buttons.
- Use the '+', '-', and 'clear' buttons to add or subtract
successive integral measurements.
- Use the 'limits', 'store', and 'scale' buttons as described
for BASIC STATS.
- This operation prints to a tabular file but the output format isn't 100% compatible since there are no SDs generated during integration.
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