The Scout Report - November 5, 1999

November 5, 1999

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

The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators. 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.


In This Issue:

Subject Specific Reports

Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools

In The News


Subject Specific Reports

Scout Report for Social Sciences and Business & Economics
Scout Report for Social Sciences
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/socsci/1999/ss-991102.html
Scout Report for Business & Economics
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/bus-econ/1999/be-991104.html
The fifth issues of the third volumes of the Scout Reports for Social Sciences and Business & Economics are available. The In the News section of the Social Sciences Report annotates eight resources on the recent accord signed by representatives of the Catholic Church and a confederation of Lutheran Churches in Augsburg, Germany. The Business & Economics Report's In the News section offers eight resources on France's hesitancy to lift the European Union's ban on the import of British beef. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Research and Education

Model Editions Partnership (MEP)
http://adh.sc.edu/
Located at the University of South Carolina and funded in part by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, MEP's mission is to "explore ways of creating [electronic] editions of historical documents which meet the standards scholars traditionally use in preparing printed editions" and to make these electronic editions available online. The site currently hosts seven "experimental mini-editions" of digitized historical texts: Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Papers of Henry Laurens, Abraham Lincoln Legal Papers (preview only), Papers of General Nathanael Greene, Margaret Sanger Papers, and Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The texts are easily navigated and searched via the Table of Contents page. An historical introduction, short guides to searching and navigating the texts, and reading aids are also provided for each text. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Two Research Papers on Devolution
The Procedural Consequences of Devolution [.pdf, 180K]
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-085.pdf
Devolution and Concordats [.pdf, 151K]
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-084.pdf
The UK House of Commons Library recently released two research papers concerning the devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly of Wales. The first paper explores the consequences of devolution for the House of Commons, focusing on a related report from the Commons Procedure Committee which was debated in Parliament on October 21. The paper also discusses topics such as the effects of devolution on Members's constituency role, proposals for the reformed House of Lords's role in post-devolution politics, and the so-called "English Question," the implications of devolution for England. The second paper summarizes the main points of the devolution schemes, describing the reserved and devolved subject areas. It also explores the new roles of the Secretaries of States for Wales and Scotland and the concordats agreed between the UK governments, Scottish Ministers, and the Cabinet of the National Assembly for Wales. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Harvard Jean Monnet Table of Contents Service
http://www.law.harvard.edu/Programs/JeanMonnet/TOC/
Hosted by the Harvard Law School Jean Monnet Chair (first reviewed in the December 5, 1997 Scout Report), this site publishes the tables of contents for 58 journals (in eight languages) "relevant in European Integration research" received by the Harvard Law Library. Users can browse the newest arrivals (updated biweekly) or back issues (1998-99) by journal title. Table of content pages list titles, authors, and page numbers, and offer a link to the journal's homepage. An internal search engine is also provided. This is a useful and well-designed resource for scholars and professionals in European law. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Documenting the American South: The Church in the Southern Black Community
http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/church/index.html
Last month, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries began to digitize historical documents for their Church in the Southern Black Community online collection, part of the ongoing digitization of materials in the Documenting the American South series (see the April 18, 1997 Scout Report). According to its creators, "'The Church in the Southern Black Community' traces how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life." Currently, the site offers transcribed oral histories and autobiographies of former slaves, a diary of a New England woman living in the South in 1865, official church documents that give insight into how religious organizations approached slaves and former slaves as potential converts, and more. New documents are added on a regular basis. The other e-text collections on-site are First-Person Narratives of the American South, a Library of Southern Literature, North American Slave Narratives, and The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865. [DC]
[Back to Contents]

Internet Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 1999
http://www.GWDG.DE/~uwvw/1999.html
Transparency International: 1999 Bribe Payers Index (BPI)
http://www.transparency.de/documents/cpi/index.html
The 1999 edition of the CPI (last discussed in the February 26, 1998 Scout Report for Business & Economics) has been published. The CPI is listed in table format with background information and a framework document. Transparency International has also put together the Bribe Payers Perceptions Index (BPI), which ranks the leading nineteen exporting countries "in terms of the degree to which their corporations are perceived to be paying bribes abroad." According to the Bribe Payers Index (BPI), Sweden ranks the highest, followed by Australia and Canada, tying for second place. The United States comes in at seventh. This site links to the press release, background information, and framework document as well as the actual data. [EM]
[Back to Contents]

