The Scout Report

April 17, 1998

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

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 Report for Science & Engineering
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/sci-engr/
Scout Report Bimonthly Compilation--February-March 1998
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/bimonth/
Vol. 1, Number 15 of the Scout Report for Science & Engineering is available. It annotates over twenty new and newly discovered Internet resources in the physical & life sciences and engineering. The In the News section annotates nine resources related to the Amazon fires. The Scout Report Bimonthly Compilation for February-March 1998 is also available. Individual compilations, arranged by subject, have been split into separate files for ease of use. Each complete compilation is also available. [JS]
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Environmental Contaminants Encyclopedia--NPS [.pdf]
http://www.nature.nps.gov/toxic/
Encyclopedia Listings
http://www.nature.nps.gov/toxic/list.html
This new resource from the National Park Service contains a wealth of information central to the growing field of environmental toxicology. The site consists of a searchable encyclopedia of 118 environmental contaminants, from Acenaphthene to Zinc. With information on chemical elements, compounds, and products, the EC Encyclopedia also serves as a reference for determining the potential impact of the concentration of a certain substance. Entries are in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format and include background information, specific threats, and other related material. Complete reference information (the Referenc.pdf file) is also available. [LXP]
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"All Packets Should Not Be Created Equal: The Internet2 Project"--D-Lib
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april98/graves/04graves.html
This article, by William H. Graves, President of the COLLEGIS Research Institute, and former Senior Information Technology Officer and founder of the Institute for Academic Technology (IAT) at the University of North Carolina, (discussed in the September 13, 1996 Scout Report), contains a thought-provoking and succinct defense of the concept of "differentiated network services and related quality-of-service guarantees," that has evolved into Internet2 (discussed in the April 11, 1997 Scout Report) and the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID). Highlights include a short history of the development of Internet2 and UCAID, and a discussion of the spiral "life cycle" model of the Internet, as well as the place of Internet2 in that cycle. [JS]
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Students' Reports of School Crime: 1989 and 1995--NCES, BJS
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/crime/index.html
This joint US Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics report analyzes two School Crime Supplements to the National Crime Victimization Survey. This unique report presents school crime from the perspective of its victims. Sections of the report deal with school victimization by gender and age, drug availability, and street gangs and guns at school. Five tables and fifteen figures accompany the report. [JS]
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World Court Digest
http://www.virtual-institute.de/en/wcd/wcd_home.cfm
The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law provides this resource, an electronic version of the first two volumes of the printed work. It presents digested views of the International Court of Justice on various issues in international law, as expressed in their judgements, advisory opinions, and orders. The Digest covers 1986-1995 at present. The digest can be browsed or searched, and a case decision and opinion summary can be found at the end of the table of contents. [JS]
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International Nuclear Safety Center--DOE ANL
http://www.insc.anl.gov/
The US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory provides this site, highlighted by nuclear plants and material properties databases. The nuclear plants database can be searched by country, plant type, and operational status, as well as browsed by clickable map. Information retrieved may include location, type of reactor, controlling utility, and suppliers. The material properties database contains selected information on materials by type and property. In addition, there is a safety analysis results bibliographic database, with abstracts on literature (available in the INSC library) on Soviet-designed nuclear power plants. Note that the site is a work in progress and that some areas are not open to the public. [JS]
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Digital Image Access Project--Duke University RBMSL [frames]
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/diap/
The Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library has made this image base of 1,000 images depicting urban life at various time periods, primarily in the American South, available. The images are drawn from fourteen separate collections; they can be browsed and searched. Included with the images are descriptive summaries, scope and content notes, and subject terms for each collection. Among the interesting non-Southern images are the William Gedney documentary photograph collection and the Philippine Island and Far East Photograph Albums, ca. 1899-1902. [JS]
