A FLEXIBLE COMPUTER-BASED TECHNIQUE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF DATA FROM A SEA-GOING NUTRIENT AUTOANALYZER

Modem instruments and techniques used to collect nutrient data at sea may amass huge data sets from discrete samples and continuously monito red sample streams. The volume and format of data produced by some sam pling techniques preclude data analysis by manual methods. However, th e analysis of a wide variety of sample types also makes the use of ful ly automatic data analysis inappropriate, so that a flexible approach to data analysis is required. Although at sea autoanalyser chemistry m ethods are thoroughly described in the literature, little information is available on data handling procedures. A suite of computer programm es has been developed to cope with a wide variety of autoanalyser nutr ient data. Here we describe the basic design of data acquisition and s ub-sampling programmes and methods of operation.