RESEARCH COMPUTING NEWS 2002

Recent announcements

December 5,2002: Latest issue of Stata Journal available
November 15,2002: New dataset at Kellogg -- Fixed Investment Securities Database (FISD)
November 12,2002: Zacks 2002 available on skew3
November 11,2002: Incoming Telnet and FTP will be disabled on skew3
October 1,2002: New license key for MATLAB for PC and workstations
September 17, 2002: Latest issue of Stata Journal available
September 13, 2002: Skew3 is back on-line
September 3, 2002: X-Win32 license keys have been updated
August 31, 2002: WRDS downtime September 3, 7:00am to 8:00 am
August 30, 2002: Skew3 recent upgrades and installations
July 29, 2002: WRDS upgrade starts July 31
July 26, 2002: Northwestern dissertation template files for use Scientific WorkPlace
July 2, 2002: New Stata and SAS books at the RC library
June 19, 2002: Upgrade to SSH 3.2 is available
June 18, 2002: X-Win32 upgrade to 5.3 available
June 17, 2002: New datasets (Insider, lexis.com, mutual funds)
June 15, 2002: Latest issue of Stata Journal
June 11, 2002: Upgrade to SSH is available
May 20, 2002: NU Library subscribes to FISonline (Mergent)
May 14, 2002: SSRN site license for Kellogg
May 2, 2002: Lisrel & HLM -- New books at the RC library
April 8, 2002: New datasets at Kellogg -- ISSM and Economática
March 6, 2002: New reference books added to RC library
March 4, 2002: RATS 5.1 and Gauss 3.6 installed in skew3
February 22, 2002: WRDS /projects maintenance on Feb. 27
February 5, 2002: Handouts and materials for the winter training sessions are now online.
February 2, 2002: NU Library upgrades the Investext Database [database of investment analysis reports] to Investext Plus
February 1, 2002: Forthcoming training sessions in UNIX, SAS and usage of CRSP and Compustat through WRDS
January 31, 2002: 20 Elsevier economics journals now available online
January 25, 2002: New pyschology journals available online
January 21, 2002: Eurosans package installation MiKTEX

Announcements during previous years:

• Announcements during 2001
• Announcements during 2000

December 5, 2002: Latest issue of Stata Journal

The latest electronic copy of the Stata Journal is available online. The Stata Journal replaces the Stata Technical Bulletin series.

Access to the STBs and the Stata Journal is by request only. Send a message to researchcomputing-help@kellogg.northwestern.edu to have your netid added. Hard copies of all issues are available in the research computing library (Jacobs 4219).

November 15, 2002: New dataset at Kellogg -- Fixed Investment Securities Database (FISD)

We have added the LJS Global Fixed Investment Securities Database (FISD), which includes descriptive information on debt securities, as well as pricing (from insurance companies' transactions) between 1995 and 2001. These data is available to current Kellogg faculty and doctoral students on our Unix server, skew3. For a more detailed description and access to the documentation, please point your browser to:

November 12, 2002: Zacks2002 update is on skew3

Zacks 2002 update has been uploaded to skew3 in /kellogg/data/zacks/zacks2002. There are minor changes to the file layout:

1. Corporate events history files (files with extension .csm) are not included in the new data.
2. Broker reference file has been changed to "broker.csv" from "broker.prn". The layout is also slightly different in sas format:

broker_code $ 1-2 brokername $ 4-18

The layout of other files is identical to that in 2001, and you can go to http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/zacks-history.htm for detailed information.

November 11, 2002: Incoming Telnet and FTP will be disabled on skew3

Incoming Telent and FTP will be disabled on skew3 starting Monday Nov, 18. Please use SSH and SFTP instead for connection. For the use of SSH and SFTP, please go to http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/ssh.htm

October 1, 2002: New license key for MALTAB for PC and workstations

The campus license for MATLAB has been renewed for the academic year. Please see the instructions for renewal information.

June 17, 2002: Latest issue of Stata Journal

The latest electronic copy of the Stata Journal is available online. The Stata Journal replaces the Stata Technical Bulletin series.

