The Scout Report - February 2, 1996

February 2, 1996

A Publication of Internet Scout
Provided by the InterNIC as a Service to the Internet Community

The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators, the InterNIC's primary audience. However, everyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML) or visit the Web version of the Scout Report. Subscription instructions are included at the end of each report.
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Send comments and contributions to: scout@cs.wisc.edu
In This Issue:

Research and Education

General Interest

This week we explored the many political sites now available and selected the most interesting or comprehensive. We are devoting today's "General Interest" section to these sites to keep them all in one place for future reference. Additional campaign sites will be included in future Scout Reports as warranted.

Network Tools

Research & Education

UniScience News Net
UniScience News Net covers science research news in American universities. It concentrates on 8 to 10 in-depth stories, and deliberately excludes datelines. It attempts to give coverage to university research news that is often excluded from mainstream media. According to the editors, "UniSci is not a refereed journal of record, nor does it see itself in competition with other pages or with other media for news 'beats.' It is our job to put information about research at American universities in perspective for a large and growing audience on the Internet." Articles are written for a lay audience that is interested in scientific research developments.
http://unisci.com/
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The CMS Molecular Biology Resource
The CMS Molecular Biology Resource at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln "is a compendium of electronic and Internet-accessible tools and resources for molecular biology, biotechnology, molecular evolution, biochemistry, and biomolecular modeling." Included are pointers to protein biochemistry databases, DNA/RNA structural databases, molecular evolution phylogeny resources, bioinformatics resources, and biomolecular modeling image resources, among others.
http://www.sdsc.edu/ResTools/cmshp.html
http://www.unl.edu/stc-95/ResTools/cmshp.html (Mirror)
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Centennial Celebration of F. Scott Fitzgerald
The F. Scott Fitzgerald Centennial Celebration Web site at the University of South Carolina celebrates his writings, his life, and his relationships with other writers of the 20th century. It serves as a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Fitzgerald's birth and offers a brief biography and chronology, illustrations, and complete texts of some of his short stories. Two especially interesting sections are "Fitzgerald Facts," providing brief background on various aspects of his life, and "Fitzgerald Quotes," offering a diverse sampling of quotes by and about Fitzgerald.
http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/index.html
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National Archives and Records Administration - new resources
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has made three new resources available via the Web. The highlight of the NARA home page is its Online Exhibit Hall, which contains an exhibit on poster art from World War II, as well as facsimiles and information about the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Emancipation Proclamation. The National Audiovisual Information Locator (NAIL) is a searchable database holding thousands of descriptions of items in the Still Picture, and Motion Picture, Sound and Video Branches of NARA. Descriptions of over 2,000 still picture series, 73,000 film and video titles, and 6,000 sound recording titles are available for searching, and instructions for ordering copies are available. The NARA Government Information Locator Service (GILS) is a searchable database of National Archives information resources. The goal of the GILS service is to help the user learn what kinds of information NARA creates about its holdings. Information about GILS and searching tips are provided.
NARA Home Page: http://www.nara.gov/
NARA NAIL: http://www.nara.gov/nara/nail.html
NARA GILS: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/gils/gils.html
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The World Lecture Hall - teaching with the Web
The World Lecture Hall, produced and actively maintained by the University of Texas at Austin, holds a large collection of university and college web pages used to deliver course content. Over 80 subject areas are covered, from accounting to zoology. Individual course pages include links to syllabi, assignments, lecture notes, exams, class calendars, multimedia textbooks, and other related materials. The Lecture Hall gives instructors a glimpse into the possibilities of delivering course material via the Internet.
http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/
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Heproc student involvement discussion list
Heproc-student-involvement is a list for the discussion of how student involvement in higher education can be furthered. Topics focus on administrative, practical, theoretical, and other aspects of student involvement. Sample topics include: measurement of involvement; choice of measures; how to create student involvement in specific areas of higher education; and evolving relationships within the higher ed institution.
To subscribe, send email to:majordomo@world.std.com
in the body of the message type:
subscribe heproc-student-involvement
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General Interest