Doctoral Research in Educational Technology: A Directory of Dissertations, 1977-1998
http://www.edtech.univnorthco.edu/disswww/dissdir2.htm
Text Only
http://www.edtech.univnorthco.edu/disswww/displai2.htm
Compiled by Edward P. Caffarella, Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Northern Colorado, this site indexes doctoral dissertations in Instructional Design and Technology completed during the calendar years 1977 through 1998 at fifty major US universities. Users can browse the directory in five subsections, accessed via pull-down menus: Student, Keyword, Institution, Chair, and Year. Dissertation listings include student name, year, title, institution, and chairperson. A list of words not included in the key words in context (KWIC) index is also provided to aid searching. The directory will be updated annually with listings for dissertations completed during the previous year. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science
http://onlineethics.org/
Text only
http://onlineethics.org/text/index.html
Established in 1995 under a grant from the National Science Foundation, the Ethics center is designed to provide "engineers, scientists, science and engineering students with resources useful for understanding and addressing ethically significant problems that arise in their work life" or for including ethical problems in their courses. To that end, this site offers an array of resources. In the Research Ethics section, users will find activities, scenarios, case studies, and guides, as well as related links. The Cases section offers an even larger selection of proposed and actual cases along with annotated links. Among the many other offerings at the site are essays on science and engineering ethics, sample ethical codes, corporate setting ethical scenarios, and studies on diversity. Additional resources include conference listings (a bit outdated), a bibliography, a glossary, and an internal search engine. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions
http://cscwww.cats.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/index.htm
Compiled by Ohio University Professor Emeritus of History James Chastain, this online encyclopedia contains a large number of articles written by scholars from around the world on topics related to the "Springtime of the Peoples," the popular revolutions that spread across Europe in 1848. Users can browse the encyclopedia by alphabetical entry or by contributor, although the latter is not currently available. Typical entries contain one lengthy or several smaller paragraphs and a bibliography. The site also includes an introduction by Chastain which discusses the study of 1848 and the Encyclopedia's contents. Both scholars and students studying nineteenth-century Europe will find this site a handy reference resource. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Three Bibliographies for Cold War Studies
Cold War Bibliography
http://www.cmu.edu/coldwar/bibl.html
Bibliography of British Cold War History, 1945-1960
http://web.bham.ac.uk/maddendp/bibliography.htm
Korean War Bibliography - Center for Korean Studies
http://www2.hawaii.edu/korea/bibliography/15.htm
The first of these three resources for students and instructors in Cold War Studies is provided by the Cold War Science and Technology Studies Program at Carnegie Mellon University. The bibliography is divided into several sections, including a very helpful Concise annotated bibliography for students and non-specialists, Recent Books, Comparative and International Aspects of the Cold War, The Cold War and American Culture, The Production of Knowledge During the Cold War, and an Annotated Filmography. The second entry, compiled by University of Manchester PhD Student David Madden, focuses on British foreign policy, the Commonwealth and Anglo-Australian relations between 1945 and 1960, but touches on a number of other related period topics as well. The bibliography is divided into 40 sections of varying length, including The Cold War, The Commonwealth, Britain's Atomic Programme, British Defence Policy, NATA, the Malayan Emergency, and Britain and Europe. The last Website, compiled by Ken Robinson and provided by the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii, includes materials on a wide range of topics related to the Korean War. This bibliography is designed as a supplement to a comprehensive print bibliography published in 1986 and focuses primarily on recent (1990-) publications. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

General Interest

"Project Megiddo" [.pdf, 110K]
http://www.fbi.gov/library/megiddo/publicmegiddo.pdf
Widely reported in the press this week and then released online on November 3, the FBI's report "Project Megiddo" analyzes "the potential for extremist criminal activity in the US by individuals or domestic extremist groups who profess an apocalyptic view of the millennium or attach special significance to the year 2000." Those most likely to commit violent acts, according to the FBI, are either groups motivated by religious beliefs relating to the Apocalypse or New World Order conspiracy theory holders convinced the United Nations has a secret plan to conquer the world. Available in .pdf format only, the report contains a useful introduction and short analyses of groups such as the Christian identity Movement, white supremacists, militias, the Black Hebrew Israelites, and apocalyptic cults. A brief discussion of the potential for violence in Jerusalem, especially at the Temple Mount, is also included. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony [RealPlayer]
http://www.pbs.org/stantonanthony/
Airing November 7 and 8 on PBS, this new documentary film by Ken Burns and Paul Barnes tells the story of "one of the most productive working partnerships in US history," that of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. As the site describes them, "Stanton was the leading voice and philosopher of the women's rights and suffrage movements while Anthony was the powerhouse who commandeered the legions of women who struggled to win the ballot for American women." This fine companion Website offers a number of related resources. First among these is a well-crafted, 20-part overview of Stanton and Anthony's lives and the nineteenth-century women's movement with streaming audio that presumably comes from the documentary. The Resources section of the site contains information on teaching the history of women's rights; selected articles, essays, and original documents; a biographical sketch of Stanton and Anthony; a suggested reading list; and annotated links. Other offerings include a discussion forum, essays on the current state of women's rights, a kids section, and an interview with the filmmakers. Simply put, PBS has done it again. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information [.pdf]
http://aspe.hhs.gov/admnsimp/pvclist.htm
On November 3, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published the first-ever set of proposed national standards to protect personal health information. According to the HHS, "the Administration standards will apply to health information created by health care providers, hospitals, health plans and health care clearinghouses that is either transmitted or maintained electronically." Users can read the 150 pages of proposed rules by chapter or section in either HTML or .pdf format. A link is provided for users who wish to submit comments electronically. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Crime in the United States, 1998 [.pdf]
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/98cius.htm
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr.htm
The FBI has released its annual Crime in the United States report for 1998 (preliminary data discussed in the May 18, 1999 Scout Report for Social Sciences). The report is based on the Bureau's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, which compiles data from over 17,000 city, county, and state law enforcement agencies nationwide. The report is offered in seven sections in .pdf format only: Summary of the UCR Program, Crime Index Offenses Reported, Crime Index Offenses Cleared, Persons Arrested, Incidents of Family Violence: A Special Study, Law Enforcement Personnel, and seven appendices. The UCR main page offers links to previous reports from 1995 to 1997, hate crime statistics, reports on law enforcement officers killed and assaulted, and information related to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). [MD]
[Back to Contents]