Access to the STBs and the Stata Journal is by request only. Send a message to researchcomputing-help@kellogg.northwestern.edu to have your netid added.

September 13: Skew3 is back on-line

• All passwords have been changed by NUIT so users must call to get the new one. Please call Jim (7-4070) or Patricia Ledesma (7-7658) to get your new password. Please use "passwd" (without quotes) command to change your password after you log in for the first time. You will be asked to enter the login name again (this time put in the assigned password). Then hit enter, you will be asked to enter a new password and confirm. Your account will be disabled if you keep using the assigned password and do not change.
• Telnet and FTP are restricted to NU campus, NU modem dial-up and VPN users only. The telnet protocol passes user IDs and passwords in plan text over the network. Hacker are able to use sniffer programs to capture and interpret them. In the future, support on telnet and FTP will be dropped completely. Secure Shell (SSH) and Secure FTP (SFTP) are strongly recommended when you access the server. NU has a site license of SSH and SFTP free to faculty, students and staff. you can download the installer at charlotte.at.northwestern.edu/bef/sshdist.html. There are also freeware versions (www.openssh.com, www.macssh.com, hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.html) that you can download. The first time you log back into skew3 with SSH, you will see a pop up window warning you that the identification has been changed and asking you to contact system administrators. Please click OK button and continue. This is fine because the skew3 was just rebuilt and all the saved passwords have been changed.
• If you need to plot graphics or use GAUSS/SAS/STATA/MATLAB in interactive mode, please note XDMCP is restricted to any machine or workstation that has a name that ends in kellogg.northwestern.edu or econ.northwestern.edu or vpn.northwestern.edu only. The regular X windows is still available and can be combined with SSH to provide secure access. We will provide more documentation on how to do this at our research computing web site.
• The execute attribute (the 'x' in rwxrwxrw- string) of all files in your home directory has been disabled during the security check. If you use 'ls -l' command to show all files, you will only see 'rw-' or 'r--' in the attribute column. For most files, it is not necessary to turn it back on. However, if the file is executable like a C/FORTRAN compiled object or a Perl or shell script, you need to use "chmod u+x filename" to turn it on before you submit the job.
• For now, skew3's mail subsystem has been brought back on-line, but it accepts mail only from the NUIT Central Email machines: casbah, merle, lulu and hecky

September 3, 2002: X-Win32 license keys have been updated

Users of X-Win32 will notice that the site license for the software expired at the end of August. has posted the new license keys in avendesora.at.northwestern.edu/x-win32/.

If you already version 5.3 is already installed in your computer and you need to update the license key:

1. Point your browser to avendesora.at.northwestern.edu/x-win32/, highlight and copy the license key that corresponds to your subnet (Jacobs is in subnet 129.105.0.0).

2. Open X-Config, click on the "License" tab

3. Paste the new license key; click on the "Apply" button, and on "OK" to close X-Config. X-Win32 will run as before.

August 31, 2002: WRDS downtime September 3, 7:00 am to 8:00 am (CST)

WRDS has notified users of downtime on Tuesday, September 3, for one hour. All running jobs and processes will be stopped and lost. After 8:00 am, please login to 'wrds.wharton.upenn.edu'.

This is the last step in putting the revamped SUN E10000 server online and compete copying of all directories and user files to the E10000 will be made during this hour of downtime.

If you have any questions about the new system, send a message to wrds-support@wharton.upenn.edu. Always be sure to use your Northwestern email account, which is used to keep track of inquiries.

August 30, 2002: Skew3 recent upgrades and installations

Scheduled downtime: Skew3 will down on Sunday, September 1, between 9:00 am and 11:00 am for quarterly maintenance and to remove an old disk array.

Recent upgrades: During the last few weeks, the following software upgrades/changes have made:

• emacs (and xemacs) was upgraded to version 21.1.1

• vim, an enhanced version of the vi text editor, has been installed. Sample configuration files, including one for SAS syntax highlighting, are available in the following path:
  /usr/local/etc/vim/sample_files

  Thanks to Vincent Nijs for providing the SAS syntax file.

