The Scout Report -- Volume 14, Number 28

July 18, 2008

A Publication of Internet Scout
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Sponsored by University of Wisconsin - Madison Libraries.




Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools

In The News




Research and Education

Coming of the American Revolution, 1764-1776 [Macromedia Flash Player]

http://www.masshist.org/revolution/

Before the American Revolution, the British colonies along the eastern seaboard of North America were a rather disparate group of competing entities. Strong dissatisfaction with various policies of the British government stirred them to action during the 1760s and 1770s. This fine website from the Massachusetts Historical Society takes visitors inside that struggle through official documents, personal correspondence, and newspaper pieces from those tumultuous decades. By clicking on the "Explore" section, visitors will have the opportunity to look into the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and other important documents from the period that led up to the actual Revolution. Moving on, the "Resources" area contains brief biographies of key players involved in this period of rebellion and resistance, including Abigail Adams and Thomas Paine. Finally, the site is rounded out by a section for teachers which includes lesson plans. [KMG]



European Country of Origin Information Network [pdf]

http://www.ecoi.net/

Questions regarding asylum seekers and other related matters can be quite complex, so it's nice to learn about this particular website. European Country of Origin Information (ECOI).net "gathers, structures and processes publicly available country of origin information with a focus on the needs of asylum lawyers, refugee counsels and persons deciding on claims for asylum and other forms of international protection." Of course, the site will be of interest to anyone with a penchant for exploring issues related international affairs and relations, and they can start their journey through the site by clicking on the "Refugee Law Reader". Published by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Reader includes up-to-date core legal materials, instruments, and academic commentary. Visitors looking for information on a specific country can use the drop-down menu on the left-hand side of the homepage to locate such materials. Additionally, the site also features an advanced search engine for those persons who have specialized needs and requests. [KMG]



Exploratorium: Sport Science [Macromedia Flash Player]

http://www.exploratorium.edu/sport/index.html

Looking at the processes and actions embedded within various team and individual sports is a great way to get exposed to concepts and ideas from physics, engineering, and any other number of basic and applied sciences. The Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco has developed this remarkable site that brings together interactive exhibits, activities, and video clips on the world of sport science. The materials here are organized primarily by sport, and visitors can check out "Skateboard Science", "Science of Surfing", and "Science of Cycling". After trying out a few of the activities in these sections, visitors should also make use of the "Articles" section. Here they will find pieces on why balls bounce (or why they fail to bounce) and the fitness challenge presented by Mt. Parinacota in South America. [KMG]



The Bottle Imp

http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ScotLit/ASLS/SWE/TBI/index.html

The Bottle Imp journal takes its name from an 1891 short story by Robert Louis Stevenson and it "exists to promote and support the teaching and study of Scottish literature and language." They pull no punches on their site when they note that "We're sure you'll find something to intrigue, inspire or annoy you!" The journal is a delightful find, and contributors to its pages include writers and academics from all over the world. Published by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, the journal comes out twice a year, and visitors to their site can read current and past issues at no charge here. Regular columns in the journal include the "Scots Word of the Season", a listing of relevant conferences, and information on new publications. Past issues have also included trenchant pieces on Scottish Romanticism and the appearance of the devil in Scottish literature. [KMG]



U.S. Census Bureau: Economic Indicators [pdf]

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/briefroom/BriefRm

Policy wonks, planners, and those with a general penchant for statistics will thoroughly enjoy the U.S. Census Bureau's Economic Indicators homepage. For starters, the homepage alone would be a reason to visit, as it includes the most recent data on manufacturing and trade inventories in the U.S., along with retail and food service sales, international trade in goods and services, and data on new home sales. It's also worth mentioning that the information can be obtained and examined in different formats, and they also offer up historic indicators dating back to the 1950s and 1960s in many instances. Visitors to the site can also learn when the next data set will be released and they may also wish to read the program overview for each data set. [KMG]



