The Scout Report - July 26, 1996

July 26, 1996

A Publication of Internet Scout
Computer Science Department, University of Wisconsin

A Project of the InterNIC

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). 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

Network Tools

Research & EducationFAIRMODEL
http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/
Prof. Ray C. Fair of Yale University has made his FAIRMODEL economic forecasting software available on the web. "FAIRMODEL involves 131 interrelated equations that, taken together, approximate how the economy works. The model consists of 30 stochastic equations, 101 identities, and about 100 exogenous variables. It has been estimated using two stage least squares." Users can estimate changes in the economy based on interactive input of different assumptions for policy variables (for example, how an increase or decrease in government spending might affect unemployment.) Note: this is not a site for the casual user. Your browser must support frames and Javascript in order for FAIRMODEL to work. Users are strongly advised to read both the "Getting Started" section and the "FAIRMODEL Workbook," (which by itself is an excellent introduction to macroeconometric modeling and contains the 30 stochastic equations) before delving into the program itself.
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Pilot Projects for a Human Genome Diversity Projecthttp://www.nsf.gov/nsf/nsfpubs/nsf96112/nsf96112.htm
or send email to Dr. Mark Weiss, mweiss@nsf.gov or Dr. Lisa Brooks, lbrooks@nsf.gov
The directorates for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences and for Biological Sciences of the NSF (National Science Foundation) have recently announced a special competition for Pilot Projects for a Human Genome Diversity Project. These pilot projects are to be focused on two areas: "improving DNA techniques, and clarifying cross-cultural ethical and legal issues." Examples of pilot projects in the first area include: "improving the ability to transform cells collected under sub-optimal field conditions; improving long distance PCR-based amplification; converting markers such as blood groups and RFLPs to PCR-based typing systems; and PCR typing of existing cell lines to evaluate specific markers for use in a full-scale HGDP, with criteria such as sufficient allelic variability and suitability for use in less-sophisticated laboratories." Examples in the second area include: "examining the use of ethical and legal protections in field settings; testing approaches to gaining informed consent from individuals and groups and ensuring confidentiality; investigating the ethical and practical issues that arise in using archived samples; and assessing and managing controversies and social risk arising in cross-cultural research projects." Up to eight awards are anticipated. Deadline for proposal submission is September 30, 1996.
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The Future of Networking Technologies for Learning
http://www.ed.gov/Technology/Futures/
In 1995 the US Department of Education commissioned a series of white papers on various issues related to networking technologies for education. Those fourteen papers are now on the web, along with the proceedings of the conference of authors in November 1995. The papers address such topics as the funding of information infrastructure, the role of personal digital assistants (PDAs) in the classroom, and virtual educational communities, as well the concomitant curriculum reform that these advances will require. The papers make use of hypertext links to provide immediate access to data, other reports, relevant legislation, and related web resources. Abstracts of the papers are available, as well as information about the authors. Visitors to the site can leave feedback through a web form, and can read the feedback left by others.
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History Buff's Home Page
http://www.historybuff.com/
This site, devoted to the history of newspapers in the United States and to US history in general, offers several notable American history resources. Essays by members of the Newspaper Collectors Society of America, with which this site is affiliated, cover a range of topics relating to the history of newspaper journalism. The essay archive is searchable. Resources of interest to collectors include a primer on collecting historic newspapers, a price guide for old and historic newspapers, and a list of newspapers most often reprinted. For those with other interests in history, there is an index of history-related web sites, organized by category. About half of the entries in the index include a brief statement of what kind of information the user is likely to find on a particular site. As a meta-index of historical resources this should prove useful to historians interested in many eras and issues.
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InterActive Teacher Online
http://www.mlab.com/itoreg/
The online version of Interactive Teacher contains the full text of each issue, as well as a searchable index. The bimonthly magazine has features and departments on topics of interest to K-12 teachers. In addition to feature articles on various topics, each issue contains Teacher's Aid (lesson plans and ideas), Review Session (recaps of current events in public education), and TECHniques (information on technology in the classroom). Features on the web site include Study Hall, which offers links to educational resources on the Internet, including lesson plan archives. Still under development is the Teachers Lounge, which will provide an informal chat area for teachers.
[Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
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H-Arete
H-Arete is a moderated daily Internet discussion network focused on the study of sport literature as an academic discipline. H-Arete will operate under the auspices of the Sport Literature Association, located at East Tennessee State University. H-Arete will post information about the association, conferences, and the journal AETHLON. H-Arete is free and open to everyone with a mature and abiding interest in sport literature. Scholars, writers, teachers, and librarians are particularly invited to join. It is edited by Kevin Brooks of Iowa State University, Don Morrow of the University of Western Ontario, and Joyce Duncan, of East Tennessee State University. All messages on H-Arete are approved by the editors, in order to filter out "flames," "spams" and inappropriate posts.
http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~arete/
To subscribe send email to:
listserv@h-net.msu.edu
In the body of the message type:
sub h-arete firstname lastname, institution
Note that the comma between lastname and institution is necessary.
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General Interest

