Hello:
I thought you would find the following of interest.
Robert
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============================================================
S C I E N C E & E N G I N E E R I N G
N E T W O R K N E W S
============================================================
THE Guide to Internet Resources for Scientists and Engineers
January 1995 Volume 1, No. 1
============================================================
INSIDE THIS ISSUE...
Imaging Resources Abound, Push Limits of Internet
CMU Technical Report Archive Well Stocked for CS
Net Scope --- What's New & Exciting
Resources for Medicine & Health
Resources for Control Engineering
Welcome to the Internet
The Science & Engineering Internet Hunt
CyberTools for Navigating the Net
Book Reviews: Internet Starter Kit, Internet Explorer Kit
The Reference List
Subscription Form
IN NEXT MONTH'S ISSUE...
Net Scope --- What's New & Exciting
Technology Feature: Computational Sciences
Molecular Biology Resources
Software Engineering & Computer Science Resources
Electrical Engineering & CAE Resources
More Book Reviews, CyberTools, References, etc.
==========================================
Technology Feature
IMAGING RESOURCES ABOUND, PUSH LIMITS OF INTERNET
It's hard not to notice the extraordinary attention the Internet has
been getting lately. After 25 years, this network of networks boasts
over 20 million users and growth of 10% per month. And with the
visibility of the current administration's push for a National Research
and Education Network, the Internet has finally reached critical mass
and international acclaim. The good news is that the Internet's roots
are in science and engineering. The bad news is that we're beginning to
see capacity limits on the Net.
Before you start asking questions online, make sure you read the local
FAQs (compilations of Frequently Asked Questions), if available.
They'll save you a lot of time and embarrassment. More experienced
Internet users are very helpful, but you can try their patience by
asking questions that have already been answered.
In addition to being posted with their USENET newsgroups, many FAQs are
available by ftp'ing to rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.209], directory:
/pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under which a FAQ is archived
appears in the archive-name line at the top of the article. There is
also a mail server on that machine which allows you to send e-mail to
mail- server@rtfm.mit.edu containing the word help in the message
body. I reached the site by selecting USENET/FAQ Archive by Hierarchy
from the main menu of my service provider's bulletin board (Delphi,
Cambridge, MA) and searching the sci and graphics directories.
General Imaging Resources
Let's start with the general imaging resources. sci.image.processing
is a USENET discussion that focuses on scientific image processing and
analysis. comp.graphics is a USENET newsgroup with broader coverage,
including computer graphics, art, animation, and image processing.
John Grieggs of NASA has compiled an impressive FAQ for the
comp.graphics newsgroup. I downloaded the most recent listing and found
such topics as quantizing grayscale to black-&- white; format documents
for TIFF, IFF, BIFF, NFF, OFF, FITS; quantizing 24-bit images down to
8-bits; and specific references on ray-tracing and global illumination.
The piece- de-resistance was a section on free image manipulation
software, which is covered below under Public Domain and Commercial
Packages. Mr. Grieggs was kind enough to include a listing of the most
popular ftp (file transfer protocol) and telnet sites where these
resources can be found, e.g. ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu, dir:
graphics/graphics/packages; ftp zamenhof.cs.rice.edu, dir:
pub/graphics.formats; or ftp ftp.uu.net, dir: graphics. And for those
who still don't have name servers, he's listed the numerical addresses
for all the popular sites.
The sci.image.processing newsgroup does not have an overall FAQ, but
does have an image-processing/Macintosh FAQ thanks to the efforts of
Edward Huff at NYU. This FAQ covers Macintosh image processing
information available via gopher, ftp, USENET, e-mail, telephone, and
snail mail. The latest issue covers such topics as software packages,
how to search the sci.image.processing archive, and where to find NIH
Image, the most popular image processing package for the Macintosh (the
software and it's source code are public domain!). You can obtain this
FAQ by sending e-mail to mail- server@rtfm.mit.edu with send
usenet/news.answers/image- processing/Macintosh in the body of the
message.
The sci.image.processing newsgroup archive is available via ftp to
ruby.oce.orst.edu, dir: /pub/sci.image.processing or gopher to
skyking.oce.orst.edu. You must change your gopher port from 70 to PORT
71, as it's a nonstandard address. Check the image-processing/Macintosh
FAQ for more details.
