The Scout Report

March 13, 1998

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project
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.

An Acrobat .pdf version of this report is available for printing and distributing locally. For information on Adobe Acrobat Reader, visit the Adobe site.

Scout Reports for Social Sciences and Business & Economics, Net-Newsletters
Scout Report for Social Sciences
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/socsci/
Scout Report for Business & Economics
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/bus-econ/
Net-Newsletters
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/net-news/index.html
The twelfth issues of the Scout Reports for Social Sciences and Business & Economics, each of which annotate over twenty new and newly-discovered Internet resources, are available. The In the News section of the Social Science Report annotates seven resources on the recent elections in India. The Business & Economics Report's In the News section annotates six resources related to mortgage refinancing. The Internet Scout Project now provides Gleason Sackman's Net-Newsletters mailing list (discussed in the November 29, 1996 Scout Report) via the web. Beginning with the March 2, 1998 issue, users can find daily and monthly postings from the mailing list, which is a compendium of seventeen newsletters at this time, including Benton Foundation communication headlines, Edupage, Seidman's Online Insider, and PBS Previews. [JS]
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Asteroid 1997XF11: Close Encounter in 2028?
One-Mile-Wide Asteroid to Pass Close to the Earth in 2028--HSCA
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/pressinfo/1997XF11.html
Asteroid Will Miss Earth by "Comfortable Distance" in 2028--NASA JPL
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/98/asteroid.html
Discovery Observation of 1997XF11--UA Spacewatch
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/spacewatch/1997XF11.html
Near Earth Asteroid Tracking Home Page--NASA JPL
http://huey.jpl.nasa.gov/~spravdo/neat.html
Astronomers Track Down Asteroids in Hubble Archive--STSCI
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/10/
These five sites provide information related to the recently discovered asteroid 1997XF11 and how close it will come to Earth in 30 years. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics provides a hyperlinked press release about 1997XF11, discovered by Professor James Scotti of the University of Arizona. The first estimates were as close as 30,000 miles. Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory disputed this estimate and came up with one of their own: 600,000 miles. The HSCA press release is useful in explaining the history of the discovery of 1997XF11, especially with respect to the coming possible "close encounter." It offers many hyperlinks to discovery observations, information about known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs), information about prediscovery, as well as current ephemerides and ephemeris for 1997XF11, and information about forthcoming close approaches to Earth by asteroids and comets during the next 33 years. An orbit diagram of 1997XF11 is also available. The JPL news release is a terse announcement of findings by Dr. Donald K. Yeomans and Dr. Paul W. Chodas. The Spacewatch Program at the University of Arizona contains discovery photos of 1997XF11. NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) is an observatory in Maui, Hawaii. The site provides images and information about newly discovered asteroids, comets, and other unusual objects. Finally, The Space Science Telescope Institute site has begun to document how astronomers are using photos from the Hubble Space Telescope to find asteroids; over 100 small asteroids have so far been found, of which captioned examples of four (in various formats) are now available. [JS]
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1998 Guidelines for the Treatment of Sexually Transmitted Disease--CDC DSP
http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/STD98TG.HTM
PDF version (118p.):
http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/std_pdf.htm
The Division of STD Prevention of the US Centers for Disease Control has recently released this update (MMWR 1998;47(No. RR-1)) to the 1993 set of guidelines with the same title. The guidelines were developed by CDC staff after consultation with a "group of invited experts" in early 1997. Included are sections on various sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, Genital Ulcers, Epididymitis, Human Papillomavirus Infection, and vaccine preventable STDs, among others. Guideline evidence is briefly discussed in each section of the report, and the CDC is committed to providing "more comprehensive, annotated discussions of such evidence...in background papers that will be published in 1998." Note that in the HTML version of the report, some of the interior links within chapters are inaccurate. In those cases, it is prudent to click on the section headings to find the relevant information. [JS]
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Biodiversity and Conservation
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/Titlpage.htm