Muscle Atlas: Musculoskeletal Radiology

http://www.rad.washington.edu/academics/academic-sections/msk/muscle-atlas/

Not enough people know about the world of musculoskeletal radiology, but this site can address some of those glaring gaps in medical and physiological knowledge. Created by Doctor Michael Richardson at the University of Washington, this online muscle atlas covers the lower and upper extremity, and is primarily designed for use by health science professionals. The site also includes some teaching and instructional materials related to radiology. Visitors will note that the site contains a table of contents, and all of the major muscles are listed alphabetically, from the Adductor Brevis to the Vastus Medialis. Additionally, for each muscle, visitors can view a high-quality image of the related muscle groups and the function of each muscle in question. [KMG]



Journal of Online Learning and Teaching [pdf]

http://jolt.merlot.org/

More and more educators may wish to get involved with online teaching initiatives, but they may not be sure where to start. That's where the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT) steps in to provide a bit of assistance. JOLT is published four times a year, and its objectives are to enable faculty to use technology effectively in teaching and learning and also to enable academic programs to design and deploy academic technology. The journal has been published since the summer of 2005, and first-time visitors should take a look at the current issue to get a sense of their work. Visitors will find pieces on course management systems, creativity in online courses, and how to monitor and examine online discussions. Those who are so inclined should feel welcome to submit their own work for potential inclusion in a forthcoming volume. [KMG]



School of Oriental and African Studies Research Online [pdf, Real Player]

https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/

For well over a century, the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London has conducted a wide range of scholarly activities that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. This site serves as the publicly accessible repository of their research output, and it is made freely available to the general public. On their homepage, visitors can browse through the publications by year, department and research center, author, material type, and recent additions. Actually, the best way to get started is to look through the "Recent Additions" area and see some of the latest work, which could include anything from an ethnography on South Asian masculinity to rural development strategies in Malawi. It should be noted that not all of the submissions here include full-text versions, but regardless, there is a significant body of work here that is worthy of consideration. [KMG]



General Interest

Natural History Museum: Antarctic Heritage and Conservation [pdf, Real Player]

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/earth/antarctica/index.html

Conserving temporary structures of historical importance is hard, and performing such work in the harsh climate of the Antarctic is even harder. Of course, dedicated researchers and conservators from the Natural History Museum in Britain would never shy away from such a challenge, and this splendid sites offers insight into their work on this project. Essentially, the team is working on conserving the huts left by Ernest Shackleton during his 1908 expedition to the Antarctic, and visitors can read their team weblog, learn about the history of the huts, and also read up on the dilemmas faced by the team as they work on this heritage project. The site is rounded out by a fine selection of images of Antarctica (including shots of icy landscapes and penguins) and detailed maps of the continent and Ross Island. [KMG]



Berkeley Center for Law & Technology [pdf]

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/institutes/bclt/

Established at Berkeley's Boalt Hall in 1995, the mission of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology is "to foster beneficial and ethical advancement of technology by promoting the understanding and guiding the development of intellectual property and related fields of law and policy as they intersect with business, science and technology." First-time visitors to their homepage can make their way through some of their new publications and papers, which can include everything from work on stem cell research ethics to international copyright law. By clicking on the "Research" section, visitors can learn more about faculty research and the scholarship of those persons working closely in affiliation with the Center through research appointments. [KMG]



Explorations in Black Leadership [Real Player]

http://www.virginia.edu/publichistory/bl/index.php

Over the past several years, the Institute for Public History at the University of Virginia has been compiling a set of interviews with important black leaders across the United States. The project is co-directed by Phyllis Leffler and noted civil rights leader Julian Bond. By recording these experiences and comments, they hope that they can "implicitly connect the ways in which historical circumstances create the conditions for the future." Currently, there are over 30 interviews available, including talks with politician Eleanor Holmes Norton, publisher Earl Graves, and comedian and social critic Dick Gregory. Visitors can read transcripts of the interviews, read a short biographical statement, and also listen to each interview. [KMG]