Philip Kahn moderates the Vision List. This e-mail list embraces
discussion on a wide range of vision topics, including physiological
theory; computer vision, machine vision, and image processing
algorithms; vision techniques to support robot navigation and spatial
representation; artificial intelligence and neural network techniques
applied to vision; industrial applications; robotic eyes; implemented
systems; and ideas and profound thoughts. According to Kahn, "anything
related to vision and its automation is fair game." To subscribe, send
an e-mail message subscribe to vision- list-request@teleos.com. To dig
around in the archives, anonymous ftp to ftp.teleos.com, dir:
/vision-list-archive.
World Wide Web Sites
Then there are the myriad World Wide Web pages, including Steve
Batsell's implementation of some of my earlier Net research on imaging
at http://netlab.itd.nrl.navy.mil /imaging.html.
The grandfather of all vision home pages is at the Web server
maintained by the European Computer Vision Network,
http://afrodite.lira.dist.unige.it. Although still under construction,
the ECVNet server points the way to page after page of resources,
including the PEIPA archive (see below), and home pages on computer
graphics, character recognition, neural nets, ray tracing, robotics,
scientific visualization, signal processing, SPIE (International
Society for Optical Engineering), and 3D reconstruction. In addition,
the site directs you to dozens of research groups worldwide, including
the machine vision group at Edinburgh University in Scotland, Cornell's
Robotics and Vision lab, JPL's Image Analysis Systems group, McGill's
Centre for Intelligent Machines, U Penn's Medical Image Processing
Group, and Wright-Patterson's Model Based Vision Lab, just to name a
few.
As an example of what you'll find once you land at an actual archive,
the Pilot European Image Processing Archive (PEIPA) is a repository and
distribution service for software, digests, and newsgroup archives
concerned with image processing, analysis, manipulation, generation,
and display. Some general computer graphics info is also available.
The server also contains pointers to more Internet resources. You can
reach the site by ftp'ing to peipa.essex.ac.uk.
Within PEIPA, you'll find several interesting newsletter archives:
o BMVA News (dir: ipa/digests/bmva) is the newsletter of the
British Machine Vision Association and Society for Pattern
Recognition.
o GraphUK (dir: ipa/digests/graphuk) is a mailing list concerned
with graphics systems such as PHIGS and GKS, and with training in the
graphics areas (to subscribe, e-mail to graphuk-request@cs.man.ac.uk).
o IAPR Newsletter (dir: ipa/digests/IAPR) is from the International
Association for Pattern Recognition. Unlike many of the other
digests and newsletters archived here, the principal means of
distribution of the IAPR Newsletter is on paper (for more information,
e-mail Dr Adrian F Clark at alien@essex.ac.uk).
o Pixel (dir: ipa/digests/pixel) is concerned with image processing
topics as a whole, covering the image processing field from computer
vision to remote sensing. This is the 'official' electronic newsletter
of the British Machine Vision Association, although the readership
and content is not restricted to their matters (to subscribe, e-mail
to pixel-request @essex.ac.uk).
For those interested in the field of mathematical morphology, image
algebra, and stochastic geometry, you'll want to subscribe to the
Morphology Digest. This electronic newsletter covers conferences;
books, articles, theses; algorithms, software, hardware; available
research positions; and bibliographical data. To subscribe, send e-mail
to morpho@cwi.nl with subscribe as subject and an empty message body.
To peruse back issues, ftp to ftp.cwi.nl, dir: /pub/morphology.
Figure 1 lists a number of general imaging and graphics resources on
the Internet and how to find them.
Public Domain & Commercial Software
The Internet is an efficient and low-cost communications medium. As a
result, programmers from all walks of life use these networks to
distribute an incredible amount of public domain software. In addition,
many archives store demonstration versions of commercial software.
The most well-known of the public domain image processing packages is
NIH Image for the Mac. It's primary archive is at the National
Institutes of Health (ftp zippy.nimh.nih.gov, dir: /pub/nih-image).
There is also a mailing list devoted to NIH Image. You can subscribe by
sending e-mail to listserv@soils.umn.edu with
subscribe nih-image yourfirstname yourlastname in the body of the
message.
Khoros is a large, graphical development environment based on X11R4. It
includes a visual programming language, code generated for adding new
applications to the system, an interactive user interface editor, an
interactive image display package, a library of image and signal
processing routines, and 2D/3D plotting packages. Khoros is available
via ftp from a number of sites, including PEIPA (dir: ipa/khoros).
Figure 2 lists many more image processing packages in the public
domain.