PBS Citizens '96
PBS Citizens '96 Page is a web page derived from an election year five-part television series. It focuses on "citizen involvement and dialog", and provides a citizen's level view of the issues of the 1996 campaign. In fact, there is still time to send in questions that may be asked of the candidates during the next Citizens '96 episode on February 9 - a live town meeting from Des Moines, Iowa. Sections include: Our Stories - a selection of citizen profiles that accentuate the issues; Citizens Coffee Shop - discussions held on a series of issues by focus groups in various places throughout the U.S.; Family Forum - an interactive discussion of issues; State of the Union by the Numbers, a statistical thumbnail sketch (in 26 categories) of the U.S.; and Campaign Info - a page that points to candidates' and party sites. Citizens '96 provides much of the same information offered by other campaign sites, as well as adding the "human dimension" to the race -- how it effects real people in a selection of focus groups.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/citizens96/
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Politics USA
Politics USA is one of the most comprehensive campaign sites available. It is a service of two political news providers: the National Journal and the American Political Network. In conjunction with the Lexis-Nexis Online Retrieval Service, Politics USA provides up to the minute news on the national campaign from various newspaper sources. The Issues '96 section lets the user retrieve the views of specific candidates on specific issues. Timely poll data, clearly charted in line graph and map format, is offered in the Poll Track section. The Campaign '96 page points to information on all the major candidates and parties. Besides the presidential race, information is also available on the 1996 Senate races.
http://politicsusa.com/PoliticsUSA/issues/issues96.html.cgi
Poll Track: http://politicsusa.com/PoliticsUSA/polltrack/polltrack.html.cgi
Campaign '96: http://politicsusa.com/PoliticsUSA/campaign96/
[Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
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All Politics
All Politics, a collaborative effort of CNN (Cable News Network) and Time Magazine, covers all aspects of the 1996 campaign and includes several multimedia efforts which set this site apart from the rest. Besides news and candidate information, it includes an issues matrix and a "rate-o-matic" that compares your views to the candidates'. Campaignland provides multimedia ads from present and past campaigns. An "election monitor" offers the latest Time/CNN polls. In Focus features full text Time Magazine articles on issues, and Intelligence features political analysis from CNN. A cyber-primary is also included. See the Ad Archive (under Table of Contents) for video-clips of old presidential TV ads. (The video files are large, but if you have the time see the Johnson and Humphrey ads.)
http://cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/index.html
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National Political Awareness Test -- Project Vote Smart
The National Political Awareness Test (NPAT) at Project Vote Smart is a quick, textual way to compare candidates views. The "test" was completed by all major candidates except President Clinton, Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes. The candidates were asked for their views on over 25 issues from abortion to welfare. Results can be obtained by candidate, or by issue so that easy comparisons can be done on the candidates and the issues. Links to information about the candidates are included with response information.
Project Vote Smart top page: http://www.vote-smart.org/
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RealCom National Politics and Personalities
The RealCom National Politics and Personalities page offers links to almost every political party imaginable, including; Communist, Democratic, Green, Republican, Patriot, and Ross Perot's United We Stand. It also points to political organizations such as the Federal News Service, the NRA, and Anarchy Online, among others. While it points to many organizations, pointers to individual candidates are at a lower level, and sometimes difficult to find. It also contains a Presidential Cyberpoll.
http://www.rtis.com/nat/pol/
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The Washington Weekly
The Washington Weekly (an Internet newspaper) offers a Presidential Primaries Page that is organized by candidate within each party. For most candidates there is biographical information, voting record, list of accomplishments or stands on key issues, and a connection to the candidate's home page when available. This is a non-graphical but well organized page that provides the user with quick access to voting records, speeches and press releases, and Web pages of the candidates.
http://dolphin.gulf.net/Primaries.html
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Web Watch - political sites on specific topics
For a good selection of worthwhile Web sites on additional specific topics related to politics and the '96 elections, see the Web Watch page on the All Politics site.
http://cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/web/
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Netaholics Anonymous
The Netaholics Anonymous page will tell you if you're "...hooked on the 'Net", "...really, really hooked on the 'Net", or if it's "...time to seek professional counseling". See how many of the dozens of characteristics offered apply to you, and have a few chuckles in the process.
http://www.safari.net/~pam/netanon/
[Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
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Net Tools

Internet Explorer now available for the Macintosh and Windows 3.1
Internet Explorer, the browser Microsoft released last August for Windows 95, is now available for Windows 3.1 and Macintosh. It supports cross platform sound and animation, scrolling marquees, background sound, and "client pull" that allows for virtual slide shows as one URL is rendered after another without the viewer's intervention. Internet Explorer has built-in Usenet news and e-mail clients.
Download Windows and Mac platforms from: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/download/

After you download the browser, try the interactive sound and moving marquee demo: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/iedemo.htm
or the client pull demo: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/iedemo_1.htm
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Inktomi search engine
The Inktomi search engine at the University of California at Berkeley offers a large database of indexed Web documents and "scalable web server" technology providing very fast search retrievals. Inktomi's simple search interface uses "+" as its MUST operator and "-" as its NOT operator. Relevance of the retrieval is ranked by how many of the words are used on the retrieved page, and by the relative importance of those words, although how this importance is determined is not revealed. Inktomi's database upgrade on December 29 made 2.8 million documents available for searching.
http://www.inktomi.com/
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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1996. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout Report provided the copyright notice and this paragraph is preserved on all copies. The InterNIC provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation: NCR-9218742. The Government has certain rights in this material.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the National Science Foundation, AT&T, or Network Solutions, Inc.

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