The Scout Report - September 27, 1996

September 27, 1996

A Publication of Internet Scout
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.
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Send comments and contributions to: scout@cs.wisc.edu
In This Issue:

Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools


Research & EducationTwo New Publications from National Center For Education Statistics (NCES)
_Youth Indicators 1996_
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/yi/
_Historically Black Colleges and Universities 1976-1994_
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/96902.html
Adobe Acrobat Reader Software for many platforms
http://www.adobe.com/acrobat/readstep.html
The US Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has recently made two publications (in .pdf format) available at its web site. _Youth Indicators 1996: Trends in the Well-Being of American Youth_ is "a statistical compilation of data on family structure, jobs, education, and other elements that comprise the world of young people." It contains 69 tables and charts covering such subjects as demographics, family income, health, employment, and educational outcomes, among others. The tables and charts, which generally present data from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, are intended to give quick, concise information. _Historically Black Colleges and Universities 1976-1994_ is a 112-page statistical review of all aspects of its topic, highlighted by 9 charts and 54 tables covering enrollment, degrees conferred, staff and salaries, finance, revenue, and expenditures. The Executive Summary and Introduction, which appear on the website, encapsulate the findings. While the 1.15 megabyte download may be arduous for users with slow connections, but the content of the report is certainly worth waiting for.
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World Wide Web Virtual Library--Microscopy
http://www.ou.edu/research/electron/www-vl/
Non frames version
http://www.ou.edu/research/electron/www-vl/noframes.shtml
The latest addition to the WWW-VL is the subject area Microscopy, which claims "850 links to sites on all aspects of light microscopy, electron microscopy and other forms of microscopy" and is sponsored by the Samuel Roberts Electron Microscopy Laboratory and the University of Oklahoma. The site includes both a frames-based and non-frames-based version, both of which are easily navigated. As might be expected, it includes a broad spectrum of access points such as Internet Resources; Reference Sites; Laboratories, Organizations and People; Equipment and Technology; Applications and Topics; General and Education; Techniques; and Vendors and Other. Highlights include what is billed as the first photo of the Ebola virus, a Periodic Table of Elements, and the Genome Sequence Database.
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NativeTech--Native American Technology
http://www.nativeweb.org/NativeTech/
Site Index
http://www.nativeweb.org/NativeTech/content/index.html
NativeTech, "an educational web site that covers topics of Native American technology and emphasizes the Eastern Woodlands region," is the brainchild of Tara Prindle of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. This site is dedicated to disconnecting the term "Primitive" from perceptions of Native American technology and art. Categories include Essays & Articles, Poetry & Stories, Beadwork, Birds & Feathers, Clay & Pottery, Leather & Clothes, Metalwork, Plants & Trees, Porcupine Quills, Stonework & Tools, and Weaving & Cordage. The site provides in-depth information about many crafts from sewing moccasins to preparing clay to specifics on pine needle basketry. For quality, detail and on-target graphics, NativeTech deserves high marks. Note that the graphical nature of the site will make for slow page downloading for those without fast connections.
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Electronic Medical Journals from Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)
http://www.niwi.knaw.nl/cgi-bin/nph-ejournals_search.pl

Medical Information Centre
http://www.niwi.knaw.nl/us/homepag.htm
The Electronic Medical Journals page is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences' Medical Information Centre, a large medical resource site. The Electronic Journals page contains links to approximately 55 freely accessible scientific and biomedical electronic journals. Most journals offer full-text web versions of articles previously published in printed form. The Medical Information Centre offers article title, journal title, and key word searches of a much larger set of medical articles (taken from approximately 750 biomedical journals), and allows users to order (for a fee) copies of the articles in print, HTML, or email form. Numerous links to other websites, newsgroups, discussion groups, and email lists as well as a database (currently under construction) that will allow users to search for Internet medical resources, make the Medical Information Centre a great starting point for the netizen with an interest in medicine.
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Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
http://www.iatp.org/iatp/
gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:70/11/trade/iatp
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, an organization whose "mission is to create environmentally and economically sustainable communities and regions through sound agriculture and trade policy," has recently upgraded its web site to include information on the Institute's projects and publications in the fields of trade, agriculture, and the environment. One of the highlights of the site is its Global Food Security Resources section (frames based, under Agriculture), which provides a Food Security Resources Guide, a selected bibliography of 55 resources in the subject, and 10 full-text IATP documents on it. The website is an enhancement of the IATP's gopher site.
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Gramsci Bibliography
http://www.soc.qc.edu/gramsci/
The Sociology Department of Queens College, City University of New York, offers the searchable _Bibliographia Gramsciana_, by John M. Cammett and Maria Luisa Righi, a research bibliography containing 10,350 items on the life and works of Antonio Gramsci. Citations to works in 33 languages written between 1922 and 1993 are available. Also available, as ASCII files, are the first five issues (1992-95) of the Newsletter of the International Gramsci Society. The bibliography is searchable by keyword, but is not configured for browsing. The introduction to the bibliography contains bibliographic reference breakouts by year and language. Note that this is a bibliography of works on and about Gramsci, not by him.
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sci.physics.relativity
This newsgroup is the place to discuss and ask questions on the theory of relativity. It is an open forum for discussion related to relativity and physics. The news group sci.physics.relativity will be open to discussion on all levels. It will accept talk about alternative theories and other controversial discussions about relativity which would be outside the charter of most other sci.newsgroups, as well as more mainstream discussion on physics as described by Einstein's theory of relativity and modern research to develop more unified theories combining relativity and quantum mechanics. This reflects the kind of threads which are now popular in Usenet on the subject of relativity.
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General Interest

