Welcome to the Economics Laboratory

http://athens.uchicago.edu//econlab

The Economics Laboratory, located at 1115 E. 58th St. in room 302, has recently undergone some major changes aimed at increasing productivity through greater processing power, as well as providing greater flexibility and convenience for potential users. Graduate students in Economics are invited to apply for an account for the lab to take advantage of these new benefits.

Lab Profile

  1. Creating an Account for Athensx

    To obtain an account on the server you must first have an account with the university (a CNet ID). If you need to find out your CNet ID or you need to create one, you can do that here. Secondly, you will need to be a graduate student or staff with the Economics department. Undergraduate students are ineligible for accounts on Athensx unless they serve as research assistants for Economics Faculty.
    - Please ensure you meet the guidelines for an Athensx account.
    - If you meet the criteria listed, then apply at https://iota.src.uchicago.edu by logging in with your CNET ID and password. Your account request will be reviewed, then SSCS will approve it or request further information.

    Please familiarize yourself with the quotas in place for memory usage, storage and computation time. These quotas are in place to protect the shared resources of the department and are taken seriously by SSCS. Students are expected to abide within these policies if they are to use the systems.

  2. Processing Power
    Core statistical applications (SAS, Stata, Matlab, S-Plus, & R) run on a Dell R910 server consisting of four 2270MHz Intel Xeon eight-core CPU processors and 512GB of RAM, appreciably reducing program execution time. AMPL and the KNITRO solver are also available.
  3. Large Storage Space
    User disk quotas are set at 60GB per student user (faculty 200GB). File storage on the Dell server will also provide great stability, as well as allow remote access to user files.
  4. Remote Access
    As a result of the transition of files and applications to a UNIX environment, users can not only run programs without tying up workstations needed by other users, but can access these files and applications remotely from any machine with an SSH or Windows Network client. Now users who prefer to work off-campus can still reap the benefits of the new server hardware.

    5. Users should consider using RealVNC to access Athensx both from the lab as well as from home as it allows you to disconnect a session while your jobs are still running, and to reconnect from other locations. Information regarding how to setup RealVNC once an account is created can be found in the SSCS VNC FAQ.
    Further information regarding running server programs and about available software is available at http://sscs.uchicago.edu/pages/server-faq.shtml http://sscs.uchicago.edu/pages/server-faq.shtml
  5. Dell Workstations in Walker 303
    The Lab has been outfitted with 17 Dell Optiplex 760 workstations running Windows XP Pro with 2.8GHz processors, 2GB RAM, CDRW/DVD drives, & flat panel screens to provide greater desk workspace.
  6. Roaming Profiles
    In addition to file storage, the server also stores roaming profiles for each lab user. What this means is that users can save their own settings for the appearance of the desktop, program shortcuts, environment variables, etc. and have these settings load automatically when logging in to any of the 17 workstations. *Note that roaming profiles only apply when logging in to a lab machine, not when logging into the server remotely.
    Large files left on the desktop can seriously increase the amount of time required to login to the system. Be sure to move files from your desktop to your Z Drive space.
  7. Laptop Access
    An addition to the new lab space is the installation of a small laptop area supported by a wireless network, allowing users to access files and programs on the University network from their own machines. In the lab there are AC plugs and space available for up to 5 simultaneous users.
  8. Printing
    NSIT now provides printing services for the lab. Please click here for more information including printing FAQ's and NSIT contact information.

 

 

File Services

Each individual with a server account has 60GB of available file storage. When you log onto a lab machine your space on the server is automatically mapped to your My Documents and your Z Drive. You may also connect to the server from outside the lab.

Processor Services

The central purpose of this server is to provide access to powerful software packages for performing statistical analyses and other computationally intensive tasks. Previously you may have used some of these programs as local Windows applications. In order to run these applications on UNIX using an XWindows environment you must first establish a secure X Windows connection with the server. X Windows is a protocol for displaying the graphical output of a program. Generally this is used to run a program on a remote server and have that program display it's output to a local monitor.

Then from the xterm command line you may start any of the programs. Simply type the name of the program (matlab, sas, splus, xstata, or r). If you wish to continue using the command line while the program you have chosen is running simply add a & after the name of the program. For example:

sas &

This command will start SAS and leave your command line free to execute other commands.

You can click here for additional help with running statistical applications in UNIX.