Peter J. Bryant, Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology at the University of California, Irvine, provides this hypertext book as a learning aid for his Biological Conservation class. It is an excellent, comprehensive introduction to the topic. Divided into sixteen understandable chapters, it covers such topics as the history of life, depletion and extinction from over-exploitation, exotic introductions, and deforestation, among others. The content is supported by illustrations, photos, charts, and a webliography for each chapter (a work in progress which is also available in full at the end of the book). However, the features that add the greatest value to the site are the well thought out hyperlinks to other relevant resources. There are literally hundreds of these; they combine with the original content of the site to form a powerful resource for undergraduate students. [JS]
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Agriculture Fact Book 1997--USDA [.pdf, 265p.]
http://www.usda.gov/news/pubs/fbook97/contents.htm
The United States Department of Agriculture Office of Communications has recently released the latest version (Adobe Acrobat [.pdf] format only) of its Agriculture Fact Book (discussed in the May 17, 1996 Scout Report). It is a compendium of thousands of facts presented in thumbnail essay, chart, table, and map formats that discuss the various aspects of US agriculture. The AFB answers questions about what Americans eat and what it costs, the structure of agriculture, and rural America, among others. Users can also find detailed organizational information about the Department. The AFB is a well-known reference tool for librarians, journalists, and subject specialists alike. [JS]
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Recent Case-Law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities [Javascript]
http://curia.eu.int/en/jurisp/index.htm
Multilingual access:
http://curia.eu.int/
The Court of Justice and Court of First Instance of the European Communities provides a searchable and browsable database of recent case law judgements and opinions, dating from June 1997 to the present. Users can search this database by case number, date, names of parties, subject, or keyword. Clicking on any of the "list" buttons will bring up a complete index of terms for that list, greatly easing query and retrieval. Note that judgements and opinions may be available in any one or more of eleven languages, and that the Javascript navigation bars on the left side of the screen must be used once in the database (click on the question mark for an explanation of this navigation). [JS]
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gender Inn: Women's and Gender Studies Database
http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/datenbank/e_index.htm
German version:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/datenbank/index.htm
This searchable bibliographic database contains records describing over 5,000 works on "feminist theory, feminist literary criticism and gender studies focusing on English and American literature" from 1950 to the present. The search form is available under the heading Research, where users may indicate which field to search, limit by year of publication, and specify whether to return results in English or German. Works included in the database have been assigned up to 20 keywords from a locally-developed thesaurus for feminist research. A German version of the thesaurus is available in the Deutsche (German) Version and work is underway to translate the thesaurus into English. Work on this database was started in 1987 by Professor Natasha Wurzbach of the University of Cologne (Germany) English Department, and was made accessible via the Internet through a cooperative project with the Department of Art and Design at the Fachhochschule Koln. [AG]
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LETSNet--Michigan State University
http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/letsnet/
The Learning Exchange for Teachers and Students through the InterNet project is being developed by a collaborative team in the College of Education and the Communication Technology Laboratory at Michigan State University. The mission of the site is to facilitate an integration of the Internet into the K-12 curriculum. This still-developing site features lesson plans on topics from Ellis Island to the Worm Bin Project to Architectural Landscapes. Visitors can choose from a range of access options including 10 Big Ideas, Subjects, and Teachers. Lessons are clearly organized within the general subjects; links to specific topics are also provided. Real-world examples from practicing teachers give authority to these lesson plans. [JR]
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Recommended Readings on the Ancient Near East--OI
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/RECREAD/REC_READ.html
The Research Archives of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago has posted an updated version of its 1996 printed Guide to Introductory Readings on the Peoples and Cultures of the Ancient Near East. Resources are grouped under three general headings: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Nubia, and Ancient Mesopotamia; each contains a list of general reference works. Sub-topics include mummification, religion, art, hieroglyphics, architecture, law and government, and books for students and young readers. [MD]
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Revealing Things--SI [Java, Javascript, ShockWave Flash]
http://www.si.edu/organiza/museums/ripley/eap/rt/