  More information about vim can be found in www.vim.org.

• Matlab 5 (R11) has been disabled and Matlab 6.5 (R13) will be installed shortly. The current version is Matlab 6 (R12).

• SPlus 5 has been disabled. The current version is SPlus 6.

• R, a GNU version of S (the programming language used by SPlus) has also been installed. For more information about R, refer to www.r-project.org. The March/April 2002 issue of the Journal of Applied Econometrics includes a review article on R.

July 29, 2002: WRDS upgrade

The upgrade of the WRDS system starts this Wednesday July 31, and the whole process is planned to take three steps and about a month to finish. 

PHASE 1: Transition from wrds.wharton to wrdstemp.wharton July 31 - August 6

• Telnet/ssh access to WRDS will be UNAVAILABLE from 7:00 am to 8:00 am this Wednesday though batch jobs started with nohup (as will web queries) before that time will continue to run in the background.  During this period, the files on wrds.wharton (but not the output files from running batch jobs) will be copied to a temporary server "wrdstemp.wharton.upenn.edu".

   Output from non-web batch jobs started on wrds.wharton will be retained, but users will have to ask wrds-support@wharton.upenn.edu to copy output files to   wrdstemp in order to access them.

• Starting at 8:00 am, telnet and ssh users will be able to login to wrdstemp.wharton.upenn.edu.  Users who attempt to login to wrds.wharton will receive a message asking them to login to wrdstemp.wharton.upenn.edu instead, along with a link to a web page with more information.  During this period, the password function on wrds.wharton will be disabled.

• Also starting at 8:00 on Wednesday, web users will be able to login to either system -- wrdstemp.wharton.upenn.edu or continue to use wrds.wharton, but for a week only.  For your convenience, please try wrdstemp.wharton.upenn.edu. 

PHASE 2: Only wrdstemp is available: August 7 - the end of August (might be earlier)

• The primary server E10000 will be completely taken off line and all requests for wrds will automatically connect to wrdstemp. The current limit of 48 hours for files on sastemp will be reduced to 24 hours.

PHASE 3:  The new server is up:  September 1 -

• About three weeks later, once the server rebuilt and tested, our users can start using it b. The 24-hour limit on sastemp files will be extended back to 48 hours at this point. More details will be delivered as we get closer.

July 26, 2002: Northwestern dissertation template files for use Scientific WorkPlace

MacKichan Software has created shell and style files that support the Northwestern thesis class file maintained by the Math Department. These files will be shipped with future releases of Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Word. Users with versions 4.1, build 2345 and earlier, must add these files manually.

Point your browser to the following page for instructions:

July 2, 2002: New Stata and SAS books at the RC library

We have added the titles listed below to the research computing library in Jacobs 4219. They are available for short-term borrowing (up to 1 week):

Stata:

• Cleves. Mario A., William W. Gould and Roberto G. Gutierrez (2002). An introduction to survival analysis using Stata. [Table of contents]

SAS books:

• Boehmer, Ekkehart, John Paul Broussard and Juha-Pekka Kallunki (2002). Using SAS in Financial Research. [Table of contents]
• Carpenter, Art (1998). Carpenter's complete guide to the SAS macro language. [Table of contents]
• Cody, Ron (2001). Longitudinal data and SAS. A programmers guide. [Table of contents]
• Cody, Ron (1999). Cody's data cleaning techniques using SAS software. [Table of contents (in PDF format)]
• SAS Institute (2001), Categorical Data Analysis Using Logistic Regression Course Notes
• SAS Institute (2000), SAS SQL Procedure User's Guide, Version 8 [Table of contents]
• Stokes, Maura E., Charles S. Davis and Gary G. Koch (2000). Categorical Data Analysis Using the SAS System, 2nd. edition. [Table of contents]

More titles for each of these packages are listed under their corresponding web pages in our software list.