Specialized Resources
Think of a technical specialty and you'll find a resource for it on the
Internet. Figure 3 provides a sampling of free software archives and
mailing lists for a cross-section of the technical disciplines,
including chemistry, biology, health science/medicine,
meteorological/oceanographic/geophysical data, and astronomy/space
exploration.
In the area of medicine/health science resources, the Biomedical
Computer Laboratory (ftp wubcl.wustl.edu), BCL, is supported by the
National Institutes of Health's National Center for Research Resources
(NCRR). The BCL promotes the application of advances in computer
science and technology, engineering, mathematics, and the physical
sciences to research problems in biology and medicine by supporting the
development of advanced research technologies. Emphasis is on
quantitative imaging including positron-emission tomography (PET) image
reconstruction utilizing estimation-maximization (EM) methods,
computational optical-sectioning microscopy, shape modeling and
segmentation, electron-microscopic autoradiography (EMA), image
acquisition and quantitative analysis of DNA electrophoretic gels and
autoradiograms, and parallel processing.
If you're looking for MRI and CT scan volume data, ftp to
omicron.cs.unc.edu, dir: /pub /softlab/CHVRTD (commercial use is
prohibited). There you will find such images as a human head, a human
knee, a head with skull partially removed to reveal brain, and an
electron density map for Staphylococcus Aureus Ribonuclease.
Between Astronomy, Space, and Geographical Information Systems (GIS),
we could fill the pages of this newsletter with Internet resources. The
Space Telescope Electronic Information System (ftp stsci.edu) is the
most comprehensive resource for astronomical Internet resources. It
includes images and Hubble Space Telescope data, as well as links to
the rest of the astronomy world. For an overdose of images, ftp
toybox.gsfc.nasa.gov. You'll find NASA GIF images, links to Lawrence
Berkeley Labs, UUNET, and Washington University archives.
Pushing the Limits
The increasing wealth of information on a variety of topics, including
imaging and graphics, is creating a bandwitdth problem for an already
overloaded network. Given the large size of most images and the
phenomenal growth of the World Wide Web graphical front-end, Mosaic,
there's a real question of how the Internet will handle the increased
traffic.
According to Philip Kahn, moderator of the Vision List, "I am hopeful
about the Net's benefits, but there are many issues that limit its use
for imagery. With the rapid price drop of hard disks and the ease of
availability of Internet connections, there has been a proliferation of
public archive sites. Mostly an amorphous haystack. That's where
moderators, archivists, and editors still must play an increasingly
stronger role to help establish structure for people to navigate,
establishing a good signal to noise ratio, as on our Vision List. Bad
signal to noise kills Net excitement and activity. That's why everyone
got angry at the immigration lawyers cross-posting to the world."
"The biggest problem for net access to imagery is still bandwidth,"
Kahn continues. "9600 baud is near impossible. V42.bis is better. T1
or T3... Let's get real, ISDN is great ($26/mth in the bay area), but
the economics are an unknown- you pay per byte transferred. The ideal
would be for the user of ISDN data to pay the access fee, so net
services can do their thing without going broke."
So, the business of running the Internet will struggle to sort itself
out over the next few years. In the meantime, resources continue to be
added to the Net at a phenomenal pace, especially in the area of
computer vision and image processing. SENN
-Shari Worthington
Note: In case you missed this note posted with the Net Scope news
items, one of the unfortunate facts of Internet life is that an address
might suddenly stop working. Sometimes MIS will change a server's name
without warning or will move the ftp site from one server to another.
Or sometimes the server's just down for routine maintenance. If the
address doesn't work after a week of repeated attempts to connect, you
should probably try something else. The best thing is to ask around...
get on one of the vision mailing lists mentioned in the article and
post a question. Someone's bound to have run across the same problem
and will probably be able to direct you.
---------
FIGURES
---------
Figure 1. General imaging, graphics, and vision resources on
the Internet.