MIT TechTv [Macromedia Flash Player]

http://techtv.mit.edu/

Some people out there might be thinking: "What will MIT think up next?" Well, they've probably thought up a number of things in the time it takes just to read this sentence, but one of their latest endeavors is MIT TechTv. It's a partnership between the MIT School of Engineering and MIT Libraries Academic Media Production services, and it basically allows various members of the MIT community (and others) to locate high-quality science and engineering related videos on the web. It's pretty easy to get started, as visitors can just click on the "View" button to watch some of the latest content. Recent highlights have included Brian Chan's origami demonstrations, debates on the gas tax, and physics demonstrations. Visitors should check back frequently, as new content is added quite regularly. [KMG]



The Knowledge Bank at OSU: Ohio State University Press Publications [pdf]

https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/131

The Knowledge Bank at The Ohio State University has a number of ongoing digitization and research projects, and this latest collection will be of interest to a broad range of scholars or anyone else with an interest in subjects such as American history, literary criticism, or communication arts. Currently, the site contains 295 titles published by The Ohio State University Press that are not available in a traditional paper edition. Visitors can search the collection by keyword, or they can also browse around by title, author, subject, or date of publication. The collection is nothing if not eclectic, as the offerings here include the 1999 work "Rewriting Chaucer: culture, authority, and the idea of the authentic text, 1400-1602" and 1952's "History of the Ohio State University: The story of its first seventy-five years, 1873-1948". [KMG]



Ethics & Global Politics [pdf]

http://journals.sfu.ca/coaction/index.php/egp

The guiding principle behind the new open access scholarly journal "Ethics & Global Politics" is "to foster theoretical contributions to the study of global politics by providing a forum for presenting novel ways of understanding and conceptualizing the global political challenges the world faces today." The journal is published by Co-Action Publishing with substantial support from The Swedish Research Council and the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University. On their homepage, visitors can learn about their editorial board, register for updates, read their latest announcements, and also find out about their submissions guidelines. Recently, the journal has published compelling and thoughtful pieces like "Neither global nor national: novel assemblages of territory, authority and rights" by Saskia Sassen and "Amnesty on trial: impunity, accountability, and the norms of international law" by Max Pensky. [KMG]



Michigan State University Open CourseWare [pdf]

http://www.msuglobal.com/opencourseware/

Michigan State University is one of the partner institutions working on the Open CourseWare Initiative and this website is their way of giving the general web-browsing public access to some of their educational expertise. Those persons who might be unfamiliar with the open educational resources movement may wish to read the paper on the homepage titled "Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources" or the equally timely work "Access to Education with Online Learning and Open Educational Resources: Can They Close the Gap?" Currently, the subject areas available here include international business, planning and zoning, and horse management. Visitors can scan through the course documents at their leisure, and they are also welcome to download various materials here. [KMG]



Border Film Project [Macromedia Flash Player]

http://www.borderfilmproject.com/en/index.php

In 2005, three young Americans, Rudy Adler, Victoria Criado, and Brett Huneycutt, whose backgrounds include activism, economics, and advertising, wondered what would happen if they gave disposable cameras to two groups of people on different sides of the border between the United States and Mexico: undocumented migrants crossing into the United States, and American Minutemen trying to stop them. Both groups were asked to document their activities, given postage- paid mailers for the return of their unprocessed film, and were offered different incentives. Minutemen received $25 Shell gas cards, while migrants were given $25 Wal-Mart gift cards. The results can currently be viewed on this website and were published in book form in 2007. They have also been exhibited in galleries throughout the U.S. ranging from Venice, California to Buffalo, New York. The project has collected around 2,000 photos, most of which can be viewed here by clicking on the "Photos" section at the top of the page. There is also a 20-minute video, designed to play as a loop at an exhibition, divided into short segments for online viewing. [DS]



