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ITC Research Computing Support Newsletter April, 2000

This is the April, 2000 newsletter of the ITC Research Computing Support Group. If you have any questions or concerns on the information presented here please contact the ITC Research Computing Support Group via email to res-consult@virginia.edu, or at the Research Computing Support Center, 244 Wilson Hall, 243-8800. The Research Computing Support Center is open 9AM-5PM, Monday through Friday.

Contents

• Minitab 13.0 Now Available for Departments Wishing to Deploy Minitab on Servers
• Check Out SPSS Clementine Data Mining Software
• Matlab Toolboxes Available for Testing at the Research Computing Support Center
• Student Consulting Positions are Available with the Research Computing Support Group
• Backwards Compatibility Issue with SPSS 9.0 and 10.0
• SAS 8 Available for Purchase at the Research Computing Support Center

Minitab 13.0 Now Available for Departments Wishing to Deploy Minitab on Servers

Minitab 13.0 is now available to departments wishing to deploy it on a departmental server. UVa's license with Minitab permits the deployment on any number of servers grounds-wide but does not cover personal installations of Minitab. If your department already has an earlier version of Minitab installed (and the ITC Research Computing Support Group knows about it!), the departmental LSP or system administrator can go to ITC statistical software licensing website:

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/research/licensing.html

select the option to license Minitab, fill out details about the location of the installations, and download the installation files directly from the website. Alternatively, authorized LSPs or system administrators can pick up a Minitab 13.0 CD from the Research Computing Support Center for $10.00. LSPs or system administrators in departments running earlier versions of Minitab will be receiving more details about licensing and downloading Minitab 13.0 in the coming days. If you would like to make Minitab available to faculty and students in your department via a departmental server but you are not running any version of Minitab currently, or if you are running Minitab in your department but are not sure whether you are authorized to download Minitab 13 via the website above, please contact the Research Computing Support Center (res-consult@virginia.edu; 243-8800).

Minitab 13.0 will replace the current version of Minitab (12.23) found in all ITC public labs and classrooms sometime during the summer. A general announcement will be made prior to its deployment. Departments wishing to synchronize the deployment of Minitab 13.0 within their departments to its deployment grounds-wide should continue checking the ITC Research Computing newsletter or email res-consult@virginia.edu.

Check Out SPSS Clementine Data Mining Software

The Research Computing Support Center has installed a copy of the SPSS Clementine data mining software on a Windows platform in the Research Center in order to allow the University community to evaluate and explore the software package. Users wishing to take a look at Clementine are encouraged to drop by and try it out. Information about Clementine can be found at the following URL:

http://www.spss.com/clementine/

The UVa-SPSS site license does not currently cover the Clementine software, but a Graduate Pack (perpetual license) version of Clementine is available directly from SPSS for $165.00. The ITC Research Computing Support Group is open to broader licensing options if sufficient interest in Clementine software develops grounds-wide.

Matlab Toolboxes Available for Testing at the Research Computing Support Center

Matlab Toolboxes which are not currently licensed by ITC and therefore are not available as part of our Matlab Unix installation are available for testing on a Dell PC in the Research Computing Support Center (RCSC). Anyone who would like to investigate the functionality of these toolboxes should contact the RCSC (243-8800) to make an appointment to use the Dell.

In addition to the Matlab Toolboxes that ITC licenses for its Unix platforms (see below), the following Toolboxes are available for testing on the RCSC Dell computer running Windows 2000:

Data Acquisition Toolbox	Version 1.0	(R11) Beta 2.0
MATLAB Report Generator	Version 1.0	(R11)
Database Toolbox	Version 1.0	(R11)
NAG Foundation Toolbox	Version 1.0.3	(R11)
Mapping Toolbox	Version 1.1	(R11)
Wavelet Toolbox	Version 1.2	(R11)
Partial Differential Equation Toolbox	Version 1.0.3	(R11)
QFT Control Design Toolbox	Version 1.0.3	(R11)
Fixed-Point Blockset	Version 2.0	(R11)
DSP Blockset	Version 3.0	(R11)
Fuzzy Logic Toolbox	Version 2.0.1	(R11)
Model Predictive Control Toolbox	Version 1.0.4	(R11)
Frequency Domain Identification Toolbox	Version 2.0.3	(R11)
Higher-Order Spectral Analysis Toolbox	Version 2.0.3	(R11)
Spline Toolbox	Version 2.0.1	(R11)
Robust Control Toolbox	Version 2.0.6	(R11)
Real-Time Workshop	Version 3.0.0	(R11)
Stateflow	Version 2.0	(R11)

Descriptions of these toolboxes can be accessed from the MathWork's website through the "Matlab Toolboxes" link on the Web page:

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/research/matlab.html

The following toolboxes are currently licensed for the Unix platforms that ITC supports (IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, SGI IRIX, Intel Linux):

