The Scout Report

May 15, 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, Net-Happenings' Fifth Birthday
Scout Report for Science & Engineering
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/sci-engr/
Net-Happenings
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/net-hap/
Via Usenet news
comp.internet.net-happenings
Vol. 1, Number 17 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 eight resources about the invasion of exotic plants. The Net-Happenings mailing list, a service of the Internet Scout Project, celebrated its fifth birthday on May 14, 1998. Gleason Sackman, editor of Net-Happenings, has been tireless in his pursuit of information on the Internet almost every day of that time. His steady flow of postings have been used by educators, researchers, and government workers, in addition to thousands in the private sector, including journalists. We at Internet Scout pause to wish Gleason and Net-Happenings a happy anniversary. Congratulations to Gleason for operating one of the longest running and most successful services on the Internet! [SC,JS]
[Back to Contents]

Development Experience System: USAID's Institutional Memory
http://www.info.usaid.gov/pubs/dexs.html
The US Agency for International Development's Development Experience Clearinghouse has recently made its Development Experience System (DEXS) available via the web. DEXS "is a family of bibliographic databases that contains records for about 100,000 Agency technical and program documents" from 1942 to the present. The database is split into two parts, 1942-86, and 1987-present. Information can be searched on any of ten variables or browsed. Retrieval includes basic bibliographic information, and may also include media, pricing, and ordering information. Of the total number of records in this staggering database, over 96,000 are available in microfiche for on-demand reproduction. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

The New York Public Library Digital Library Collections [QuickTime]
http://digital.nypl.org/
This new site from the New York Public Library shows exceptional potential. Currently, over a dozen collections from past NYPL exhibitions and related projects are available. Highlights include: digital images and text of African Americans in the 19th Century; the Schomburg Center Video Oral History Gallery: selected QuickTime clips from the Louis Armstrong Jazz Oral History Project; and Moving Uptown: Nineteenth-century Views of Manhattan. Other selections include Tobacco Culture in 17th- and 18th-century Europe, a stereoscopic views collection, and an exhibit on the Romanovs and their books. The collections are mostly image-based, and the list of future offerings promises exhibits of equal breadth and quality. Additional resources include archival finding aids for three performing arts collections. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

The Mathematics of Financial Derivatives [frames, Shockwave]
http://www.mathserv.okanagan.bc.ca/math/math414/
The Mathematics Department of Okanagan University College (British Columbia, Canada) provides this supplement to its Math 414 class. The site centers on the Black Scholes Differential Equation that is used to model pricing option problems. "Talk the Talk" is the highlight of the five sections. A work in progress, Talk the Talk is a combination Shockwave introductory tutorial and gateway to some of the better financial information resources on the Internet. The put and call and trading strategies tutorials present key concepts in a manner that is entertaining, humorous, and effective. Students can then link to a wealth of financial data sources to test their knowledge of newly learned concepts. The "Walk the Walk" section is a series of supplementary modules to fourteen class lectures (including selected Maple code). This site provides an excellent example of how networked information can be used to help explain the concepts of a difficult topic. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Business Law Today--ABA
http://www.abanet.org/buslaw/bltnew.html
The American Bar Association has recently begun to provide full text of this bimonthly magazine covering various aspects of business law. In addition to feature articles, there are five small sections with snippets of legal news and features. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Education Review: A Journal of Book Reviews
http://www.ed.asu.edu/edrev/index.html
Education Review is an electronic journal of book reviews in education that is provided by the Colleges of Education of the Universities of Arizona and Illinois. Reviews are indexed by title, book and review author, publication date, and subject. At present, eighteen reviews are available on books with topics ranging from instruction to history to evaluation. A mailing list is available for those who wish to receive announcements of new reviews. As the site grows, it has the potential to become an extremely valuable repository of information about new books in education. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Botany Course Materials--UW
http://www.wisc.edu/botany/course.html
Gopher to: gopher.adp.wisc.edu
Select: Course Materials and Other Educational Resources/Botany Course Materials/
Though humble in appearance (gopher menu), this outstanding quintet of resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Botany Department is one of the best laboratory learning tools available on the web. Separated into five sections (General Botany, Dendrology, Fungi, Plant Systematics Teaching Collection, and Vegetation of Wisconsin), each resource becomes progressively more specific with every click of the mouse; at the final, species level, there are clear images illustrating a particular feature. Although all sections provide abundant information, the Teaching Collection is an exceptional resource, since clear photographs of plants are excellent substitutes for fresh specimens in areas of the country or at times of the year when such materials are not available. Organized into nine taxonomic headings (Coniferophyta through Sphenophyta), the user clicks down to the species level; there, the user will find spectacular color photographs of distinctive plant family characteristics (leaves, flowers, fruits, etc.). The photographs and images are not accompanied by text, so additional information will be necessary for beginners. [LXP]
[Note: Originally reviewed as a gopher site; gopher site has been replaced by web site.]
[Back to Contents]

