The Scout Report -- Volume 21, Number 13

The Scout Report -- Volume 21, Number 13

The Scout Report

April 3, 2015 -- Volume 21, Number 13

A Publication of Internet Scout
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison




Research and Education

  Place, Evolution, and Rock Art Heritage Unit
  Moorea Coral Reef LTER
  Texas Tech University: National Wind Institute
  ENGL Professional Writing Program
  Alaska's Digital Archives: Alaska Native & Culture Pathway
  NIMH: Recent Science News
  Higher Education Recruitment Consortium

General Interest

  Arabic Fiction
  The Big Snoop: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Terrorists
  The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
  Frontiers of Psychology
  Visualising China
  Council of Canadian Academies
  Burnout Research
  Images from the History of Medicine

Network Tools

  ownCloud
  Threadable

In the News

  A STEM Tradition in the Making: White House Hosts its Fifth-Ever Science Fair



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Research and Education

Place, Evolution, and Rock Art Heritage Unit

·http://www.griffith.edu.au/humanities-languages/school-humanities/research/perahu

The Place, Evolution, and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU) at Australia's Griffith University is dedicated to the research and preservation of Australian rock art, as well as rock art and human evolution research internationally. As the site mentions, there are approximately 100,000 individual rock art sites in Australia, but no national database has ever been established, and there is, of yet, no coordinated approach to documentation. After perusing the homepage, readers may like to select the Protect Australia's Spirit section and watch a short but engaging video that reviews the state of the nation's rock art and PERAHU's mission. Beautiful images of rock art adorn the page. There are also fascinating stories of the researchers and community members involved in protecting these sacred cultural artifacts. [CNH]


Moorea Coral Reef LTER

·http://mcr.lternet.edu

Coral reefs are enormously complex ecosystems, teeming with biodiversity. However, due to overfishing, coastal development, and factors associated with global climate change, the world's coral reefs are dying off at staggering rates. In fact, researchers estimate that we've already lost 20% of our reefs worldwide, and we're set to lose another 35% by 2050 if the global community doesn't act quickly. The Moorea Coral Reef Long-Term Ecological Research Site (MCR LTER), a National Science Foundation-funded project intended to study and protect reefs in Moorea, French Polynesia, boasts a particularly informative web site. Under General Information, readers may browse sections on News, What We Do, Locality, and Habitats Studied for information about the project, as well as beautiful pictures of this tropical paradise. The Research link takes readers to glosses of long-term trends and process-oriented studies. Educators may be particularly interested in the Education & Outreach link, which navigates to a separate website designed for teachers. [CNH]


Texas Tech University: National Wind Institute

·http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/

The National Wind Institute at Texas Tech University is the nation's leading university based wind lab, with projects that touch into the related fields of wind science, wind energy, wind engineering, and wind hazard mitigation. For a peek into "all things wind," readers may begin with About NWI. From there, the Research tab navigates to the Institute's investigations of Storm Shelters, Debris Impact Testing, Radar Turbine Wake Research, and many other fascinating wind-related projects. Of special interest, there are also videos of researchers in the field, testing materials against objects propelled at gale-force speeds. [CNH]


ENGL Professional Writing Program

·http://lib.guides.umd.edu/content.php?pid=379848&sid=3112046

The ENGL Professional Writing Program at the University of Maryland library is jam-packed with resources for writers and teachers of writing. The Researching a Topic section is a great place to start. Here, students, instructors, and the general writing enthusiast can watch a short instructional video and learn how to develop a subject, formulate a research question, and think about possible sources. Finding Information provides an excellent drop down bar with links to outside resources. Annotated Bibliographies links to a separate University of Maryland site dedicated entirely to this important skill set. Other links include Conducting an Interview, Public Opinion Research, and Citing Tools. [CNH]


Alaska's Digital Archives: Alaska Native & Culture Pathway

·http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/pathway

As the site notes, the land now known as the state of Alaska has been continuously inhabited by Native peoples for thousands of years. To honor the unique history and culture of Alaska's indigenous people, this section of Alaska's Digital Archives presents a collection of photographs gathered from a number of Alaskan libraries. Readers may browse the materials here by category, region, or timeline. For instance, selecting Traditional Spiritual Practices displays 152 results documenting traditional ceremonial clothing, funereal rites, and other related spiritual practices. Additional categories include Religion and Church Leadership, Ceremonial Life, and Education. The Timelines are broken down into seven different periods, including 1741 and Before. Most photographs in the collection are accompanied by detailed Descriptions and Identifiers. [CNH]


NIMH: Recent Science News

·http://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/index.shtml

Science News from the National Institute of Mental Health is a fantastic resource for teachers, psychologists, and others who want to keep abreast of the latest research on a range of mental health concerns. Readers can scout the site by Recent News, which appears automatically on the homepage. They can also delve into the hundreds of past reports by searching News by Year and News by Topic. Topics include a wide range of disorders, populations, research, and other categories. For instance, there are 22 articles available about psychotherapy, 91 articles on medications, and 26 articles about diversity and ethnic groups. [CNH]


Higher Education Recruitment Consortium

·http://www.hercjobs.org/

Finding the right job in higher education, whether as an educator, a researcher, or an administrator, can be a challenge. The Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC) is a non-profit consortium of "over 600 colleges, universities, hospitals, research labs, government agencies, and related non- and for-profit organizations." The website offers a database of higher education jobs, as well as tips on job hunting, webinars, and the ability to search the site by state and by keyword. Readers may create an account in order to post their CVs, receive job alerts, and design their own attractive profile. The site also works for administrators and faculty who are looking for well matched candidates for available positions. Perhaps most notably, this is a wonderful resource for dual-career couples providing dual-career search options to help both sides of the academic couple find job placement. [CNH]


General Interest

Arabic Fiction

·http://www.arabicfiction.org

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) is considered by many to be the most prestigious literary prize in the Arab world. Modeled on the Man Booker Prize, each year five judges, drawn from the prominent ranks of Arabic literary critics, writers, and academics, read about 100 books and then decide on a long list, a short list, and a winner. In addition to the prize, IPAF commits a good deal of effort to translating and promoting contemporary Arabic fiction and poetry internationally. On the website, readers may peruse About the Prize to understand the ins-and-outs of this important literary institution. Readers may also like to browse Previous Years for an extended look at the books that were listed or won prizes going back to IPAF's founding in 2008. [CNH]


The Big Snoop: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Terrorists

·http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2014/big-snoop

The first thing a visitor sees when arriving at the title page to the Brookings Essay, "The Big Snoop," are six chilling words: "Some data we see about you." Beneath that, the site lists your ip address, hostname, city, region, postal code, the browser you're using, your time on the page, scroll depth, and what operating system you're running on what kind of computer. That's a good introduction to this six part essay by Brookings Fellow Stuart S. Taylor, Jr., which elucidates the views of four very different experts of varying political backgrounds on the topic of national security vs. individual privacy. For those of us who enjoy in-depth analysis of complex, hot-button topics, this interactive page should not be missed. [CNH]


The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

·http://www.mellon.org

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation was founded in the late 1960s to "strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing." With over six billion dollars in its coffers, the foundation has much to offer institutions of higher learning and culture. The website provides fascinating insight into how the organization works and what it does. The Mission and History of the non-profit, located under the About tab, as well as Annual Reports and Financials can all be found here. Readers may also select Programs to explore the five areas in which the Foundation makes grants. Lastly, News & Publications provides a frequently updated overview of the activities of this influential philanthropic institution. [CNH]


Frontiers of Psychology

·http://www.frontiersin.org/Psychology

Frontiers of Psychology, an open source, peer-reviewed journal with a respectable impact factor of 2.8, publishes across the entire field of psychology. As the website says, readers can find everything "from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, from animal cognition to social psychology." The site is easily navigable. Readers may search by Specialty Section (Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognition, Eating Behavior, and 18 others), or scroll through Recent Focused Reviews or Recent Articles from Specialists. Recent articles have focused their attention on dog-human cooperation, mother-infant engagement, and weight management and control. [CNH]


Visualising China

·http://visualisingchina.net

This incredible resource from the University of Bristol provides access to over 9,000 historical photographs of China from the years 1850 to 1950. Readers may want to start with the blog that accompanies the digitized collection for a number of fascinating articles on the rapidly transforming China of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But the pictures themselves are the real magic of this website. Readers may select any photo to start. Below the photo a series of keywords, locations, and other related information will appear. Each of these related tags will take readers to other photos and groups of photos. For instance, selecting a street scene from the homepage will reveal that the photograph was taken in 1920s Shanghai. Readers will also find suggested related material tagged as "Bicycle," "Crowded Street," "Shanghai Municipal Police," and others. The result is a fascinating, elegiac tour of a world now long past.[CNH]


Council of Canadian Academies

·http://scienceadvice.ca

The Council of Canadian Academies, an independent, not-for-profit group, gathers together experts from various fields to write evidence-based and authoritative assessments of pressing issues. For instance, the assessment "Science Culture: Where Canada Stands," tells us that 93% of Canadians sampled are interested in new scientific discoveries, while only 17% believe science is not important to daily life. Additionally, Canadians scored first on a science literacy test compared to eleven other countries. Assessments in Progress include "Energy Use and Climate Change: A Synthesis of the Latest Evidence" and "STEM Skills for the Future." Best of all, reports are freely available to the public by PDF download and via Google Books. [CNH]


Burnout Research

·http://www.journals.elsevier.com/burnout-research/

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, burnout is "physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress." Coined by the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s to describe the sort of emotional emptiness experienced by doctors, nurses, and mental health professionals, the term has gained popularity outside the helping professions. But what is burnout, and how is it different from other diagnoses like depression? The journal Burnout Research, published online by Elsevier, seeks to answer just these sorts of questions. Articles like "Burnout, work engagement and workaholism among highly educated employees: Profiles, antecedents and outcomes" are freely available to the interested reader. Especially interesting are the 100-word Lay Summaries, tidbits written in a style anyone can understand. [CNH]


Images from the History of Medicine

·http://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/luna/servlet/view/all

The History of Medicine Division at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) presents this collection of over 70,000 digitized historical images, all culled from a number of archives. For example, from the Lasker Award Archives, there's an image of Jonas Salk receiving the Lasker Award for his oral polio vaccine, which was widely administered on sugar cubes in the early 1960s. There are also images from businesses such as Fisher Scientific, and organizations such as the American Lung Association, primarily posters in these two cases. NLM allows users to narrow the collection by What, Where, and Who, and the Advanced Search function provides even more detailed search facets, including geographical locations and formats. There's also a Tips & Tricks page with search tips. Visitors who sign up for a free account can create media groups, sets of images that can be downloaded to a PowerPoint presentation, and that will have a unique, shareable URL. [DS]


Network Tools

ownCloud

·https://owncloud.org/

For readers who know about Dropbox, ownCloud will be an intuitive find. The services are similar. They both provide online storage space for documents, graphics, mp3s, and other files. They both make sharing files with friends and coworkers simple and allow access from mobile devices and multiple desktops. However, more sophisticated users may prefer ownCloud for at least two reasons. First, as an open-source system, it is more flexible, so that users can adjust the services to their needs. Second, while Dropbox charges for extra storage, users can store huge amounts of data on ownCloud for free. The only catch is that users will need to run and install ownCloud on their own server. This is relatively simple for those who have a website and a little knowledge of hosting. [CNH]


Threadable

·https://threadable.com/

Anyone who has engaged in group conversations by email knows how unmanageable the threads can become. Threadable seeks to help contain the sprawl of back-and-forth messaging while maintaing the convenience of the traditional mailing list. Sign up for the service is free and easy. Readers simply enter their email address and a password. Then they enter the email addresses of those colleagues and friends they wish to include in their mailing lists. Threadable then opens to a refreshingly simple platform, where users may start conversations and respond to the conversations of others. There are several clever functions that make Threadable helpful. First, users can subdivide discussions, so that some members may have side conversations without filling up the inboxes of others. Second, users may "mute" conversations that don't involve them, allowing for future messages from that thread to skip their inbox. Third, email threads can be turned into actionable tasks that can be efficiently checked off upon completion. For boards, classes, work assignments, or other other groups Threadable is a free, workable list management solution. [CNH]


In the News

A STEM Tradition in the Making: White House Hosts its Fifth-Ever Science Fair

Supergirls Conquer Obama at White House Science Fair
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/supergirls-conquer-obama-white-house-science-fair-n328661

The coolest inventions in this year's White House science fair
http://qz.com/368958/the-coolest-inventions-in-this-years-white-house-science-fair/

White House Science Fair celebrates student research
http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2015/03/white-house-science-fair-celebrates-student-research

The 2015 White House Science Fair
https://www.whitehouse.gov/science-fair

This Day in History: Celebrating Women in STEM at The White House Science Fair
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/03/23/day-history-celebrating-women-stem-white-house-science-fair

Videos & Photos: Obama Tours Students' Projects at the Science Fair
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/23/obama-tours-students-projects-at-science-fair/

The White House Science Fair, which is now in its fifth year, draws students from around the country and across a range of interests. Projects this year included a lakeside power-generating system, a wheel apparatus for disabled dogs, and software that is designed to search out drugs that could treat Ebola. President Obama, who called the fair "the most fun event of the year," seemed delighted by the creativity and spunk of the students. Between giving group hugs to girl scouts in superhero capes and geeking out with burgeoning programmers, the president also took a moment to publicize his STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) initiatives, which include ensuring that at least 98 percent of Americans get broadband access and earmarking an extra $150 million for early-career scientists. [CNH]

The first link takes readers to the NBC News coverage, which focuses on the President's interactions with Girl Scout Troop 411 from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who came to the fair dressed in superhero capes. The second link, from Quartz, names the top three "coolest inventions" from the fair. The third link, from Science Magazine, offers further coverage of the projects and students at the fair, while the fourth link will take readers to the official 2015 White House Science Fair website. The fifth link focuses on the history of women in STEM, noting, among other things, that this is the second year in a row that women scientists represented the majority at the White House Science Fair. Lastly, a blog from the Wall Street Journal offers a text report, two-minute video coverage, and slideshow of the proceedings.





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