Network Tools

Pandora Recovery 1.4.3

http://www.pandorarecovery.com/

Though some may feel a bit suspect about opening a "Pandora" anything, never fear with this helpful application. This tool allows users an effective way to attempt recovery of permanently deleted files. In brief, the tool actually has the ability to recover files permanently deleted from the recycle bin and so on. Visitors can also view all of the deleted files that are recovered, and they can then act accordingly. This version is compatible with operating systems running Windows 2000 and newer. [KMG]



Webalizer 2.20

http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/

The Webalizer does what its name implies; it produces highly detailed and easily configurable web server usage reports in HTML format. Another nice touch is that the application supports dozens of languages, including Thai, Turkish, and Latvian. The application is quite fast, as it has the ability to process approximately 70,000 records per second. This version is compatible with all operating systems running Linux. [KMG]



In The News

Sun and Surrealist paintings make for a pleasant cruise ship combination, but some are questioning the practices of one noted art auction house

Art Purchases Lead to Lawsuits Following Cruise Ship Auctions [Free registration may be required]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/arts/design/16crui.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Many Dali works are fakes, claims former art dealer
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2008/06/11/dali-book-lauryssens.html

Park West Gallery [Macromedia Flash Player]
http://www.parkwestgallery.com/

Judging the Authenticity of Prints by the Masters: A Primer for Collectors
http://www.cycleback.com/printsexamination/

Famous Fakes
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vinland/fakes.html

Mr. Picassohead
http://www.mrpicassohead.com/create.html

If you're cruising off the coast of Malta in a grand vessel, the last thing you might expect is the opportunity to purchase a Picasso, Rembrandt, or Dali. However, over the past two decades "fine art" actions have become a popular amusement and source of revenue on many of the major cruise lines. Unfortunately for Luis Maldonado, his auction house purchase didn't work out as he expected. On a recent cruise with his wife, Maldonado happened to stop by an art auction presented by the Park West art auction house, and feeling a bit intrigued he decided to take a look around. He heard the auctioneer singing the praises of two "museum quality" Picasso prints and a trio of Salvador Dali prints. Maldonado found himself drawn in and he purchased both sets at a price he was told was approximately 40 percent of their "appraised value". One can imagine his surprise when he returned home and found that the pieces were worth significantly less (which in itself might not be so surprising), but also that the works by Dali didn't contain an acceptable form of signature as indicated by Dali archivist and scholar Albert Field. Maldonado is not alone in his concern, it was recently announced that a Florida resident and a California resident filed class action lawsuits against Park West. They have accused the company of misrepresenting the value of its artwork and are seeking unspecified damages for unfair trade practices, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment. When asked about the lawsuits, Park West founder Albert Scaglione called them groundless, noting, "We've got over a million clients and we make an effort to satisfy every one of them." [KMG]

The first link leads to a solid piece from this Tuesday's New York Times which reports on Maldonado's experience, along with offering commentary from Park West owner Albert Scaglione, law enforcement officials, and art forgery experts. Moving on, the second link leads to a rather intriguing article about the former neighbor of Salvador Dali, Stans Lauryssens, who claims that Dali had his assistants forge his own distinctive signature thousands of times on various art works. The third link will take visitors to the homepage of the Park West Gallery, which claims to have "the largest collection of fine art in the world." Those persons who happen to have an Old Master print lying about will appreciate the fourth link, which contains "Judging the Authenticity of Prints by the Old Masters" by art historian David Rudd Cycleback. The fifth link leads to a delightful page that contains information about famous fakes of yore, including Shakespeare's "lost play" and the supposed autobiography of noted recluse and sometime filmmaker Howard Hughes. Finally, if you don't have enough change for a Picasso print of your own, you can always use the last link to make your very own Mr. Picassohead, complete with eyes, ears, eyebrows, and signature. [KMG]






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