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APStracts
http://oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu/apstracts/
APStracts is a publication of the American Physiological Society. It provides educators and researchers with bibliographic information, date of manuscript submission and acceptance for publication, and abstracts of current research scheduled to be published in eleven of the Society's publications. APStracts can be searched or browsed chronologically by journal. Note that articles are "not scheduled for a specific issue when they are accepted," and APStracts may cover articles as much as four months before actual publication. [JS]
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International Government Financial Management and Audit Mailing List--FinanceNet
http://financenet.gov/financenet/start/sub/inter.htm
FinanceNet's (discussed in the July 29, 1994 Scout Report) "International" mailing list addresses issues related to international government financial management. Discussions will broadly relate to topics such as government accounting, audits, financial statements, budgets, financial operations and policy, controls, revenues and taxation, accountability and stewardship and all other topics of interest to international government financial managers and taxpayers. Issues and problems discussed and best practices offered will cross geopolitical borders; posts will be accepted in multiple languages. Submissions to this list will be liberally moderated for applicability to the topic. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
listproc@financenet.gov
In the body of the message type:
subscribe international YourFirstName YourLastName
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The Agreement: Agreement Reached in the Multi-party Negotiations--Proposed Northern Ireland Peace Agreement
http://www.nio.gov.uk/agreement.htm
The Northern Ireland Office of the UK government has made available full text of the historic proposed peace treaty for Northern Ireland. Aimed at ending many years of sectarian violence, the treaty was reached after arduous and intense negotiations. The agreement is to be voted upon by the people of both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic in late May, 1998. [JS]
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The Emerging Digital Economy--DOC [.pdf, 300 pages]
http://www.ecommerce.gov/emerging.htm
The US Department of Commerce has released a report titled The Emerging Digital Economy to "document the importance of information technologies to the economy, businesses and consumers." Information technology has been responsible for more than a quarter of real economic growth over the past five years. More than 45 percent of business equipment investment has been in information technologies. The report traces the development of the Internet, how businesses are using electronic commerce, and the use of the Internet to deliver digital goods and services as well as tangible goods. In addition, the report examines how information technology has affected consumers and workers. [THN]
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Sports and Race in America
Race & Sports: Running in Place?--ESPN
http://ESPN.SportsZone.com/gen/features/race/index.html
RealPlayer Transcript
http://ESPN.SportsZone.com/gen/features/race/apnews.html
A Conversation With the President--Sports and Race: Running in Place?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/html/19980415-8261.html
As part of the President's Initiative on Race, the ESPN television network hosted a town meeting in Houston, Texas on April 14, 1998, with President Clinton and ten sports luminaries including John Thompson (basketball coach at Georgetown University), Jim Brown (retired pro football great), Carmen Policy (executive for the San Francisco 49ers football team), Dennis Green (coach of the Minnesota Vikings football team), and Jackie Joyner-Kersee (track and field star). The discussion reveals much both about race and the importance of sports in America. The ESPN site contains a RealPlayer audio transcript of the meeting (available only through the "special ESPN Town Meeting" link at this time), as well as other information about it. For those without RealPlayer, the Whitehouse site contains a transcript of the meeting, which ran one hour and 44 minutes. Note that the Whitehouse URL is not permanent, and in the near future, interested users should look for it in the What's New archives at the site. [JS]
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Wisconsin Electronic Reader
http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/WIReader/Contents.html
In celebration of Wisconsin's Sesquicentennial, the University of Wisconsin General Library System and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin have collaborated to provide this resource. It is brimming with primary source data on the history and culture of the state. Organized chronologically into thirteen sections covering selected years from 1835 to 1949, and drawing on the considerable holdings of the sponsoring institutions, it contains such gems as full text of Reuben Gold Thwaites' History of the University of Wisconsin, Increase A. Lapham's A Winter's Journey from Milwaukee to Green Bay, 1843, a chapter from John Muir's The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, and full text of Charles McCarthy's The Wisconsin Idea. Sections include early lumbering, women in Wisconsin, early Madison, and galleries of people, places, the University of Wisconsin, and miscellaneous items. The site clearly demonstrates with power and elegance a successful library/historical society collaboration. [JS]