Blue Web'N
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/
Teachers, parents, librarians, and students may want to bookmark this spectacular Internet resource, the brainchild of Pacific Bell's Education First Initiative. It features a searchable and browsable database of select K-12 educational sites; these sites are prominently rated on a five star scale, and they are annotated and organized for optimal user access. Browsers can consult either a list of content categories that includes such areas as "Chemistry," "Literature," and "Current Event/News," among many others, or they can select from a hyperlinked table that provides both content and format information. Tutorials, Projects, Activities, Lessons, and Other Sites comprise some of the format options. In addition, educators can elect to be guided through the process of creating their own learning site using Internet resources in a process called "filamentality." Finally, users can subscribe at the site to a weekly email update that offers new sites and the Hot Site of the Week. [JR]
[Back to Contents]

Invitation to the Virtual Working Group--ICT, Jobs and Work: A Challenge For Development
http://www.globalknowledge.org/english/virtual/ict-jobs/mailing_list.html
The World Bank, the International Labour Organization, and other groups, as a follow-up to their 1997 Global Knowledge Conference, are sponsoring a "Virtual Working Group," which aims to examine the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on jobs and work, with a particular focus on the challenges for developing countries. The VLG will meet from May 18 to July 3 1998, in two phases. The first phase comprises a panel discussion (May 18 to June 5), chaired by ILO's Institute for Labour Studies (IILS) and Enterprise Department. In this first phase, around 30 panelists from government, trade unions, employer's organizations, companies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and academia will discuss four key themes: ICT and jobs; ICT and work; ICT and enterprise; and ICT, development and governance. During the second phase of the Working Group (June 8 to July 3), the discussion will be opened to a wider audience; people in this audience will be asked to raise questions and present their own points of view. The second phase will be moderated by the ILO in collaboration with Education Development Center (EDC), a nonprofit organization. More information can be found at the above URL. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
MAJORDOMO@MAIL.EDC.ORG
In the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE ICT-JOBS
[Back to Contents]