Revealing Things is the Smithsonian Institution's first specifically web based exhibit; both the content and design of the site are fascinating. This work in progress is a prototype of a future, more fully-developed exhibit. It concentrates on "common, everyday objects to tell stories about people, their cultures, and the meanings they associate with their possessions." Items discussed include a 1937 chemistry set, a Vietnam memorial offering, a duckpin bowling ball, an early TV, and a celery vase, among many others. Organized according to theme, era, and object, the exhibit is presented in a new pop-up browser window. Within that window, navigation takes place via "maplets," a connected series of moving colored labels representing the three ways that the exhibit is organized. Users can move slider bars to effect the placement of the labels, and search on terms to create their own thematic or object-based exhibit. When the cursor is placed over an object label, scrolling text introduces it. Alternatively, the site can be navigated via a series of icons that run down the middle of the exhibition page. When an icon is clicked, the series of icons may rearrange. Each exhibit contains a photo of the object, along with written commentary on it. In addition, sound is sometimes available to play period music, or render out loud the exhibition text. The most fully-developed object at this time is "Patched Bellbottoms." Users are advised to read the help files on both the main page and the exhibit page for navigation tips. The exhibit is a fascinating precursor of what could be a new way to interactively view museum exhibits, allowing the user to cast off the restraints of a linear orientation. Note that the exhibit is extremely browser and bandwidth intensive. [JS]
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The White House Millennium Program [RealPlayer]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/Initiatives/Millennium/
The White House Millennium Program is a "multi-year initiative to mark the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the new millennium." It celebrates past accomplishments, and offers a glimpse of what the future might hold. The highlight of the site is access to information from the Millennium Evening Lecture Series, which is jointly sponsored by the White House and the National Endowment for the Humanities. On March 6, 1998, Professor Stephen Hawking gave the second Millennium Evening Lecture, "Imagination and Change: Science in the Next Millennium." The one hour and six minute program is available via RealPlayer, as are a selection of email questions and answers. On February 11, the first Millennium Lecture, "The Living Past -- Commitments for the Future," was presented by Professor Bernard Bailyn. Transcripts of Bailyn's remarks can be obtained at the site (Events and Remarks). The first two Millennium Lectures indicate that this site deserves to become an indispensable bookmark. [JS]
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World War II Poster Collection--Northwestern University
http://www.library.nwu.edu/govpub/collections/wwii-posters/
The Government Publications Department of the Northwestern University Library provides this browsable and searchable image base of over 200 posters related to World War II. Several powerful search options are available (especially in the advanced search mode, which supports numerous Boolean, truncation, and proximity operators, as well as field searching on ten separate fields). In addition, posters can be browsed by date, title, or topic (unfortunately, topics are not separately delineated at this time). Each retrieved poster is accompanied by a full cataloged record that includes artist, title, publisher, date, format, and a short caption, among other items. Clicking on the thumbnail image enlarges the image. This site is currently a work in progress; background and technical information sections are forthcoming. The Library intends to make all of its over 300 posters available at this site. [JS]
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FinanceWise
http://www.financewise.com/
Provided by Risk Communications, FinanceWise is a specialized subject directory for finance-related sites. Unfortunately, users must register (note that you must specifically ask to not be sent mailings from Risk or other organizations--at most sites like these you must specifically ask to receive extra mailings) and then bookmark a specific page created for them in order not to have to register again. However, once that task is completed, users have searchable and browsable access to hundreds of finance-related sites in eight major subject areas including capital markets, commercial banking, investment banking, and risk management. Users can conduct a detailed search by any of five variables including type of organization, language, and level of free access. The site is particularly powerful in its ability to precisely sum up the content of its links. [JS]
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Circuits--New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/circuits/
Circuits is a new New York Times weekly offering intended to enhance the newspaper's technology coverage. It contains regular gaming and computer columns, along with an eclectic mix of articles and essays that address in a general way the interaction between humans and technology. The first three issues contained articles on where computers go to die, music and jobs on the web, computer games for girls, online auctions, home theatre, web TV, and computer ergonomics, among others. At present, Circuit archives are available. Note that the New York Times is freely available (after required registration) to users in the US. [JS]
