Preprocess the SPEC format data

**Table 3.2:** Descriptions of top GUI portion of the preprocess SPEC format data
$\begin{table}\centering \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{\vert r\vert l\vert X\vert}... ...ion and merging settings for all columns \\ \hline \end{tabularx} \end{table}$

List of scans information in SPEC data

When reading a SPEC data file, the program only looks for the scan starting identifier ``#S'', the column description identifier ``#L'', and the following data of each scan. ``#S'' and ``#L'' must exist for each scan, and are the only header information checked by the program. The scan number immediately following the ``#S'' should be unique throughout the file. The blank space is the default field separator. After you read in the data, all the parameter values will be set to defaults (which are usually wrong, e.g. the first column will be set to be Q/2 $\theta$ as the default. The scans list in the GUI will tell you how many points in each scan, and the Q/2 $\theta$ data range. The last field in the scan list is an indicator of whether that scan will be used during merging. The default is to use all the scans which has more than one point. When you highlight some or all the scans in the list, the column names that are common to all the highlighted scans will be shown as available columns for selection. As you may notice the change of values in Q/2 $\theta$ , monitor column droplist and others. The label on top of the scan list gives a brief overview of current scan data status. See Table 3.3 for details.

**Table 3.3:** Descriptions of the GUI displaying scans information
$\begin{table}\centering \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{\vert r\vert l\vert X\vert}... ...} scans or scans {\bf Selected Only} \\ \par\hline \end{tabularx} \end{table}$

Set up SPEC column assignments

Columns in the scan data are identified by their names after the ``#L''. The column names shown in the droplists are the common column names of the currently highlighted scans. The GUI operation should be mostly self-explanatory, with descriptions in Table 3.4. For each detector you can specify whether it'll used during merging, its column in the SPEC data file, and its column in MCA data file (Table 3.5).

**Table 3.4:** Descriptions of the GUI to set up SPEC columns
$\begin{table}\centering \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{\vert r\vert l\vert X\vert}... ... set up MCA data (under development) \\ \par\hline \end{tabularx} \end{table}$

**Table 3.5:** Descriptions of the GUI to set columns for each detector
$\begin{table}\centering \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{\vert r\vert l\vert X\vert}... ...for this detector (under development) \\ \par\hline \end{tabularx} \end{table}$

Set up dead time correction

**Table 3.6:** Descriptions of the GUI to set up dead time correction
$\begin{table}\centering \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{\vert r\vert l\vert X\vert}... ...ify the pulser column for the target \\ \par\hline \end{tabularx} \end{table}$

**Table 3.7:** Descriptions of the GUI to set up merging detectors
$\begin{table}\centering \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{\vert r\vert l\vert X\vert}... ...edit the glitches (under development) \\ \par\hline \end{tabularx} \end{table}$

Set up detector(s) merging

Before merging the scans, you may need to do two things. i) normalization by the monitor counts or measurement time point by point; ii) remove the spurious features sometimes appearing at the ends of scans. Please refer to Table 3.1.4 for usage. One feature still under development is the automatic removal of the spurious single bin-width noise spikes from the electronics.

Actions and visualization

**Table 3.8:** Descriptions of the GUI for action and visualization
$\begin{table}\centering \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{\vert r\vert l\vert X\vert}... ...anced -> & menu & (under development) \\ \par\hline \end{tabularx} \end{table}$