CancerTrials--NIH NCI
http://cancertrials.nci.nih.gov/
The US National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute provides this site, a gateway to clinical trials information. Central to the site is access to PDQ (Physician Data Query), a searchable database of over 1,500 cancer trials. PDQ can be searched by up to ten diagnostic and geographic variables, as well as by trials added to the database in the last month. Retrieved information includes rationale, purpose, eligibility, treatment, and contact information, as well as relevant links to a glossary and clinical trial abstracts. In addition, the site contains information on defining clinical trials, deciding whether to participate in one, and a budding cancer research news section. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A History of American Sweatshops 1820 - Present--SI
http://www.si.edu/organiza/museums/nmah/ve/sweatshops/
The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History provides this online exhibit, a look at one of the more unsavory aspects of American history. The exhibit can be viewed via a floor plan or a series of navigational toolbars at the bottom of the screen. The content and the design of the exhibit are fascinating. Each section is introduced by large images from the actual exhibit. The user can then move the mouse to various parts of those images and click to retrieve a larger rendering of that part of the exhibit. In this way, the virtual viewer can experience the exhibit close to how an actual viewer would. In addition to the history section, there is a section on the El Monte California sweatshop (broken up in 1995), the fashion food chain, and a dialog in which six spokespeople give their views on the question "What should Americans know about sweatshop production in the United States?" Multimedia sections are forthcoming. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Hubble Provides Multiple Views of How to Feed a Black Hole--STSCI [QuickTime]
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/14/
The Space Telescope Science Institute has released Hubble Space Telescope images of "a massive black hole hidden at the center of a nearby giant galaxy that is feeding on a smaller galaxy in a spectacular collision." The Hubble's Wide Field Camera, in conjunction with its infrared camera, has penetrated through the dust lane of NGC 5128 (Centaurus A - some 10 million light years from Earth), "to see a twisted disk of hot gas swept up in the black hole's gravitational whirlpool.... The hot gas disk is tilted in a different direction from the black hole's axis -- like a wobbly wheel around an axle. The black hole's axis is identified by the orientation of a high-speed jet of material, glowing in X-rays and radio frequencies, blasted from the black hole at 1/100th the speed of light." The site contains a press release, images in various formats, and four QuickTime animations. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Arthur (ART media and text HUb and Retrieval System) Prototype--GII [Netscape 3.0 or higher, or Internet 4.0]
http://www.isi.edu/cct/arthur/
Arthur is a demonstration project currently under development at the Getty Information Institute. This project uses the AMORE image system, developed by NEC USA, Inc., to index and search the pictures and text of nearly 600 selected web sites which have been organized into five databases. Information on the scope and content of these databases is available. Arthur is primarily a visual system that works by finding images that are similar in color and shape to your selected query image. While it is possible to retrieve images by artist's name and other words using Arthur, this is not a reliable search method as words included in a search may be from the text of the associated web page, rather than the subject of the picture. [DS]
[Back to Contents]

Plumb Design Visual Thesaurus [Java]
http://www.plumbdesign.com/thesaurus/
Instructions
http://www.plumbdesign.com/thesaurus/instructions.html
The designers at Plumb Design have put a new twist on how Internauts might use a thesaurus on the Web through the application of Thinkmap software, which animates data by interfacing directly with a database. In contrast to the traditional linear thesaurus, users browse this two- and sometimes three-dimensional site, which presents word relationships graphically. In this instance the underlying database is Wordnet, a "lexical reference system" developed by Princeton University's Cognitive Science Laboratory (discussed in the January 8, 1998 Scout Report). Once the Visual Thesaurus is launched , users may search for keywords, link to related words, and highlight certain parts of speech for a given word. To fully understand and appreciate the navigational features of the Visual Thesaurus, users should read the Instructions page. [AG]
[Back to Contents]

@frica Update - Daily News Digest from the NCA
http://www.africaindex.africainfo.no/pages/update/news.shtml
Index On Africa--News
http://www.africaindex.africainfo.no/pages/News_on_Africa/index.shtml
The Norwegian Council for Africa provides this simple and effective site, a rolling five day African news digest. Each day's issue contains about ten stories (drawn mostly from African news sources) on various areas and topics. Sources include Inter-Press Service (IPS), The Post (Zambia), The New Vision (Uganda), the Zimbabwe Standard, the Mail & Guardian (South Africa), and the Panafrican News Agency. Note that most articles pertain to Sub-Saharan Africa and that some articles may be condensed. For those who would like more comprehensive African news, NCA's well-known Africa Index metasite contains a page of briefly annotated pointers to relevant news agencies, papers, collections, radio and television news, and periodicals. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

