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The Scout Report - June 13, 1997
The Scout Report
Volume 4, Number 7
June 13, 1997
A Publication of Internet Scout Services
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.
Visit the Scout Report web page at:
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Send comments and contributions to:
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In This Issue:
New From Internet Scout
Additions to the Scout Toolkit
New Scout Select Bookmarks
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/bookmarks/
End User's Corner--June 1997
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/enduser/
Scout Toolkit
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/
Seven new resources have been added to the Scout Select Bookmarks section
of the Toolkit. One Philosophy resource has been added to the Arts and
Humanities section. One Biology, one Psychology, and two Statistics
resources have been added to the Science, Mathematics, and Engineering
section. Two Education resources have been added to the Social Science
section. "Classic Books of the Internet--#3, Telecommunications, Mass
Media, & Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting,
1928-1935," a review of Professor Robert McChesney's book on the early
broadcast reform movement, has been added to the End User's Corner section.
[JS]
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Research and Education
Pursuing Excellence: A Study of US Fourth-Grade
Mathematics and Science Achievement in International
Context--TIMSS
http://www.ed.gov/NCES/timss/
The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, discuss
ed in the December 12, 1996 Scout Report), provided by the US
Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, has
released the second in its series of Pursuing Excellence reports,
this one detailing fourth grade math and science achievement. The report
attempts to compare US science and math achievement with that of 26 other
TIMSS countries. Several of the findings are encouraging: "in mathematics,
U.S. fourth graders perform above the international average of the 26 TIMSS
countries....in science content areas, [US] fourth graders' performance
exceeds the international average in all four of the areas assessed."
However, "the international standing of U.S. fourth graders is stronger
than that of U.S. eighth graders in both mathematics and science." The
previously published eighth grade assessment can be found on the same page.
[JS]
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Primordial Soup Kitchen--Cellular Automata Graphics
[Java]
http://math.wisc.edu/~griffeat/
Cooked up by chef David Griffeath, mathematics professor at the University
of Wisconsin, Primordial Soup Kitchen is a repository for information about
"self-organization of random cellular automata," via "computer graphics and
animations that illustrate the ability of local parallel update rules to
generate spatial structure from disordered initial states." Click on Intro
or the spiral from the home page to see the organization of the site, which
is made up mainly of "soups" (256-color .gifs), and "recipes," (the soup's
update rule along with other information on how it was created). The
Java-based CAffeine page offers interactive cellular automata animations.
The Kitchen Sink points to other CA pages, and, in keeping with its
culinary theme, the Chef's page contains information about the cook, as
well as over 30 food recipes. This is an example of complex and esoteric
material, presented in a lighthearted and appetizing way.
[JS]
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European Integration Online Papers--ECSA
Austria
http://olymp.wu-wien.ac.at/eiop/
No frames:
http://eiop.or.at/eiop/eiop1-e.htm
The European Community Studies Association Austria provides this new
working paper archive to house peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary working
papers in the field of European integration research, including legal
studies, political science, economics, and history. At present eleven
papers are available, including "Democracy and Governance in the European
Union," "The Economic Consequences of a Large EMU--Results of Macroeconomic
Model Simulations," and "The Making of a Polity: The Struggle Over European
Integration." Though English is the preferred language for papers, papers
in German may also be included; abstracts are presented in both languages.
A mailing list is available for those wishing to be informed when new
papers are posted.
[JS]
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Two Sites for US Historical Maps
Panoramic Maps 1847-1909--Library of Congress
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/pmhtml/panhome.html
Color Landform Atlas of the United States--Relaunch
http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/states.html
For those with an interest in historical US maps, these two sites will be
of value. The Library of Congress has recently added to its American Memory
Collections a small preview set of 19th and early 20th century panoramic
maps, also known as birds-eye view maps. These are "nonphotographic
representations of cities portrayed as if viewed from above at an oblique
angle," and, though not drawn to scale, "show street patterns, individual
buildings, and major landscape features in perspective." At present, over
forty city maps are available from five states, with additional maps
scheduled to be added over time. Maps are arranged by geography, subject
(place), and keyword (place or creator). Users can change the window size
of the image and zoom in or out anywhere on the map, allowing for detailed
views of these artworks. Note that heavy traffic at the LOC site may
restrict availability at times. Ray Sterner of the Johns Hopkins University
has relaunched his Color Landform Atlas of the United States (discus
sed in the January 17, 1997 issue of the Scout Report). The highlight
of this relaunch is the availability of 1895 Rand McNally state maps (for
twenty-nine states at present). These maps are very large (usually over one
megabyte) and detailed; counties are color-coded and railroad lines rather
than roads are shown.
[JS]
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WebGarden Resources--Ohio State University
Factsheet Database
http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/hcs/webgarden/FactsheetFind.html
Plant Dictionary
http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/hcs/TMI/TR2/pmTOC.html
Two excellent resources in the Ohio State University's WebGarden, provided
by OSU's Horticulture and Crop Science in Virtual Perspective site, are the
Factsheet Database and Plant Dictionary. The first is a browsable and
searchable database of over 5,500 horticultural factsheets in eleven
categories ranging from flowers to perennials to trees and shrubs. These
factsheets have been produced by over 40 (mostly university extension)
institutions. The Plant Dictionary is a searchable and browsable ornamental
plant database of over 1,400 "images and horticultural descriptions for 385
unique species and numerous cultivars." Searching is available on
scientific, family, or common name, and a small database of images relating
to insects, diseases, or culture of ornamental plants is also available.
[JS]
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BIOSCI--Electronic Newsgroup Network for
Biology
http://www.bio.net/
Journals table of contents:
http://www.bio.net/BIO-JOURNALS.html
Usenet access:
bionet.journals.contents
BIOSCI is a set of Usenet newsgroups and parallel email forums designed to
facilitate communication between bioscience professionals. At the heart of
the site is a very briefly annotated listing of the over 100 Usenet BIOSCI
newsgroups, each with browsable and searchable archives. It also contains
searchable and browsable table of contents lists for over 80
subject-specific journals. In addition, there is a searchable BIOSCI user
address database along with submission form, and BIOSCI, Usenet, and
Internet documentation. BIOSCI is a great example of a website with a plain
grey background that provides opportunities for terrific research
information sharing in a very wide field of scientific endeavor.
[JS]
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General Interest
Human Development Report 1997 Information--UN
Development Programme
http://www.undp.org/undp/hdro/index.htm
Full text order information:
http://www.undp.org/undp/hdro/97order.htm
The United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report Office
provides two useful selections from its Human Development Report
1997. Overview of HDR 1997 is a detailed summary of the contents
of the report, discussing world poverty and a six point strategy for
poverty reduction. HDR 1997 Rankings contain Human Development
Index, Gender-Related Development Index and Gender Empowerment Measure
rankings tables for 175 countries. More detailed information on the meaning
of the HDI is contained in Analytical Tools for Human Development. Full
text of the report is forthcoming, and ordering information is available at
the site.
[JS]
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Surfer Beware: Personal Privacy and the
Internet--EPIC
http://www.epic.org/reports/surfer-beware.html
Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://www.epic.org/
FTC Public Workshop on Consumer Information Privacy
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/privacy2/index.html
In conjunction with the US Federal Trade Commission's Public Workshop on
Consumer Information Privacy held June 10-13, 1997, the Electronic Privacy
Information Center has released this short report, based on its review of
"100 of the most frequently visited web sites on the Internet." The report
discusses the collection of personal information, privacy policies, and
browser cookie use at these sites. An appendix table details results of the
review in seven categories. EPIC, a public interest research group that
focuses on "emerging civil liberties issues and...privacy," offers a wealth
of information related to civil liberties and privacy in the networked
environment. The FTC Public Workshop site contains information about the
workshop, and links to two pertinent Information Infrastructure Task Force
Papers.
[JS]
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Money Magazine's Best Places to Live in America
1997
http://www.pathfinder.com/money/best-cities-97/index.html
Madison Wisconsin has passed its crown to Nashua New Hampshire in
Money Magazine's annual ranking of the best places to live in
America. The site contains the entire listing (with last year's rankings in
parentheses), along with hypertext links to articles on each city, and
snapshot weather, economy, crime, and quality of life figures. Methodology
for the survey is briefly described, and interactive features include a
query of sixty-three variables to help you determine the best city for you,
and a cost of living calculator that compares any two cities. For those
interested in following trends, the full 1996 Best Places to Live (discuss
ed in the June 21, 1996 Scout Report) is still available for
comparison.
[JS]
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Keys to Wealth Enhancement and
Preservation----NNEPA
http://www.netplanning.com/keys.htm
>From the National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys, Keys to Wealth
Enhancement and Preservation seeks to address many of the issues involved
in estate planning. These issues comprise the following sections: Estate
Planning, Business Continuity, Charitable Planning, Education Funding,
Advanced Strategies, Investment Planning, Retirement Planning and Insurance
Strategies. Information is in the form of questions and answers and can be
browsed by category or keyword-searched. Note that clicking the * under any
category retrieves the entire database of questions and answers for all
categories.
[ATW]
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The Chairman Smiles--Posters from the Soviet Union,
Cuba and China
http://www.iisg.nl/chairman/
Drawn from the collection of the International Institute of Social History
in Amsterdam, this website offers digitized images of both famous and
obscure political propaganda posters. The ninety-nine posters are presented
on three pages, one each for the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China. Even users
with high-bandwidth connections should be patient when accessing these
pages, since thumbnails for all thirty-some images load at once. A general
introduction heads each page, and artist, title and date are listed for the
posters. Each thumbnail links to a larger image of the poster, along with
publication and production information and a descriptive caption. Separate
pages provide information on the collections and the designers of the
posters. Date coverage varies: 1919 to 1938 for the Soviet Union, 1962 to
1968 for Cuba, and c.1950 to 1992 for China. Once ubiquitous, now rarely
seen, these posters have found new life on the Web.
[ML]
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Network Tools
Netscape Communicator 4.0 Released
Download:
http://home.netscape.com/flash1/download/index.html
Information:
http://home.netscape.com/flash1/comprod/products/communicator/index.html
Netscape has fired the latest salvo in the browser wars by making available
the release version of its Communicator 4.0 web browser (Windows only at
this time). The company advertises the new browser as much more than just
an Internet portal; it sees it as a "a suite of software components for
sharing, accessing, and communicating information via intranets and the
Internet." These components allow the browser to act as a web navigator, a
mail and news reader, and an HTML authoring tool, among other functions.
With this new release, Netscape is also offering a preview release of its
new Netcaster, an example of "push" technology that allows users to receive
information from "content channels," that can then be viewed offline.
[JS]
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Builder.com
http://builder.com/
C|net's latest rollout, Builder.com, is a convenient, one stop compendium
of its web developer information. Articles from various c|net locations are
compiled in the topics of web authoring, graphics and design, servers,
hosting & hardware, and marketing and management. Latest articles appear at
the top of the page in a section called Top of the Stack. Builder News
compiles relevant articles from News.com (discus
sed in the September 6, 1996 Scout Report), and software reviews are
also available. C|net, an acknowledged master at repackaging its content in
creative, useful, and profitable ways, looks to have another winner on its
hands.
[JS]
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Where Are They Now
Volume 1, Number 7: The Scout Report for June 10,
1994
http://wwwscout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/archive/6-10-94.html
WWW in the Curriculum--World Lecture Hall
http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/index.html
Games-Related Information--Games Domain
http://www.gamesdomain.com/
WWW in the Curriculum was the title of one of the annotations in the June
10, 1994 Scout Report. This meta-resource of "instructional uses of the
Web" had pointers to 20 subject areas at that time, and is now more well
known as the World Lecture Hall, provided by the University of Texas,
Austin. It now contains annotated links to faculty web pages that "deliver
class materials" in over 90 subjects, from Accounting to Women's Studies.
It is an excellent resource for college and university educators to see how
their colleagues are using the Internet for instruction. The same issue
also annotated a "weekend scouting" site on games-related information with
"Over 100 links to FAQs, home pages, 'net games, walkthroughs, game
information, contacts, and more." The site, originally located at the
Wolfson Computer Laboratory at the University of Birmingham (UK), has
evolved into the well known Games Domain, a site mirrored in Europe, South
Africa, and the United States. It contains hundreds of demos and patches,
and thousands of links to download sites in various platforms, as well as
Games Domain Review, an "independent online magazine written by gamers for
gamers."
[JS]
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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1994-1997. 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 -- Managing Editor
-
Jack Solock -- Editor
-
Matthew Livesey -- Production Editor
-
Teri Boomsma -- Contributor
-
Aimee D. Glassel -- Contributor
-
Amy Tracy Wells -- Contributor
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© 1997 Internet Scout Project
InterNIC Information & Education Services