Reminder: The complete set of current SAS manuals is available online at v8doc.sas.com/sashtml/. This is a SAS web site that requires registration -- click on "Cancel" the first time you access it and provide your name, e-mail and institutional affiliation. The SAS Institute will e-mail you the login id and password.

June 19, 2002: Upgrade for SSH is released (version 3.2.0)

Upgrades to SSH Secure Shell for Windows clients and UNIX servers have been released. Version 3.2.0 for Windows has a greatly improved Secure FTP, which allows the configuration of "favorite folders" on both the host an client. The version also fixes some bugs.

Related pages:

• Terminal emulators
• SSH distribution

June 18, 2002: X-Win32 upgrade to 5.3 available

StarNet has released version 5.3, patch level 3, of X-Win32, an X Windows emulator for Microsoft Windows workstations. This patch fixes some driver incompatibilities for Windows NT and adds a feature that allows quick creation of a shortcut to a specific host on the desktop.

• Northwestern download site
• X-Win32 setup for skew3

June 17, 2002: New datasets (Insider, lexis.com, mutual funds)

During the last weeks we have added the following data to our collection:

• LexisNexis at lexis.com: This is a full-fledged version of Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis) that has better search capabilities and more data sources. While oriented to legal research, it includes detailed organization-level information on corporate governance, corporate affiliations and firm profiles. Access is restricted to two concurrent users.

• Lancer Analytics Value-Added Insider data feed: Data on stock holdings and transactions, as well as options exercises, by insiders dating back to 1986. "Insiders" are officers, directors, any individual in policy making position, or beneficial owner (holder of 10% or more) of a company's stock. Insiders can be either individuals or corporations.

• Mutual Funds Common Stock Holdings and Transactions: Common stock holdings and transactions of mutual funds. Mutual funds covered are those that file shareholder reports with the SEC, plus over 3,000 international ones.

  The Lancer Analytics and mutual funds data complement our existing holdings of common stock ownership and transactions by institutional managers ("CDA/Spectrum").

June 15, 2002: Latest issue of Stata Journal

The latest electronic copy of the Stata Journal is available online. The Stata Journal replaces the Stata Technical Bulletin series.

Access to the STBs and the Stata Journal is by request only. Send a message to researchcomputing-help@kellogg.northwestern.edu to have your netid added.

June 11, 2002: Upgrade for SSH is released (version 3.1.1)

Upgrade to SSH Secure Shell for Windows clients and UNIX servers have been released. Version 3.1.1 for Windows fixes some bugs.

Related pages:

• Terminal emulators
• SSH distribution

May 20, 2002: NU Library subscribes to FISonline (Mergent)

Please note the following announcement from Jeannette Moss regarding a new library. A link to the library's record for this dataset has been added to our "Data" web page, under full text reosurces.

Date: Mon, 20 May 2002
From: Jeannette Moss
Subject: New NU Library electronic subscription: US and foreign companies

The Library now subscribes to FISOnline (formerly Moody's Manuals in print), er.library.northwestern.edu/detail.asp?id=43115&pn=1:

• The database includes financial and background information on 30,000 US and foreign public companies, including annual reports, and also includes information on 15,000 inactive companies.
• Subscription covers current information from the manuals. However, spreadsheet financials date back 12 years, annual reports date back to 1996 or 1997, and searchable SEC filings date back to 1993.
• An advanced search capability allows for screening of companies by over 20 variables in order to create targeted lists of companies.
• The database also includes current news from select business newswires and currency conversion capability for financials.

Jeannette Moss
Reference Librarian and Kellogg School of Management Liaison
Northwestern University Library
1935 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
reference desk: (847) 491-7656

May 14, 2002: SSRN site license for Kellogg

Kellogg has acquired a school-wide license to all of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) networks and journals. This collection currently comprises five research networks: Accounting, Economics, Financial Economics, Legal Scholarship, and Management. The latter includes the marketing and negotiations research networks, recently created.

