Building a Computing Infrastructure for Data-Intensive Social Science

在国家科学基金会的部分支持下，纽约州立大学奥尔巴尼社会和人口分析中心将完成一个Unix网络的安装。主要项目包括将Sun SparcStation 20升级到514 MP型号，以及4个SunSparcStation 20 Model 1配备60 MHz SuperSparc处理器和SuperCashe SX 24位彩色加速图形成像工作站。该仪器将为社会科学研究人员的跨学科小组提供适合于需要操纵和分析超大数据文件的项目的计算基础设施。它还将提供对内存密集型最先进的统计分析程序的访问。参与的研究人员包括人类学家、经济学家、地理学家和区域规划者、心理学家、社会学家和公共卫生专家。研究人员将讨论一系列主题。例如，一项关于1970年至1990年间种族隔离和社区变化的研究将审查大都市种族和民族隔离、多民族模式以及贫穷和财富的空间集中的趋势。其他项目将侧重于南方移民到北方城市的家庭模式，营养和死亡率的特定方面之间的关系，以及青少年行为和父母-青少年沟通。该中心有许多学生参与其研究，所提供的设备将起到重要的教育和研究作用。

With partial support from the National Science Foundation, the SUNY Albany Center for Social and Demographic analysis will complete the installation of a UNIX network. Major items include a module upgrade for a Sun Sparcstation 20 to a model 514 MP, and 4 SunSparcstation 20 Model 1 with 60 MHz SuperSparc processor with SuperCashe SX 24-bit Color Accelerated graphics imaging workstations. The instrumentation will provide an interdisciplinary group of social science researchers with a computing infrastructure suitable for projects that require the manipulation and analysis of extremely large data files. It will also provide access to state of the art statistical analysis procedures that are memory intensive. Researchers involved include anthropologists, economists, geographers and regional planners, psychologists, sociologists and public health specialists. The researchers will address a number of topics. These include, for example, a study of segregation and neighborhood change between 1970 and 1990 which will examine trends in metropolitan racial and ethnic segregation, multiethnic patterning and the spatial concentration of poverty and wealth. Other projects will focus on family patterns of southern migrants to northern cities, the relationship between specific aspects of nutrition and mortality, and adolescent behavior and parent-teen communication. The center involves many students in its research and the equipment provided will serve an important educational as well as research function.