EIKON
http://eikon.divinity.yale.edu/
Created at Yale Divinity School by faculty and library staff, EIKON is an image database that "provides digital resources for teaching and research in the field of Biblical studies." The approximately 800 images in EIKON are a subset of a larger Yale digital collection called AdHoc that contains both texts and images related to the history of Christianity. EIKON is searchable by subject; a search on Moses, for example, retrieves four images from a series of frescos at a synagogue in Syria. The subject headings in EIKON records are links, so it is easy to find related pictures by clicking the headlines. Clicking on the geographical location heading in a Moses record retrieved sixteen more images from the same temple. EIKON can also be browsed by categories such as Biblical Book, Geographical Location, Cultural Affiliation, Object Type, or Topic. [DS]
[Back to Contents]

1996 State Poverty Estimates -- Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe.html
On November 3, the US Census Bureau released 1996 poverty estimates for three age groups of children and for people of all ages, in each state and the District of Columbia. "The 1996 estimates include the numbers of poor people, poor children under 18, poor children ages 5 to 17 living with a family and poor children under age 5," as well as estimates of median household income. These estimates are used in administering federal programs and allocating federal funds to local jurisdictions. Access to the data is available via the State and County Estimates link on the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates homepage. Users can then view tables of the 1996 data (as well as 1995, 1993, and 1989) by state and poverty statistic. Please note that no county data are available yet for 1996. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Two Recent Reports from Human Rights Watch
Chile -- When Tyrants Tremble: the Pinochet Case
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/1999/chile/
"As Fragile as a Crystal Glass:" Press Freedom in Iran
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/1999/iran/
The first of these two recent reports from Human Rights Watch (HRW) reviews the Spanish effort to extradite and try General Pinochet and the repercussions in Chile, which is holding presidential elections in December 1999. The 57-page report also offers some background on Pinochet's regime and HRW's recommendations to the Chilean and US Governments. The second item explores the difficulties encountered by the independent reformist press in Iran in the face of determined conservative efforts to suppress it and prosecute journalists. The 21-page report also considers recent threats to the Iranian Press Law of 1985 and makes recommendations to the Government of Iran and the international community. Both reports are offered by chapter in HTML format. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: a Web Site
http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/
Forgotten the third verse of "Eyes of the World?" Wondering just what Jerry mumbled after "Eight sided whispering hallelujah hatrack" on your copy of "The Eleven?" from Las Vegas in 1968? Or would you like to know what Robert Hunter meant by the "the transitive nightfall of diamonds?" Look no further than this site, created and maintained by David Dodd, Branch Manager of the Civic Center Branch of the Marin County Free Library, and co-author of The Grateful Dead and the Deadheads: An Annotated Bibliography. Clearly a labor of love, the site offers the full text of songs by Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow, the Dead's principal lyricists, accompanied by footnotes and possible explanations of various passages by Dodd and others. In addition, the site includes discographies, bibliographies, and thematic essays. Grateful Dead enthusiasts and tape collectors will undoubtedly enjoy this site. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Network Tools