United Nations Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Conference On Disarmament Information
http://www.unog.ch/frames/disarm/disconf.htm
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Information and Full Text
http://www.unog.ch/frames/disarm/distreat/ctbt.htm
Major International Instruments on Disarmament and Related Issues
http://www.unog.ch/frames/disarm/distreat/warfare.htm
Full text of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 10, 1996, is available (in .pdf format) from the United Nations Office (Geneva) web site. In addition, the site contains information on the Conference on Disarmament, as well as selected full texts of major international documents on disarmament and related issues, including "Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases" (1925), Geneva Convention documents (1949), "Partial Test Ban Treaty" (1963), and "Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons" (1993), among many others. Some of these documents are in .pdf format, others are ASCII text. Connections to the free Adobe Acrobat reader can be obtained from the Conference on Disarmament Information home page (a frames-based page).
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US Supreme Court Decisions--1937-1975
http://www.fedworld.gov/supcourt/index.htm
Full text of US Supreme Court Decisions from 1937 to 1975 (7,407 decisions from volumes 300 through 422 of US Reports) has been made available via the US Air Force FLITE (Federal Legal Information Through Electronics) system. Users may access the decisions through a search interface that presently allows querying by keyword or case name. Decisions are available in ASCII format.
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Issues '96--New York Times and NPR
http://www.nytimes.com/issues/
Issues '96 is "a six-week on-line collaboration by The New York Times on the Web and National Public Radio focusing on the issues in this fall's US election campaign." In the areas of community, money, rights, safety, and world, the site offers synopses of several sub-issues, a collection of NPR and New York Times stories about the issues, a primer on the issues (produced by "the nonpartisan research group Public Agenda"), forums hosted by NPR correspondents or other experts, and "Where they Stand," which points to the party platforms on the issues. There are also links to Project Vote Smart (discussed in the Feb. 2, 1996 issue of the Scout Report) and the Library of Congress' Thomas service. In addition, the site contains transcripts and audio clips on issues from local voters (part of NPR's Election Project). The highlight of the site is the availability of over 120 articles, transcripts, and audio files from the two sponsors.
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increase & diffusion--From the Smithsonian Institution
http://www.si.edu/i+d/
"increase & diffusion" is a new monthly webzine from the Smithsonian Institution that seeks to "capture the breadth of the institution." (The title is based on SI's mission: "the increase and diffusion of knowledge." The magazine will cover a wide variety of topics and their relationship to Smithsonian projects. The inaugural issue contains articles on the Smithsonian's "Wine in American History and Culture" symposium, poetry from Reuben Jackson's collection _Fingering the Keys_, an interview with former Los Angeles Laker basketball player James Worthy (in .wav format), and an article on how the Smithsonian obtained artifacts from a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. This was the site of one of the first sit-ins to challenge racial segregation in the South, initiated by four African American students on February 4, 1960. The webzine is graphically rich, and it promises to make the stories behind the scenes at the Smithsonian as interesting as the Institution itself.
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Greatest Films of All Time
http://www.filmsite.org/films.html
Greatest Films of All Time is a loving tribute to great films, provided by Tim Dirks. Here you can find plot information on hundreds of classic films, arranged by year, genre, and title. Also, there are sections on memorable film quotations (which are linked to the movie they came from), as well as great scenes. Possibly the best part of the entire site is the large bibliography of film reference books. The only drawback to the site is that it is not searchable. Are these the best films of all time? Half the fun of this site is comparing your list to Mr. Dirks'.
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TEATIME-LIST mailing list
The teatime-list is an email discussion list dedicated to the subject of tea. It is an "unmoderated" discussion forum; however, only subscribers are permitted to post to the list. All posts are reflected via email to all the subscribers. To subscribe send email to:
teatime-list-request@teatime.com
In the body of the message type: subscribe
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Net Tools

Teachers.Net's Website Handbook and Homepage Maker 2.0
Website Handbook:
http://teachers.net/manual/
Homepage Maker 2.0:
http://teachers.net/sampler/
The well-known Teachers.Net, a collection of resources aimed at helping educators establish a web presence, has added two new services. Homepage Maker 2.0 is a fully automated web page generator. Once you fill out an online form specifying text, bullets, images, and even Java applets, JavaScripts, and other advanced web functions, an HTML file is automatically generated and emailed to you. The Net Website Handbook is not an HTML instructional guide, but rather an introduction to starting a web site. It reviews the various software (commercial and shareware) available and indicates how and where to download it; it also describes the differences between the various browsers, touches on graphics formats, points to various HTML instructional guides, and explains the procedures for getting your pages onto the web.
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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.


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