The Brain Opera
http://brainop.media.mit.edu/
Interact with the Brain Opera:
http://brainop.media.mit.edu/online/net-music/main.html
Live Brain Opera Broadcasts:
http://brainop.media.mit.edu/online/net-music/net-broadcast.html
Text-only information:
http://brainop.media.mit.edu/text-site/intro/textintro.html
Produced by Tod Machover and the MIT (Massachussetts Institute of Technology) Media Laboratory, the Brain Opera is an interactive real and cyber event that runs from July 22 to August 3, 1996 at the Lincoln Center in New York. The Brain Opera site is highlighted by a series of Java applets that allow interested Internauts to experiment with creating their own computer-enhanced music, just as the attendees will be doing at Lincoln Center. This "Interact with the Brain Opera" page allows users to play the "Rhythm Tree," "Cyber-Metal," and the "Multi-Rhythm-Bouncer," among others. >From this page, you can also participate in the Opera itself, by playing "The Palette," and your interactions will be received by the performance computer and translated into music for the live audience. During the show (which runs from 2:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time daily), selected performances will be broadcast live via Xing SteamWorks and MBONE. Note that the Brain Opera is a technically advanced site that demands a Java-enhanced browser, as well as audio and video streaming software, and only the fastest of connections. It is also graphically beautiful, but in no way easy or intuitive to navigate. Still, as an original experiment in interactive art, it is fascinating and well worth investigating.
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NAACP Online
http://www.naacp.org/
The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), the oldest civil rights organization in the United States, has recently established a web site. It contains issue alerts (including a series of alerts on church fires in the Southern U.S.), a President's Corner, with a biography, vision statement, press releases, speeches, and columns by President Kweisi Mfume, "About the NAACP," which provides information about the organization's board of directors and its history, and an interactive unit location finder to help you find the NAACP office nearest to you. At present information in the unit finder contains the name of the president of the local chapter and a hypertext link to that chapter's home page if available.
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Investor's Business Daily
http://www.investors.com/
Today's IBD:
http://ibd.ensemble.com:80/web_edition/today/
Investor's Business Daily, the Los Angeles-based "newspaper for important decision makers," has scrapped its proprietary IBDee (Investor's Business Daily Electronic Edition) in favor of a web site that is (at present, after registration) freely available. Most of the story content of the daily paper is available, in such categories as "Front Page," "Executive Update,""Computers & Tech, "The New America," "The Economy," and "The Markets." In addition, volume tables are provided for NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX which "list active issues by comparing yesterday's trading volume to the stock's trailing 50 days average trading volume." A searchable archive is available. This is a beta version of the site, and the main drawback to it is that there is no overall site index, which would allow for easier browsing of content. However, for serious investors, this is a serious site.
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Yell--U.K. site directory and index
http://www.yell.co.uk/yell/web/
The U.K. Yellow Web (Yell) is a definitive combination directory and searchable index for sites in the United Kingdom. Its directory contains thousands of annotated sites in over 15 subject categories ranging from Arts and Entertainment to Travel and Tourism. "Hot on the Net" contains a weekly selection of new listings (alphabetical and by directory classification), as well as a Yell Top Ten listing of the best new sites each month. "Company A-Z" contains an unannotated listing of business and commercial sites. The search page contains a concise FAQ on searching. Yell also contains a searchable film finder that provides information on where features are playing in any of thirteen regions of the United Kingdom. Selected film summaries are available, as are pointers to other movie sites. As with all large Internet directories and indexes, quality level of the sites varies, but this an excellent place to start when searching for U.K.-based sites.
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WebOvision
http://www.webovision.com/cgibin/var/media/sd/index.html
Finding the web sites of traditional media outlets is easier with WebOvision, which provides links to television, radio, and newspaper sites around the world. Also included are news sources, film and theater links, and professional resources for journalists. The media sources are arranged by country and then by state or province, if applicable. A search engine allows keyword searching of the entire site; entering a city name, for example, will return links to web sites for print, television and radio outlets in that city. The news sources page provides links to international news agencies as well as press release databases.
[Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
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WELLPET-L
WELLPET-L is an unmoderated list, specifically for the discussion of holistic or natural pet care and is open to all those with a sincere interest in alternative methods of animal care. Topics could include the use and application natural diets and nutrition, homeopathic remedies, the use of vitamin and food supplements, herbal medicine, flower remedies, massage therapies and acupuncture. Anti-holistic posts are not welcome.
To subscribe send email to:
majordomo@cia.com.au
In the body of the message type:
subscribe wellpet-l
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Net Tools

The Works
http://www.december.com/works/
The Works provides a comprehensive collection of network tools organized under the categories of resource discovery, learning, publishing, and understanding the significance of the online world. Links to information about dozens of types of Internet tools are offered, from the basics of telnet and FTP to the latest in Web plug-ins. Navigation through the many links offered is aided by the use of levels which allow the user to choose how they would like to browse the available topics in each category. Each link is annotated with one or two sentences describing what the user will find at the referenced site. The "Understanding the Significance" section offers Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine, the oldest continuously published monthly magazine on the Web, which covers issues and views about the online world, presentations about Internet and Web technologies and their use, and perspective and understanding about communicating online.
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Opera Internet Browser
http://traviata.nta.no/index.html
Opera Software, a Norwegian company, has made its Internet browser, Opera, available for evaluation. It is Windows 3.X based software (though it also runs on Windows 95 and OS/2 with Windows support), and will run with as little as a 386SX PC (8 megabytes of RAM recommended). One of its significant features is the ability to fetch multiple documents and images at the same time, allowing the user to tile or cascade the documents. It also contains a full keyboard interface, and supports the complete HTML 2.0 specification and many HTML 3.2 extensions. The download size of the (English) file is less than 900 Kilobytes, and the browser is available in Norwegian and Swedish as well. Pricing information is available at the site.
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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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