• To subscribe, fill the form provided by SSRN
  papers.ssrn.com/secure/subscribe.cfm?function=all_site. Please specify "Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University" as your organization and use your Kellogg e-mail address (@kellogg.northwestern.edu) as the primary address. You may subscribe to as many networks and journals as you wish.

• If you are already subscribed, you do not have to do anything unless you want to add journals or networks.

• The description of this service and the link to the subscription form can be found in the Research Computing web site: www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/ssrn.htm. From the Research Computing home page, click on "Data" and scroll to "Full text sources."

• For those not familiar with SSRN, each of the research networks edits a number of abstracting journals, sent to subscribers via e-mail, on discipline sub-fields (for example, "asset pricing & valuation" in the Financial Economics Network, "industrial organization theory" in the Economics Research Network, or "decision making & negotiations" in the Negotiations Research Network). For many working papers, the abstracts include a link to a complete version of the paper. The SSRN web site (www.ssrn.com) also has a searchable working paper archive.

The standard welcome message from SSRN follows.

We hope you find this resource useful.

------------------

Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:34:41 -0700
From: Sandy Barnes, SSRN
Subject: Subscription Letter - SSRN journals

The Kellogg School of Management has acquired a one year site license covering the electronic abstracting journals published by the Social Science Research Network in the fields of financial economics, accounting research, legal scholarship, management and economics research. The site license covers subscriptions to any of the journals listed below for the next year.

Each journal issue contains abstracts of recent working or accepted papers in a particular area of social science scholarship, and is delivered to you in the form of an email message. Each journal is edited by a professor with expertise in the field covered by the journal. Each abstract is accompanied by an email address for the author, whom you can contact to obtain a full copy of any paper you are interested in, and often a web site address from which the paper can be downloaded free of charge. Journal frequency is usually weekly or biweekly (sometimes less frequent), depending on the journal.

The Social Science Research Network hopes that you will submit abstracts for your own working papers. Publishing an abstract is a good way to tell other subscribers about your work in progress. Each issue contains information on how to submit an abstract for publication.

SSRN maintains an Electronic Library that contains over 41,000 previously announced abstracts and 21,000 working papers in law, economics, management, accounting and finance, which are available to subscribers for downloading. The electronic library is available at www.ssrn.com and permits searching for papers by author and title, and full-text searching of abstracts.

In addition, subscribers have access to working papers published by organizations in partnership with SSRN, including NBER, CEPR, and EBRI which are downloadable for a fee. Since SSRN has to pay these organizations when their documents are downloaded we cannot provide them to our subscribers, including our site license subscribers, for free. More information about these fee-based downloads is available at www.ssrn.com/update/general/partners.html.

May 2, 2002: Lisrel & HLM -- New books at the RC library

The following books have been added to the Research Computing library in Jacobs 4219 and may be borrowed for short periods (refer to our library policies):

HLM:

• Raudenbusch, Stephen, Anthony Bryk, Yuk Fai Cheong & Richard Congdon: HLM 5. Hierachical Linear and Nonlinear Modeling. SSI Scientific Software International, 2001
• Raudenbusch, Stephen & Anthony Bryk, Hierachical Linear Models. Applications and Data Analysis Methods. Sage, 2002

Lisrel / Prelis:

• Jöreskorg, Karl & Dag Sörbom, LISREL 8: User's Reference Guide. SSI Scientific Software International, 2001.
• Jöreskorg, Karl & Dag Sörbom, PRELIS 2: User's Reference Guide. SSI Scientific Software International, 2002
• Jöreskorg, Karl & Dag Sörbom, LISREL 8: Structural Equation Modeling with the SIMPLIS Command Language. SSI Scientific Software International, 1993

Reminders for users interested in these programs:

1. UNIX versions (multi-user) are available in the DCE/DFS computing system (seldon, hardin, etc); accounts for this system are created by Bruce Foster (bef@northwestern.edu).
2. Student editions for MS Windows (which restrict the data and model size) are free from SSI's web site.
3. The creators of Lisrel and HLM offer training sessions in Chicago in May and August. Please refer to www.ssicentral.com/workshop/workshop.htm

April 8, 2002: New datasets at Kellogg

In recent weeks we have added two datasets to Kellogg's holdings. The new datasets are:

• ISSM transactions file databases: Tick-by-tick data from the NYSE, AMEX and Nasdaq for the 1983 through 1992 period. This data can be accessed through our UNIX server, skew3. For more information and the available documentation, refer to www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/issm.htm

• Economática: A Windows-based database that contains quarterly company financials and market data for Latin American (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela) and Asian (China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan) countries. This data can be accessed through Windows NT or 2000. For more information, refer to www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/economatica.htm

March 6, 2002: New reference books added to RC library

The Research Computing Library (Jacobs 4219) has added the following titles, which can be borrowed by current faculty and doctoral students for up to one week at a time:

Matlab:

• Hanselman, Duane, and Bruce Littlefield (2001). Mastering Matlab. A Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference, Prentice-Hall.

More Matlab references in www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/matlab.htm

Perl:

• Cross, David (2001). Data Munging with Perl. Techniques for Data Recognition, Parsing, Transformation and Filtering. Manning Publications

More Perl references in: www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/perl.htm

Writing and proofing guides:

• Anderson, Laura Killen (1990). Handbook for Proofreading. NTC Business Books.
• Strunk, William, Jr., and E.B. White (2000). The Elements of Style. Longman Publishers, fourth edition.
• Turabian, Kate L. (1996). A manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations. University of Chicago Press, sixth edition.
• University of Chicago Press (1993). The Chicago Manual of Style. University of Chicago Press, fourteenth edition.

More writing references in www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/writing.htm

L^ATEX:

• Goossens, Michel, Frank Mittelbach and Alexander Samarin (1994).The L^ATEX Companion. Addison-Wesley
• Grätzer, George (2000). Math Into L^ATEX, Birkhäuser Springer, third edition.
• Lamport, Leslie (1994). L^ATEX. A Document Preparation System. User's Guide and Reference Manual. Addison-Wesley, second edition.

List of available titles for L^ATEX: www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/tex.htm

MS Word (a good reference for dissertation writers trying to create templates and managing large, "master" documents)

• Glenn, Walter (2000). Word 2000 in a Nutshell. A Power User's Quick Reference. O'Reilly

Listed in www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/writing.htm

Academic job searches:

• Formo, Dawn M., and Cheryl Reed (1999). Job Search in Academe. Strategic Rhetorics for Faculty Job Candidates. Stylus Publishing.

More related resources in: www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/resources.htm

March 4, 2002: RATS 5.1 and Gauss 3.6 installed in skew3

RATS 5.1 and GAUSS 3.6 have been installed on skew3. In addition, Constrained Maximum Likelihood(CML), Maximum Likelihood(ML) and Time Series(TS) modules in GAUSS 3.6 have also been upgraded to the latest versions.

RATS is an econometric/time-series analysis software. For the new features of RATS 5.1, please go to the following web page: www.estima.com/version5.htm. For how to access it on skew3, please refer to our RATS web page.

GAUSS 3.6 has only terminal interface available for UNIX. If you want to use graphic interface under X windows, you need to use GAUSS version 3.2. The command for starting a GAUSS 3.6 session is "tgauss" while the old gauss default has been kept - "gauss" starts GAUSS ver3.2 graphic interface and "gauss -v" starts ver 3.2 terminal interface. Please go to http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/researchcomputing/gauss.htm for more details.

GAUSS 3.6 has over 60 new functions:

• New Random Number Generators
• Financial Functions: Functions for pricing American and European options by Black and Scholes and Binomial methods, including implied volatility and greeks. Additional functions are provided for computing number of trading days between dates and trading days per year as defined by New York Stock Exchange.
• Character/Numeric Conversion Functions
• String Tokenizing Functions for Importing ASCII Data
• Date Conversion Functions
• Time and Date Functions
• Others

Three Gauss applications have been also updated:

• Constrained Maximum Likelihood 2.0 Faster, trust regions, grid search, new multiple point numerical derivatives, new long period random numbers.
• Maximum Likelihood 5.0 Up to 800% faster, support for new long period random number generators.
• Time Series 4.0 Has a host of procedures for analyzing time series and panel data, including fixed and random effects, VARMA and VARMAX, cointegration, and ECM models.