World Cup '98
Official France 98 World Cup Football [frames, Shockwave Flash]
http://www.france98.com/
1998 FIFA World Cup [frames]
http://www.fifa.com/
Select: 1998 FIFA World Cup
World Cup France98 Online [QuickTime]
http://www.worldcup.fr/uk/index.html
Yahoo! Coverage of the World Cup
http://soccer.yahoo.com/wc98/
Arguably the most popular sports tournament in the world takes place from June 10 to July 12, 1998 in France. Much of the world comes to a halt to savor the quadrennial World Cup football (soccer) tournament. Interested Internauts can enhance their enjoyment at these four sites. The first site is provided by the France98 Organizing Committee. Although organized in sections and designed with a flair, perhaps the easiest way to access its information is via the site map. News, schedule, venue, and ticket availability information highlight the site. 1998 FIFA World Cup is provided by the Federation Internationale de Football Association, the official sponsor of the tournament. It contains schedule, venue, and team information, along with an interesting history of the Cup trophy itself. France98 Online, provided by Netplus Communication, offers the latest results and a list of qualified teams, schedules, and information on official host cities and their stadiums. Users can view an online history of the Cup (1930-94), which includes QuickTime video segments of selected goals. Finally, Yahoo! has created a metapage of coverage that is highlighted by news stories and pointers to additional World Cup sites. [JS,MD]
[Back to Contents]

W3C Issues CSS2 as a W3C Recommendation
Press release
http://www.w3.org/Press/1998/CSS2-REC
CSS2 recommended specification
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
Cascading Style Sheets--W3C
http://www.w3.org/Style/css/
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has released the Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 specification as a W3C recommendation. Cascading style sheets help to improve layout control of HTML documents. CSS2 adds further to this control, including new positioning properties and dynamically downloadable fonts. It is also designed to interface with XML (Extensible Markup Language--discussed in the April 3, 1998 Scout Report). W3C has issued a press release and fact sheet on the recommendation. It also maintains the specification itself, and a metasite of CSS information including learning resources, browsers, and authoring tools. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

AltaVista World Index
http://www.altavista.com/av/oneweb
Press release
http://www.altavista.com/av/content/pr051198.htm
Digital Equipment Corporation provides this site, which enhances multi-language searching of the Internet. The index "use[s] Unicode to store all character information for all languages. [This] makes it possible to search multiple encodings for a given language - with a single query. This allows users to search for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, as well as Central European, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish and other languages from one location." Encodings supported at present include two Chinese, two Japanese, and one Korean. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

HTML 4.0 in Netscape and Explorer--WebReference.com
http://webreference.com/dev/html4nsie/
HTML 4.0 in Netscape and Explorer is an article written by Stephanos Piperoglou that appears in WebReference.com (discussed in the April 19, 1996 Scout Report). This article discusses the differences between Navigator 4.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0 implementation of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) HTML 4.0 Specifications (discussed in the December 12, 1997 issue of the Scout Report). The article begins by addressing the history of HTML, web browsers, and the role of W3C. It then elaborates on the W3C Specifications and points out the differences between use within Navigator and IE. Finally, Mr. Piperoglou highlights code which is supported by Navigator and IE, but is not in the HTML 4.0 Specifications. [TB]
[Back to Contents]

The Scout Report was not published from May 12 to May 26, 1995. This feature will resume with the June 5, 1998 issue. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

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
Jeannine Ramsey
Teri Boomsma
Michael de Nie
David Flaspohler
Aimee D. Glassel
Todd Hanson
Sheilah Harrington
Kathryn Harris
Laura X. Payne
Matthew Livesey
Christopher Lukas
Thiam Hee Ng
Mike Roszkowski
Debra Shapiro
Geraldine Wanserski
Amy Tracy Wells
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Managing Editor
Editor
Production Editor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor

Scout Report and Scout Report HTML Subscription Instructions

To receive the electronic mail version of the Scout Report each week, join the scout-report mailing list. This is the only mail you will receive from this list. Unsubscribing from the scout-report list can also be done at this site.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/lists/
To receive the Scout Report in HTML format for local viewing and posting, subscribe to the scout-report-html mailing list, used exclusively to distribute the Scout Report in HTML format once a week. Unsubscribing from the scout-report list can also be done at this site.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/lists/

The Scout Report - May 15, 1998

The Scout Report

May 15, 1998

New From Internet Scout

Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools

Scout Report and Scout Report HTML Subscription Instructions

The Scout Report's Web page:

Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) versions of the Scout Report:

FTP archive of past Scout Reports: