A Publication of Net 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) or visit the
Web version of the Scout Report. Subscription instructions are included at
the end of each report.
http://rs.internic.net/scout/report
Scientific American Online
"Scientific American" has been publishing since 1845, and at its Web site
interested readers can find two full text articles from the current issue,
as well as several features including selected short articles, news and
analysis, short selections from 50, 100, and 150 years ago, an interactive
"ask the experts" where scientific experts answer selected email
questions, and weekly explorations and exhibits of scientific concepts.
There are also interviews and a marketplace where SA merchandise is for
sale. An archive of selected articles is available back to March 1996, and
abstracts of articles from the January and February issues are also
available. The site is searchable.
http://www.sciam.com/
[Back to Contents]
"The Future Information Infrastructure in
Economics" -- a working paper
In an attempt to "start a debate in our profession," William L. Goffe and
Robert P. Parks have recently uploaded "The Future Information
Infrastructure in Economics" to the Economics Working Paper Archive at
Washington University at St. Louis. Although the paper uses the Economics
profession as an example, the points it raises can be applied to almost
any academic subject. The paper discusses the possible effects of
networking on future scholarly publishing, imagining how scholars will
share not only their research, but also data sets that served as the raw
material for the research, enabling other researchers to verify theories
"on the fly." Several possibilities for future research publishing are
discussed, from electronic journals that charge for access to completely
free electronic publishing. The paper is divided into sections discussing:
academic principles that are independent of technology; the impact of
networks on working papers, journals and libraries; the implications of
increased access to data; new opportunities for scholarly publishing in a
networked environment; and a "roadmap" to a possible future of scholarly
publishing. "Future Information" is available in .pdf, postscript, and
TeX formats, is twenty pages long, contains little economics jargon, and
has over 40 references to other electronic and non-electronic sources of
interest. Goffe is a Professor in the Department of Economics and
International Business at the University of Southern Mississippi, and is
the author of "Resources for Economists on the Internet," one of the best
Internet subject guides available. Parks is the maintainer of the
Economics Working Paper Archive, one of the larger and more well organized
electronic working paper archives in existence.
"Future Information Infrastructure":
http://econwpa.wustl.edu/eprints/mic/papers/9605/9605001.abs
Economics Working Paper Archive -- Washington University at St. Louis:
http://econwpa.wustl.edu/
Goffe's "Resources for Economists" can be found on the home page.
[Back to Contents]
TEKTRAN -- Technology Transfer Automated Retrieval
System -- USDA ARS
USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) ARS' (Agricultural Research
Service) TEKTRAN (Technology Transfer Automated Retrieval System) "is a
dynamic database containing nearly 13,000 interpretive summaries of
research results that have been peer reviewed and cleared by ARS. These
are pre-publication notices, and as such, they forecast the future for
improved food, feed, and fiber products and processes. TEKTRAN changes
when scientists submit articles for publication and when previously
submitted articles are published. TEKTRAN on the Internet is updated
monthly." The system allows three different types of searches (each
thoroughly explained), as well as browsing in over 60 categories from
agrochemical technology to weeds. Each record contains title, author(s),
an interpretive summary, keywords, contact information, and an ARS report
number. The number of citations, as well as the power of the searching
systems, make this one of the better agricultural bibliographic databases.
As with most large databases, studying the searching FAQs is a must in
order to exploit the resource.
http://www.nal.usda.gov/ttic/tektran/tektran.html
[Back to Contents]
National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education
"Newsline"
The National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education (NCBE) at George
Washington University has made "Newsline," a weekly newsletter of the
NCBE, which contains announcements and news from the U.S. Department of
Education's Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs
(OBEMLA), as well as grant information, job and conference announcements,
and links to pertinent Internet resources, available via the Web and a
mailing list.
"Newsline" Web site:
http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/majordomo/newsline/archive.html
To subscribe:
http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/majordomo/newsline/
or:
send email to:
majordomo@cis.ncbe.gwu.edu
In the body of the message type:
subscribe newsline your-email-address
Other NCBE discussion groups:
http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/majordomo/
NCBE home page:
http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/
[Back to Contents]
Lesson Plans and Resources for Social Studies
Teachers
Marty Levine, a professor of Education at California State University at
Northridge, has compiled a page of pointers to many lesson plans and
resources for social studies teachers. It is a resource that points
to lesson plans and teaching strategies for social studies, current
events sites, relevant Usenet newsgroups, and other government, history,
and Latino related sites. The heart of the site is the lesson plan
pointers page, with connections to hundreds of lesson plans in all areas
and K-12 grade groupings.
http://www.csun.edu/%7Ehcedu013/index.html
[Back to Contents]
InterPsych Newsletter is Now PsychNews
International
The well known InterPsych Newsletter has changed its name to PsychNews
International and is available via email subscription and the Web. It is
published ten times per year. Each issue can contain a combination of
research findings, job and conference listings, and listings of Internet
resources. PsychNews International concentrates on issues of psychology,
psychiatry, and the social sciences. The Internet resources sections are a
good place for anyone interested in the field to keep abreast of useful
resources.
To subscribe send email to:
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.NODAK.ED
In the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE PSYCHNEWS yourfirstname yourlastname
Archives of both IPN and PNI:
U.S.:
http://www.mhnet.org/pni/
Europe:
http://userpage.FU-Berlin.de/~expert/psychnews/
[Back to Contents]
GAO Report on Computer Attacks at Department of
Defense
Full text of a recently released GAO (Government Accounting Office)
report, "Information Security: Computer Attacks at Department of Defense
Pose Increasing Risks," (GAO/AIMD-96-84) is available from the Government
Printing Office Web site. Among GAO's findings are: "only about 1 in 500
attacks is detected and reported, but the Defense Information Systems
Agency (DISA) estimates that DOD is attacked about 250,000 times per year;
attackers have stolen, modified, and destroyed data and software, disabled
protection systems to allow future unauthorized access, and shut down
entire systems and networks to preclude authorized use; security breaches
pose a serious risk to national security because terrorists or U.S.
adversaries could disrupt the national information infrastructure; and,
security breaches cost DOD hundreds of millions of dollars annually." The
report is available in ASCII text and Adobe .pdf format.
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces002.html
Choose "GAO Reports" in the scrolling list of government
databases:
Search: "AIMD-96-84" (with the quotes)
Download text or .pdf version.
[Back to Contents]
Family Village -- a disability resource
Family Village, provided by the Waisman Center of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, seeks to be a "global community that integrates
information, resources, and communication opportunities on the Internet
for persons with cognitive and other disabilities, their families, and
those that provide them services and supports." The Library points to
resources on hundreds of disabilities from Aarskog Syndrome to Xeroderma
Pigmentosum. Each of these topics contains contact information,
information about the disability, and links to discussion groups and Web
sites when available. The Coffee Shop points to disability and health
related discussion lists, and personal Web pages of families touched by
disabilities. The Post Office is a message board where people with shared
interests can contact each other. There are also a large number of related
pointers to medical, education, recreation, religious, book, and
disability research program resources.
http://www.familyvillage.wisc.edu/
Text only home page:
http://www.familyvillage.wisc.edu/tindex.htm
[Back to Contents]
Language Dictionaries and Translators
Rivendell International Communications has provided a language dictionary
and translator page on the Web. It contains pointers to searchable and
browsable dictionaries with one way and both way translations. It points
to a language for travelers page, with translations for basic words,
numbers, shopping, travel, directions, places, and time and dates. In
addition, a free translation (any of five languages) service is offered
for messages of 200-300 words. Dictionaries, of course, vary in size and
reliability, but the advantage of this site is that it is a gateway to
dictionary and translation services for over thirty languages. Note that
at this time, most of the dictionaries translate from and/or to English,
but the language for travelers page will translate from any of 29
languages.
http://rivendel.com/~ric/resources/dictionary.html
[Back to Contents]
Directory of World Wide Electronic Newspapers
The Editor and Publisher Co. provides a massive database of world wide
online newspapers (1001 at present). Each entry contains any or all of the
following information: name, hyptertext connection, contacts, price,
description, and entry update date. The database is accessible via a
clickable map or by continent and then country. The U.S. and Canada are
further broken down by states and provinces respectively. The database is
searchable.
http://www.mediainfo.com/ephome/npaper/nphtm/online.htm
[Back to Contents]
Elections and Electoral Systems World
Wide
Elections and Electoral Systems by Country is a page of
pointers to the latest world wide election news, and is maintained as part
of the Political Science Resources page at the University of Keele in the
United Kingdom. Information is available on over 40 countries from
Albania to Thailand, and can include election results, referendums, and
electoral information. Information is up to date to the latest election.
Of particular interest at this time are the pointers to Israel, Italy,
India, the Dominican Republic, and Russia. Political Science Resources is
among the better guides to worldwide political science resources.
Elections:
http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/po/election.htm
Political Science Resources home page:
http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/po/psr.htm
[Back to Contents]
WWW Select-a-Dog -- a dog lover's resource
The highlight of the WWW Select-a-Dog site, which is aimed at aiding
people in choosing a dog, is the breed page, which provides height,
weight, color, coat, and possible behavior problems for over 100 dog
breeds. A picture and links to other web sites of interest for the breed
are provided when available. The Mutt of the Month page solicits you to
send a picture and information about your mutt of every month to the site
for consideration. There is also a large page of links to other dog
related sites. Note that this site is a work in progress and the authors
actively solicit information about dog breeds in order for them to improve
the service.
http://earth.myriad.net/dogs/dogindex.html
[Back to Contents]
The Spoon Discussion List
Drop by the Spoon for a cup of coffee and a story when you get a chance.
We're here to share stories about our lives, about our travels, about the
people we come across. We're telling tall tales and reading our journals.
We're giving away bits of ourselves and seeing through other's eyes. We're
just a small place, a truck stop off the information highway. It's cold
out there and warm and safe in here. Rest your feet. Rest your eyes from
your weary road daze. Wrap your hands around a steaming cuppa and listen
for a while and maybe talk a little.
To subscribe send email to:
majordomo@kiva.net
In the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE SPOON
[Back to Contents]
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 Beta
Microsoft has made the 3.0 beta version of its Internet Explorer
available for downloading. The new Web browser supports such features as
frames, selective access to sites based on content (a feature that
promises to help parents control what their children see), Web browsing
from the keyboard, and multiple language character sets, among others. At
present the 3.0 version is available only for Windows 95 and NT
platforms.
Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/iedl.htm
More information on Internet Explorer 3.0:
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/DEFAULT.htm
[Back to Contents]
HTML 3.2 Standards
The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), in association with vendors including
IBM, Microsoft, Netscape Communications Corporation, Novell, SoftQuad,
Spyglass, and Sun Microsystems, has recently announced HTML 3.2 standards
for Web publishing. The new standards will provide backward compatibility
with HTML 2.0, as well as add features such as tables, applets, text flow
around images, and subscripts and superscripts. Information about the new
standards, as well as draft materials concerning them, are available.
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Wilbur/
[Back to Contents]
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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1996. 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.