FAQs
----
/graphics/comp.graphics
/graphics/JPEG_image_compression
/sci/image-processing/Macintosh
/sci/image-processing/Medical_Image_Volume_Visualization
NEWSGROUPS
----------
alt.3d
alt.graphics
alt.graphics.pixutils
comp.ai.vision (USENET version of Vision List)
comp.compression
comp.compression.research
comp.graphics
comp.graphics.animation
comp.graphics.research
comp.graphics.visualization
comp.sys.mac.scitech
comp.sys.sgi.graphics
sci.data.formats
sci.image.processing
WWW SITES
---------
http://netlab.itd.nrl.navy.mil/imaging.html
Imaging resources
http://galaxy.ph.tn.tudelft.nl:2000/PRInfo.html
Pattern recognition
http://afrodite.lira.dist.unige.it
European Network of Excellence in Computer Vision
http://www.cv.ruu.nl
Computer vision research for interactive presentation of data
http://web.msi.umn.edu/WWW/SciVis/umnscivis.html
Scientific visualization and graphics
http://www.sara.nl/Consumer.Report/Report.html
Comparison of visualization techniques & packages
MAILING LISTS
-------------
ingrafx@psuvm
Interdisciplinary discussion of graphics; for cartographers,
graphic designers, psychologists, scientific visualization
researchers. To subscribe: send "subscribe" message to
"listserv@psuvm.psu.edu"
morpho@cwi.nl
Mathematical morphology digest. To subscribe: send message to
"morpho@cwi.nl" with "subscribe" as subject
vision-list@teleos.com
Computer vision discussion of algorithms and techniques
To subscribe: send "subscribe" message to "vision-list-
request@teleos.com"
ximage@expo.lcs.mit.edu
Image processing in X Windows systems. To subscribe: send
message to "ximage-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu" with "subscribe"
in body of message
FTP ARCHIVES
------------
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu
National Center for Supercomputing Applications' public
domain software for image processing, data analysis, and
visualization; Mac, PC, UNIX platforms
ftp.uu.net, dir: graphics
Large respository of graphics and imaging software and doc.,
including comp.graphics archive
peipa.essex.ac.uk
Pilot European Image Processing Archive
ra.nrl.navy.mil, dir: /MacSciTech
Hundreds of Macintosh programs for chemistry, biology, math,
imaging, ai, data acquisition, and more
simsc.si.edu or ftp photo1.si.edu
Smithsonian photographs available as electronic images;
e-mail contact: sdmx@sivm.si.edu
sunsite.unc.edu, dir: /pub /academic, dir: /pub /multimedia
Info and software on farming, astronomy, biology, chemistry,
molecular modeling, GIS, geology, and more. Also, multimedia
sound and pictures and movies; graphic images
wuarchive.wustl.edu (or 128.252.135.4)
Mirror site for most major ftp sites; also contains large
archive of graphics and images for math and life science
educators
zamenhof.cs.rice.edu, dir: /pub/graphics.formats
Large archive of graphics software and format information
zippy.nimh.nih.gov
National Institutes of Health archive for NIH Image and
related public domain programs
GOPHER
------
skyking.oce.orst.edu sci.image.processing newsgroup
archive
----------------------------
Figure 2. Some of the public domain image processing packages
and their Internet locations.
Software/Description/ftp Location
----------------------------------
Fuzzy Pixmap Manipulation
format conversion and image manipulation
ftp.uu.net, directory: /pub/fbm.tar.Z
ImageMagick
image display and interactive manipulation (X11)
ftp.x.org, dir: /contrib/ImageMagick.tar.gz
ImgStar
image processing environment
axiom.maths.bath.ac.uk (138.38.96.32), dir: /pub/imgstar
Karma
signal and image processing
ftp.patnf.csiro.au, dir: /pub/karma
Khoros
graphical development environment (X11R4)
ftp.eece.unm.edu, dir: /pub/khoros/*
LaboImage
Sun View-based image processing and analysis
nic.funet.fi, dir: /pub/graphics/packages
pbmplus
format conversion and image manipulation
ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu,
dir: /graphics/graphics/packages/pbmplus
Utah RLE Toolkit
format conversion and image manipulation
cs.utah.edu, dir: pub/urt-*
Xim
interactive image manipulations
gis.mit.edu
xloadimage
read and display images on X11 screens
ftp.x.org, dir: contrib/xloadimage
xtiff
X11 tool for viewing TIFFs
ftp.x.org
-------------------------------
Figure 3. Specialized Internet Resources for Imaging and
Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------
CHEMICAL SCIENCES
Mailing List
------------
chemistry@osce.du
Computational chemistry, including molecular modeling,
molecular graphics, quantum chem, etc.