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The Online Medical Dictionary--Graylab CancerWeb
http://www.graylab.ac.uk/omd/
Dr. Graham Dark of the Gray Laboratory Cancer Research Trust (UK), provides this staggering resource, with over 46,000 brief definitions of terms related to "biochemistry, cell biology, chemistry, medicine, molecular biology, physics, plant biology, radiobiology, science and technology." Each definition is cross linked to other definitions. The dictionary can be browsed alphabetically or by topic, as well as searched. This powerful resource shines with its sheer volume of definitions, their conciseness and clarity, and the hyperlinking between words. [JS]
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Women in American History by the Encyclopaedia Britannica [QuickTime]
http://women.eb.com/
The editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Online have put together this collection of biographical information on women in American history from 1600 to the present. Biographies can be browsed alphabetically or by occupational category. A quasi-subject listing called "misc. a-z" lists entries for women's organizations and issues. The site can also be browsed chronologically by using the four time periods displayed at the top: Early America 1600-1820, The Nineteenth Century 1820-1880, At the Crossroads 1880-1920, and Modern America, 1920-the present. Some entries are accompanied by pictures; a media gallery includes sound and QuickTime videos. Note that it is unknown how long this resource will be freely available. [DS]
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Food Finder
http://www.olen.com/food/
Before grabbing a quick bite at a fast food eatery, curious diners may want to check this site, provided by Olen Publishing, and based on the Fast Food Facts handbook, which is published by the Minnesota Attorney General's Office. Food Finder allows users to search any of nineteen fast food restaurants from Arby's to White Castle. Any or all restaurants can be searched on food names, maximum calories, percent calories from fat, and maximum sodium, fat, and cholesterol. Then simply "fire up the deep fryer." To browse all products of all restaurants, simply fire up the deep fryer without entering any search terms. This fun and informative (if slightly frightening) site tallies the cost of that next fast food meal to your health. [JS]
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Flash Open File Format--Macromedia
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/
Macromedia has released the file format specification for its Flash (discussed in the April 11, 1997 Scout Report) multimedia web tool. Flash allows web developers to create vector based graphics and animation. By making the format (.swf) available, Macromedia hopes to establish it as a standard for vector graphics and animation. The company claims it will "submit the format specification to a recognized Internet standards organization." In addition to providing the file format specification, the site provides Flash related news releases, a Flash FAQ, and a vector graphics white paper. [JS]
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Open Studio--Netscape [JavaScript]
http://developer.netscape.com/openstudio/
Open Studio is a new offering from Netscape that provides information that will be of use to advanced web developers. In addition to relevant articles, it contains sections on dynamic HTML, Java and JavaScript, and documentation including technical manuals, sample code, and white papers. The site links to other providers for information on web design and scripting. [JS]
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TeamWave Workplace
http://www.teamwave.com/
Workplace, provided by TeamWave Software Ltd., is groupware technology which offers an interactive, real-time working environment via the Internet. The interface is easy to use and is packed with work tools. Some of these include whiteboard, chat, web browser, address book, concept map, database, and file viewer. Not all members of a group need to be present; work can be left for others to see and contribute to. How does this all work? A TeamWave Server is provided with the Workplace application, with which rooms and permissions are granted. Then, individuals run TeamWave Workplace, connect to the server, and enter a room to begin working. Workplace is available for Macintosh, Windows 95/NT, and Unix (SunOS, Solaris, SGI, Linux and AIX). Documentation for this product is provided. [TB, CL]
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Copyright Susan Calcari and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 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 Internet Scout Project provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. 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 or the National Science Foundation.

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

Susan Calcari
Jack Solock
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The Scout Report - April 17, 1998

The Scout Report

April 17, 1998

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