February 22, 2002: WRDS /projects maintenance on Feb. 27

From: Steve Crispi
Subject: WRDS System Maintenance
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 17:09:18 -0500 (EST)

The /projects filesystem on WRDS will be taken offline on Wednesday, February 27th from 8:00 a.m. to noon EDT for maintenance. All processes using /projects will be terminated at 8:00 a.m. Users will have access to their files in the /home filesystem and will be able to run programs in the /home and /sastempN filesystems during this time. WRDS web services will not be affected during this period. If you have any questions, please send e-mail to wrds-support@wharton.upenn.edu.

Steve Crispi
Senior Data Analyst
Wharton Research Data Services

February 5, 2002: Handouts and materials for the winter training sessions are now online.

Handouts, articles and relevant links for the Winter training sessions on UNIX, SAS and data retrieval from WRDS are now available in the Training & Publications web site.

Users who are attending these sessions should make sure their passwords for skew3 and WRDS are working. Users who had signed up and are unable to attend, please report this to Patricia Ledesma (pledesma@northwestern.edu).

February 2, 2002: NU Library upgrades the Investext Database to Investext Plus

Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 16:43:57 -0600
From: Leslie Bjorncrantz
Subject: NU Library upgrades the Investext Database [database of investment analysis reports] to Investext Plus

I am pleased to announce that Northwestern University Library has just upgraded their Investext subscription, a database of investment analysis reports, to an enhanced version of the same database, Investext Plus.

Like Investext, Investext Plus includes analyst reports on companies and industries from many brokers/investment banks. However, the enhancements in this new version include:

• Trade association reports from 190 trade associations covering nearly 50 major industries.
• Mergent (formerly Moody's) company reports and history & debt reports on select companies
• An increase in the total number of reports included in the database: from 50,000 in the previous subscription to 400,000 in the current subscription.
• Improved search capability, allowing searches by industry, type of report, and geographic region of the world

Another difference in the new version is that all reports are now available as .pdf page image documents rather than text.

To access Investext Plus, go to the library's Electronic Resources web page http://er.library.northwestern.edu and type in the name Investext Plus or go to the library's catalog http://nucat.library.northwestern.edu and do a title search on Investext Plus.

Kellogg users may also go to the Research Computing web site's Data page and scroll down to "Full text databases" for a link to Investext Plus.

February 1, 2002: Forthcoming training sessions in UNIX, SAS and usage of CRSP and Compustat through WRDS

The following hands-on training sessions for Kellogg doctoral students and faculty have been scheduled for February:

• Monday, February 4, 9:00am to 11:00am: Basic Unix commands, editing files, FTP, basis SAS logic. If you attend this session, need a skew3 account. If you do not have one, apply by filling the form in skew3.kellogg.northwestern.edu. [No seats available]
• Friday, February 8, 9:00am-11:00am: Using CRSP and Compustat in Wharton. Using CRSP and Compustat in Wharton. If you attend this session, you need a WRDS account. If you do not have one, apply by filling the form in wrds.wharton.upenn.edu. [No seats available]
• Monday, February 11, 9:00am to 11:00am: Question and Answer session for students in ACCT 520, "Capital Markets Research in Accounting" (Ph.D. seminar).
• Friday, February 15, 9:00am-11:00am: Basic Unix commands, editing files, FTP, basis SAS logic. If you attend this session, need a skew3 account. If you do not have one, apply by filling the form in skew3.kellogg.northwestern.edu.
• Monday, February 18, 9:00am to 11:00am: Using CRSP and Compustat in Wharton. If you attend this session, you need a WRDS account. If you do not have one, apply by filling the form in wrds.wharton.upenn.edu. [No seats available]

All sessions will take place in the Jacobs Extension Computer Lab (G20). This lab is located behind the Jacobs "Main" computer lab, which can be seen from the Atrium.