To subscribe: send "subscribe" message to "chemistry-
request@osce.du"
TELNET Archive
--------------
bnlnds.dne.bnl.gov, (or 130.199.112.132); login: nndc
Nuclear Data Center
FTP Archive
------------
zaphod.ncsa.uiuc.edu, dir: /Education/ChemViz
Chemical Visualization project for high school education
HEALTH SCIENCE & MEDICINE
Newsgroups
----------
sci.med Technical discussions about medicine
sci.med.physics
sci.med.radiology
sci.med.telemedicine
WWW Sites
----------
http://www.pitt.edu/~gnfst1
Finite element modeling of intracranial arterial blood flow
and aneurysms
http://chorus.rad.mcw.edu/chrous.html
Collaborattive Hypertext of Radiology and Ultrasonography
Mailing Lists
--------------
NUCMED@UWOVAX.UWO.CA
A discussion of Nuclear Medicine and related issues, esp. the
format of digital images. To subscribe: send "subscribe"
message to "nucmed-request@uwovax.uwo.ca"
VETCAI-L@CVDLS.UCDAVIS.EDU
Veterinary medicine computer assisted instruction; topics
include imaging, expert systems, LIMs, etc.To subscribe: send
"subscribe" message to "listserv@cvdls.ucdavis.edu"
FTP Archives
------------
ftp.sura.net, dir: /pub/nic/medical.resources
List of health and medical related Internet resources
nmrsg.biophys.upenn.edu
MRI archive
omicron.cs.unc.edu
Archive of MRI and CT scan data and images
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Mailing List
------------
cogneuro@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov
Cognitive science and neuroscience discussion
Gopher
-------
bdt.ftpt.br
Bioline publications, text, graphics, and references to other
bio gophers
gopher.huh.harvard.edu 70
Biodiversity and biological collections, including images
METEOROLOGICAL, OCEANOGRAPHICS, & GEOPHYSICAL DATA
Newsgroup
----------
comp.infosystems.gis
All aspects of Geographic Information Systems
TELNET Archive
---------------
delocn.udel.edu (or 128.175.24.1); login: info
Ocean Information Center; data sets related to the ocean
FTP Archives
------------
csn.org, [or 128.138.213.21] dir: COGS
Geologic, GIS, mapping, earth science software for PC and Mac
ics.uci.edu, dir: honig
Synthetic stereo satellite images of earth
Gophers
--------
info.er.usgs.gov
US Geological Survey; geology, hydrology, cartography, GIS
wx.atmos.uiuc.edu
University of Illinois Weather Machine; current conditions,
National Weather Service
ASTRONOMY & SPACE EXPLORATION
Newsgroup
----------
sci.astro
Astronomy discussions
Mailing List
-------------
COSMIC UPDATE
New NASA software for astronomy and space exploration. To
subscribe: send e-mail to "service@cossack.cosmic.uga.edu"
FTP Archive
------------
ames.arc.nasa.gov [or 128.102.18.3], dir: pub/SPACE
NASA/Ames Archives, includes data files, gifs and image
files, NASA press releases and indexes
toybox.gsfc.nasa.gov
NASA GIF images, links to LBL, Washington Univ., UUNET
wuarchive.wustl.edu, (or 128.252.135.4),
dir: graphics/magellan
PDS (Planetary Data System) Geosciences Node, provides
information about and assistance in using Magellan data
Gopher
-------
stsci.edu
Space Telescope Electronic Information System; information
for Hubble Space Telescope proposers and observers
==========================================
Site Review
CMU TECHNICAL REPORT ARCHIVE WELL STOCKED FOR CS
One of the most common problems a practicing engineer encounters is how
to go about getting hold of technical papers. If you work at a
university or a large company with a well-stocked library, you may
have no more difficulty than calling up your librarian and asking for a
copy. But for the many of us who work at smaller companies, the
process of hiking to a nearby university, getting in, and finding what
we need is, at best, inconvenient. It is fortunate for us that more
and more papers are being made accessible over the Internet.
With this in mind, I decided to examine the Technical Report archive of
the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University for this
review, and see how it serves as a resource for computer scientists and
engineers.
The predominant form of access to this site is via the World Wide Web.
All the report files that are available can also be obtained via ftp,
but there was no gopher server that I could find that gave me access to
the Technical Reports archive. My accesses were all done with Mosaic,
starting at the URL http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/Web/FrontDoor.html. The
Technical Reports archive is one of the links on this page, and I began
my exploration there.