usgovsearch free edition
http://usgovsearch.northernlight.com/publibaccess/
Originally unveiled and subsequently much-maligned as a pay-for-access service provided by a partnership between Northern Light and the US Government, usgovsearch quickly lost its larger partner. Northern Light continued with the service nonetheless and recently came out with a free public access version of the search engine, which was originally designed for public libraries and public schools only. While the full edition of usgovsearch still requires a subscription, the public access version indexes millions of pages from US government and military sites. Users can search by keyword; by date range, agency, and subject in a power search; or by specific agency. The sheer size of the Northern Light database makes this search engine a useful resource for users seeking US government information. A sample search for "Medicare," for example, produced over 31,000 returns. The same search in Google's Uncle Sam (see the June 4, 1999 Scout Report) produced 8,500 hits, though the list was topped by the official US Government site on Medicare as opposed to the site of the Health Care Financing Administration in usgovsearch. Rather than choosing one over the other, the Scout Report recommends using both these engines in conjunction when searching for government information. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Lycos RichMedia
http://richmedia.lycos.com/
In an already well-populated field of multimedia search engines, RichMedia from Lycos distinguishes itself in two ways. First is its size (over 17 million files indexed) and speed (based on the technology that drives FAST Search - see the July 23, 1999 Scout Report). Secondly, users can click on search returns to directly access the content (pictures, movies, streams, and sounds) instead of going through the source site first. In most cases, however, links are also provided to the source. Like other multimedia search engines, RichMedia offers a filter (Search Scrub) to block adult content, although the site warns that it can never be 100 percent effective. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

AceExpert3
http://www.visic.com/AceExpert/index.html
AceExpert3 includes a very nice, easy-to-use HTML editor and various Web development tools. Features include CSS support, a JavaScript and DHTML tutorial, a collection of canned JavaScripts, DHTML scripts and Java Applets, and numerous wizards that assist in creating tables, forms, etc. One helpful view allows the user to see the HTML being edited in one pane and its in-browser realization in another. A trial version of AceExpert3 is available for Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 at no charge. The registration fee is $49.95. [JB]
[Back to Contents]

In The News

Largest Dinosaur Ever Discovered Found in Oklahoma
Gigantic Sauropod From Southeast Oklahoma
http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/mediarelations/110399/prelease.html
Images
http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/mediarelations/110399/
"Newly discovered dinosaur may have been biggest ever" -- CNN
http://cnn.com/NATURE/9911/03/science.dinosaur.reut/index.html
"Biggest dinosaur identified " -- BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_503000/503682.stm
The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
http://www.museum.state.il.us/svp/jvp/
Palaeontologia Electronica
http://www.omnh.ou.edu/paleo/toc_main.htm
Originally discovered in a remote corner of Oklahoma in 1994, the fossil of what may have been the largest creature to ever walk the earth has been excavated by a research team from the University of Oklahoma. Dubbed Sauroposeidon proteles, or "thunder lizard," the dinosaur was almost 100 feet long, with a 39 foot neck and weighing over 50 tons, so big that it would have created minor seismic activity just by walking, according to scientists. The new find is about 110 million years old and consists of neck vertebrae, some almost five feet in length, together with neck ribs nearly twelve feet long. The find is also significant because it may shed light on the last of the North American sauropods, who died out about 100 million years ago. A paper on this new find is scheduled to appear in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The first site, from the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, features an official press release on the find, while the second URL contains several images from the excavation and drawings. Both CNN and the BBC report on the find offer some links to related stories and sites. Users can also browse abstracts of related articles in past issues of The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and read full-text pieces in Palaeontologia Electronica. Both journals are published by the Society of Vertebrate Paelontology. Additional resources on paleontology and dinosaurs can be found in Signpost, the Scout Report's database. These include DINOBASE, the Web Geological Time Machine, and Zoom Dinosaurs. [MD]
[Back to Contents]


Below are the copyright statements to be included when reproducing annotations from The Scout Report.

The single phrase below is the copyright notice to be used when reproducing any portion of this report, in any format:

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/

The paragraph below is the copyright notice to be used when reproducing the entire report, in any format:

Copyright Susan Calcari and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 1994-1999. The Internet Scout Project (http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/), located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides information about the Internet to the U.S. research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. The Government has certain rights in this material. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the entire Scout Report provided this paragraph, including the copyright notice, are preserved on all copies.

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
Rachael E. Bower
Michael de Nie
Travis Koplow
David Charbonneau
Pat Coulthard
Aimee D. Glassel
Sheilah Harrington
Emily Missner
Laura X. Payne
Krishna Ramanujan
Mike Roszkowski
Debra Shapiro
Amy Tracy Wells
Joseph Bockhorst
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Director
Managing Editor
Editor
Production Editor
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.

To receive the electronic mail version of the Scout Report in HTML format, subscribe to the SCOUT-REPORT-HTML mailing list. This is the only mail you will receive from this list.

[Back to Contents]


Internet Scout
A Publication of the Internet Scout Project

Comments, Suggestions, Feedback
Use our feedback form or send email to scout@cs.wisc.edu.

© 1999 Internet Scout Project
Information on reproducing any publication is available on our copyright page.