To sign up for the sessions on February 15 and/or February 18, send a message to Patricia Ledesma (pledesma@northwestern.edu). As of February 1, there are between 6 and 8 seats available for those sessions. The Unix skills taught in the "Basic Unix skills" session are necessary for the CRSP and Compustat session. If you are not attending the "Basic Unix skills" workshop, we encourage you to go through the class materials that will be posted in our Training & Publications web page.

Send suggestions for future hands-on or demonstration workshops to Patricia Ledesma (pledesma@northwestern.edu).

January 31, 2002: 20 Elsevier economics journals now available online

Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:04:07 -0600
From: Leslie Bjorncrantz
Subject: 20 journal titles in economics published by Elsevier now available electronically from 1998 to date

I am pleased to announce that the library now offers you electronic access from 1998 to date to full text journal articles from the following 20 titles published by Elsevier in the field of economics:

• China Economic Review
• Economic Modelling
• Economics Letters
• European Economic Review
• International Review of Law and Economics
• Journal of Development Economics
• Journal of Econometrics
• Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
• Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control
• Journal of Health Economics
• Journal of International Economics
• Journal of Mathematical Economics
• Journal of Monetary Economics
• Journal of Public Policy
• Journal of Socio-Economics
• North American Journal of Economics and Finance
• Regional Science and Urban Economics
• Resource and Energy Economics
• World Development

We continue to have electronic access to the most recent 12 months of all other Elsevier titles the library subscribes to. These extra electronic backfiles (going back to 1998) for the 20 titles listed above have been added through a special subscription limited to these titles.

To access full text articles going back to 1998 for any of the titles in the list , go to NUCat http://nucat.library.northwestern.edu , search on the journal title, and then click on the URL included in the bibliographic record.

If you have any comments about this expanded access to journal articles in electronic format in this selective list of journal tiles, please email me at l-bjorncrantz@northwestern.edu

Leslie B. Bjorncrantz
Curriculum Librarian & Bibliographer for Education, Psychology, Management, & Communication Sciences & Disorders
Northwestern University Library
Evanston, IL 60208
Office location: Second Floor, East Tower, Room 2625

Phone:(847) 491-7602
FAX: (847) 467-7899
www.library.northwestern.edu/collections/bjorncrantz/

Note: These journal and others can be accessed from the Research Computing "Reference & Papers" web page, either through the list under "Electronic journals at Northwestern" or through the Science Direct link.

January 25, 2002: New pyschology journals available online

Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 17:00:50 -0600
From: Leslie Bjorncrantz
Subject: 12 psychology journal titles now available online via ScienceDirect

I am pleased to announce that the following journal titles are now available online via the ScienceDirect service. Articles included as part of our subscription are identified on the screen by a green page icon. You can also, in some cases, view articles that are "in press" in the uncorrected proof version.

To access these titles, do a title search in NUCat the online catalog:

nucat.library.northwestern.edu

You will find a direct link in NUCat to the online versions.

• ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA
• BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH AND THERAPY
• BEHAVIOURAL PROCESSES
• BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
• COGNITION
• COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• COGNITIVE SCIENCE
• INTELLIGENCE
• JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
• JOURNAL OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY AND EXPERIEMENTAL PSYCHIATRY
• NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA
• PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Leslie B. Bjorncrantz
Curriculum Librarian & Bibliographer for Education, Psychology, Management, & Communication Sciences & Disorders
Northwestern University Library
Evanston, IL 60208
Office location: Second Floor, East Tower, Room 2625
Phone:(847) 491-7602
FAX: (847) 467-7899

January 21, 2002: Eurosans package installation in MiKTEX

Professor Robert McDonald has contributed a page with instructions on how to add the eurosans package to MiKTeX. This package provides a good-looking, scalable Euro symbol.

To read the page, click on the following link:

Eurosans package in MiKTeX