Simulink	Version 3.0	(R11)
Communications Toolbox	Version 1.4	(R11)
MATLAB Compiler (and Compiler 1.2.1)	Version 2.0	(R11)
Control System Toolbox	Version 4.2	(R11)
Financial Toolbox	Version 2.0.1	(R11)
System Identification Toolbox	Version 4.0.5	(R11)
Image Processing Toolbox	Version 2.2	(R11)
LMI Control Toolbox	Version 1.0.5	(R11)
Mu-Analysis and Synthesis Toolbox	Version 3.0.4	(R11)
Nonlinear Control Design Blockset	Version 1.1.3	(R11)
Neural Network Toolbox	Version 3.0.1	(R11)
Optimization Toolbox	Version 2.0	(R11)
Robust Control Toolbox	Version 2.0.6	(R11)
SystemBuild to Simulink Translator	Version 2.0	(R11)
Signal Processing Toolbox	Version 4.2	(R11)
Stateflow	Version 2.0	(R11)
Statistics Toolbox	Version 2.2	(R11)
Symbolic Math Toolbox	Version 2.1	(R11)

Student Consulting Positions are Available in the Research Computing Support Group

The Research Computing Support Group is accepting applications for student consultants. We are interested in hiring students to start either this summer or fall. The student(s) hired will be expected to work at least through the 00/01 academic year.

The preferred applicant would be:

1. A graduate student with experience in compiled languages (Fortran, C++), as well as familiarity with those packages typically used by researchers (Matlab, Mathematica, LaTeX, etc.). This applicant would have a broad working knowledge of unix, or
2. A graduate student with experience in the statistical packages (SPSS, SAS and Splus) and in statistical analysis and experimental design. This applicant would have a good working knowledge of Windows 95, 98 and NT.

If you are interested in a position with the Research Computing Support Group please fill out the information at

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/research/news/studapp.html

then contact Dawn Adelsberger-Mangan via email to: dma9w@virginia.edu.

Backwards Compatibility Issue with SPSS 9.0 and 10.0

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/research/licensing.html

and dropping by the Research Computing Support Center (244 Wilson Hall) to purchase the installation media.

The SPSS SmartViewer can be downloaded from the following URL:

http://www.spss.com/software/spss/sviewer/downloads.htm

Currently, both SPSS 9.0 and 10.0 are available in all ITC labs and classrooms, but SPSS 9.0 will only be available until August. Departments that deploy SPSS on departmental servers will want to ensure that they have upgraded to SPSS 10.0 by late summer in order to minimize problems caused by faculty and students conducting work in both departmental and ITC computer labs.

SAS 8 Available for Purchase at the Research Computing Support Center

The latest release of SAS for Windows, Version 8.0 is now available at the Research Computing Support Center. SAS 8.0 introduces substantial changes in the graphical user interface compared to the previous version, SAS 6.12. Among the enhancements are the following:

• Windowing Environment:

  • SAS Explorer Window

    The SAS workspace is composed of windows that enable you to accomplish specific tasks. Along with the main programming windows (Program Editor, Log, and Output), the workspace now includes SAS Explorer, a central point for managing basic SAS software tasks such as:

    1. viewing and managing tables, libraries, and members;
    2. creating new libraries and file shortcuts; and
    3. creating new library members and catalog entries.

  • Results Window

    The Results window contains pointers to various locations in the Output window. When procedure code executes, pointers to specific output are generated and are listed in the Results window. You can click the navigation pointers to locate the desired output.

• Output Delivery System:

  In previous versions of SAS, printed output from SAS procedures and from the DATA step was designed for a traditional line-printer. Printed output is now much more flexible. The new Output Delivery System (ODS) enhances your ability to manage both DATA step and procedure output. ODS features include the ability to:

  1. combine the raw data that is produced with one or more templates to produce one or more output objects that contain the formatted results;
  2. store a link to each output object in the Results folder in the Results window;
  3. generate HTML files that contain the formatted results and that contain links to the results in the form of a table of contents;
  4. generate output for a high-resolution printer;
  5. generate output data sets from procedure output;
  6. allow you to customize the procedure output by creating templates that you can use whenever you run the procedure.

• SAS Online Doc:

  All SAS manuals are now provided in electronic format on a CD distributed with the SAS System.

• Long Variable Names and Expanded Rules for SAS Names:

  The rules for SAS names have been expanded to provide more functionality. Some SAS names, such as DATA step variables, members of SAS data libraries, and catalog entries, can be up to 32 bytes long. A variable name can be mixed case.

• Referencing a Permanent SAS Data Set without a Libref:

  You can create or reference a permanent SAS data set without first assigning a libref. You can refer to a SAS data set directly by specifying in quotes the name by which the operating system refers to the file.

SAS 8.0 for Windows is available to faculty, staff and students via the UVa site license maintained by ITC. Users can obtain SAS for $45.00 which covers the cost of the distribution media (4 CDs) and associated documentation provided by SAS. Users can obtain licenses for SAS 8.0 at the online licensing website:

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/research/licensing.html

and can purchase the actual distribution media at the Research Computing Support Center.

For more information on the new features of SAS (7 and) 8 visit:

http://www.sas.com/software/sas_system/