The Statistical Laboratory is both the administrative center for research projects in the department and a consulting service in statistics for students and faculty in other disciplines. The consultants are graduate students in statistics or biostatistics working under the supervision of a faculty member. The Laboratory's present mission is to foster and maintain links between the department and the outside world. These include initiation and support of collaboration with faculty and students in other departments, developing ties with high technology firms through summer placements of graduate students, sponsoring seminar series, and extending the consulting service. Sources of research funds include the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Berkeley is fortunate to have a wide variety of computing facilities. The Department of Statistics provides superlative facilities to its graduate students.
The Statistical Computing Facility (SCF) is an official unit of the Statistics Department. In existence since January 1, 1986, its purpose is to provide computing and peripheral services to the department.
The SCF has a large number of NCD X-terminals with windowing and graphics capability, located in the undergraduate terminal rooms (see below). All graduate student offices contain terminals, most of which do not support graphics. SUN workstations have their own monitors; they are located in 491, 446, and in faculty and staff offices.
There are also several older terminals around, most of them slowly dying of old age. It should be possible to borrow one of these oldies and a modem to work at home.
Rooms 342 and 432 Evans contain laser printers and NCD X-terminals connected to saruman. These rooms are primarily used for undergraduate class computing. Room 342 also serves as a teaching laboratory where TAs hold office hours.
Rooms 491 and 446 Evans are for graduate student use and research. Room 491 contains 15 SPARC stations and two laser printers. Three more workstations are located in room 446. Department faculty, researchers, and statistics and biostatistics graduate students may get keys to rooms 491 and 446 from the department office; keys are necessary for evening or weekend access.
SCF UNIX supports computing languages such as C, Fortran-77 and Pascal; statistical and mathematical packages such as S and S+, SAS, BLSS, GLIM, Vaxima, GenStat and BMDP; and subroutine libraries such as Eispack, Linpack and NAG. Phil Spector is the department's software guru.
Manual racks in room 491 contain copies of the most frequently used manuals, such as the S manual, documentation about the editing facilities, and some UNIX documentation.
All graduate students in statistics and biostatistics are eligible for accounts on the SUNs; fill in a form available at the SCF office (407 Evans).
The SCF facilities include tape drives for several formats. Ask an operator for help if you need to read or write tapes.
James Blakly (Administrative Manager for the SCF, 407 Evans). See him to open a personal account. james@stat.
Rick Kawin (Computer Systems and Facility Manager, 499 Evans). kawin@stat.
Ofer Licht (Assistant Computer Systems Manager, 498 Evans). ofer@stat.
Phil Spector (Statistics Consultant and Applications Manager, 495 Evans). Phil is the statistical computing expert, responsible for the statistics and applications software. He also provides advanced consulting. spector@stat.
Judd Reiffin, Keir Morgan, and Kenji Hubbard (operators, 498 Evans). op@stat.
Mark Abrahams (497 Evans). Mark is in charge of BLSS (BerkeLey interactive Statistical System) software development and off-campus distribution. dma@stat.
Leo Breiman (SCF director, 409 Evans). Professor Breiman makes policy decisions, usually in conjunction with the SCF staff and the Department Computer Committee. leo@stat.
The SCF staff and the Department Computer Committee have joint weekly meetings, open to anyone in the department who wants to attend. Everyone is given a chance to discuss concerns.
Biostatistics students have full access to the SCF; in addition, room 114 in Haviland Hall has several SUNs running under a UNIX operating system. Once issued an account with biostatistics, you are free to use these facilities. There is also a terminal room in 307 Haviland. 340A Haviland houses IBM 486 machines, primarily for class use; it is available to biostatistics graduate students during off-peak hours.
Information Systems and Technology (IST) is a formidable bureaucracy which occupies the entire second floor and basement of Evans Hall. Its main sub-organizations, Central Computing Services (CCS) and Workstation Support Services (WSS), are known collectively as the Computer Center. They sell time on an IBM 3090 and two DEC UNIX systems.
Each semester IST offers a number of short courses on a variety of topics; contact User Account Services, 241 Evans. A free newsletter, Berkeley Computing and Communications, has articles of interest to all computer users on campus.
Time on Computer Center machines is given free to students who require it for academic activities. In the Statistics Department, account request forms must be signed by the director of the SCF.
Many additional facilities are available to graduate students, including office space, a departmental lending library, a conference room, and a coffee room.
All registered graduate students in statistics and biostatistics may have office space. Offices are equipped with desks, chairs, terminals, bookcases, and file cabinets; telephones are not provided.
Room 1011 Evans, the Jerzy Neyman Room, is set up like a conference room. It is used for department seminars, faculty meetings, some classes, parties, and SGSA meetings. The room offers a beautiful bay view and access to the tenth-floor balcony.
The first floor of Evans Hall houses the Astronomy-Mathematics-Statistics Library including a fairly extensive collection of statistics and probability monographs, texts, proceedings, and journals. In addition, the department has two libraries of its own: The textbook library in 367 Evans has copies of many of the texts used in department courses; these are especially convenient for instructors and teaching assistants, but may also be useful when you are taking a course or doing research. In addition, the Betty Scott Library, adjacent to 367 Evans, contains a number of journals and monographs from the SGSA and the late Betty Scott, a former faculty member in the department.
GSIs and GSRs may use the photocopy machines in the department office for purposes related to their employment. Due to budget restrictions, GSIs are requested to limit the number of handouts they provide their students. Students can copy limited amounts of personal material on the photocopy machines at $0.05 per impression.
Students may receive keys for various doors from office staff. A deposit is required for each key. Different keys open the terminal room 342 and the teaching labs, rooms 446 and 491 which contain computer equipment, the SGSA library, the Neyman seminar room, and so on. A security card system controls access to the building after hours; these cards also require a refundable deposit.