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The Ultimate 1998 Guide to Mutual Funds--Money
http://www.pathfinder.com/money/funds/index.html
Money magazine has made this site available as its latest online guide to mutual funds. The site features articles on successful young fund managers, problem areas for mutual funds, and a roundup of the most successful stock and bond funds in 1997. The highlight of the site is the Fund Finder which allows users to search through a database of 7,500 stock and bond funds to find the best match for their portfolio based on objective, performance, expenses, holdings and risk. There is also a Mutual Fund IQ Test that allows users to evaluate their understanding of mutual funds. [THN]
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Iditarod International Dogsled Race
Iditarod 1998
http://www.iditarod.com/
Iditarod Supersite [RealPlayer]
http://www.dogsled.com/
These two sites offer interested Internauts a great deal of information about the annual 1,150 mile dog sled race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. The race, which began in earnest on March 8, 1998, is expected to finish on March 18. Iditarod 1998 is the official race site, provided by the Iditarod Trail Committee, Inc. It is highlighted by race updates, trail maps and mileage, background information, history and rules, and an archive of the 1997 race updates. It also contains a pre-race diary and trail notes of musher Don Bowers. Presented by Internet Alaska, Alaska's Supersite, and the Alaska Public Radio Network, Iditarod Supersite provides daily RealPlayer updates from APRN, current standings and previous updates, biographical information on the mushers who started the race, a mapped race route, a history of the race, and the rules of the race. [JS]
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TechKnow--PBS Kids
http://www.pbs.org/kids/did_you_know/did_techknow.html
This new PBS Kids site advertises itself as the "cool cyberliteracy site for kids," and its "out there" design may belie the fact that it can teach basic lessons about understanding the Internet and its information to kids and adults alike. Its contains two sections. Get Your Web License is an eleven part quiz covering such topics as web addresses, safety issues, and domain names. You be the Judge allows users to find a site from one of the major search indexes or subject directories and analyze it based on several quality criteria. The site also contains a contest encouraging children and teens to create a web site with the theme "Technology in My Future." [JS]
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NetSearcher: The Search Engine for Internet Professionals--Mecklermedia
http://netsearcher.com/
Mecklermedia provides this search engine that covers all things Internet. The Lycos powered search engine contains sites selected by Internet.com (Mecklermedia) editors. However, this is a search index, not a subject directory, as the large amount of retrieval from simple queries (in the hundreds of thousands) aptly demonstrates. Users must skillfully apply the sparse syntactical tools available at present (phrase searching and indirect or implied Boolean AND/NOT) to narrow their retrieval. Testing of the site revealed duplications in retrieval as well as retrieval that was unrelated to Internet content (as might be expected from a search index). As the site and its search language are developed, it can realize its potential as a useful tool for webmasters, system administrators, and other information technology professionals. [JS]
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Macromedia Fireworks Beta--Web Graphics Design Tool [ShockWave]
http://www.macromedia.com/software/fireworks/
Fireworks, a product of Macromedia, was recently made available as a free evaluation beta version for Windows and Macintosh. Acting as several tools in one, Fireworks allows one to create and edit graphics, as well as automatically generate the HTML and/or Javascript for implementing the graphics. Some features include: definition of image maps, automatic generation of Javascript rollovers, a text editor which retains font/size/etc., paint/draw toolbars, and the ability to create gif animations. Keep in mind that this is a beta version; bugs may be experienced. Provided in the download are a list of these bugs, sample art files, and tutorials. More information and a gallery of sites which have used this tool are available at the site. [TB]
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The Scout Report was not published from March 10 to April 28, 1995. This feature will resume with the May 1, 1998 issue. [JS]
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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1994-1998. 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.

The Scout Report (ISSN 1092-3861) is published weekly by Internet Scout

Susan Calcari
Jack Solock
Jeannine Ramsey
Teri Boomsma
Michael de Nie
David Flaspohler
Aimee D. Glassel
Kathryn Harris
Laura X. Payne
Matthew Livesey
Christopher Lukas
Thiam Hee Ng
Mike Roszkowski
Amy Tracy Wells
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The Scout Report - March 13, 1998

The Scout Report

March 13, 1998

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