The archive page is a rather plain, text-oriented page
(http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.ed/user/clamen/mosaic/
reports/README.html), as shown in Figure 1. Although not exciting to
look at, this does make for a faster load of the page into Mosaic.
This page shows the years 1990 thru 1994 as links, along with links to
the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Robotics Institute, and
Center for Machine Translation. In addition, there is a separate link
to the Software Engineering Institute. These other areas are different
departments within or affiliated with CMU, involved in various computer
technologies, but not directly related to the School of Computer
Science. Except for the Software Engineering Institute, these generally
have a much smaller number of papers available.
Obviously, using dates as links indicates that the reports are grouped
by year. My own preference is for a subject/author/title mechanism, as
has been used in libraries for many years. I think that provides an
easier mechanism for finding a paper about which I only know certain
information, especially since author and title are the most common
things I have.
Of course, this organization reveals that there are no papers prior to
1990 on this archive (and, in fact, there is only one paper from 1990).
The lack of earlier papers is a problem, but we immediately know not to
waste time hunting for them here.
Broad Array of Topics
All told, there were over 200 papers in the archive. Clearly, I could
not read all these papers, and can not tell you how useful or
interesting each one is. I can say they covered a broad array of
subjects, including multi-media, operating systems, languages, and
parallel computation. Some titles I saw in the 1994 list that caught my
eye were: "A Scalable Video Rate Camera Interface" "User Interface
Software Tools" "A Redundant Disk Array Architecture for Efficient
Small Writes" "Using Belief to Reason about Cache Coherence" "A Compile
Time Model for Composing Parallel Programs" and my personal favorite,
"An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method Without the Agonizing
Pain."
The most recent paper I found was from September 1994, so the archive
is pretty up-to-date. All papers were in postscript format only.
Although most of us can now get access to a postscript printer or
viewer, I still prefer to also see a text copy, because, as unfortunate
as it is, it is still the least common denominator viewing method.
Also, these files are not compressed and some were quite large, so you
may want to be careful about simply grabbing ones that look
interesting.
Roughly 1/3 of the papers listed were not available, primarily due to
copyright restrictions. This is a common impediment these days to
papers appearing free on the net, and is, although unfortunate, not
unique to this archive.
There is no search link directly on the archive page, but there is a
link to an "experimental" query engine (also at CMU). This was
definitely a good disclaimer, because the first day I tried it I got
nothing but server error messages back. The second day, it did provide
answers, and seemed to provide a pretty nice, general search
mechanism. One link on the query page will show you the Common Command
Language for expressing queries. It allows some powerful features like
boolean operations on search terms, and restricting the search to
specific fields (like author). For example, I was able to quickly find
all the papers that had some reference to Mach, and all the papers
authored by John Greiner.
Links to Other Archives
Other links on the query engine page take you off to archives at other
universities (Berkeley, Cornell, Stanford, and Princeton). I followed
one of these and found a large chronological list of papers at UC
Berkeley. Each title was a link, and clicking on it retrieved an
abstract, but no links for getting the paper itself. Authors' names on
each line were also links and clicking on one retrieved a list of
papers by that author (although this seemed somewhat buggy and
unreliable).
These other links on this page indicated to me that the query engine
might cover these other repositories, as well as just the one at CMU.
So I tried that, and it worked! Especially when searching by subject
or keyword, the broader the index, the more useful it is.
Next, I went back to the top, and explored other links on the FrontDoor
page. Here there were links to numerous other resource areas, both
local to CMU, and non-local.
The About the SCS page has links that give information on the
undergraduate and graduate programs in the school, course catalogs, the
Academic Calendar, references to cross- disciplinary programs, and
information about the facilities, students, and faculty. The phone
book, however, was inaccessible to people outside the school.
There was an About the Web at CMU SCS page that has links to general
WWW information, descriptions of the types of information linked at
this Web site, server statistics on usage, a listing of what's new, and
a list of the most popular URLs accessed through this server. This is
one of many good places to start if you are a novice user of the Web.
The Computer Science page (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/compsci.html)
cross references some of the things mentioned earlier, such as the
academic programs, and the technical report archive. It also has links
to various resources based on subject, including AI, Common Lisp,
Parallel Computing, Security, and Software Engineering, among others.
This is a beneficial style of linking for the researcher who is
browsing, rather than hunting for a particular paper. I started
following some of these links, and could have wound up meandering for
hours through all sorts of interesting computer science topics if I
hadn't pulled myself out of it.
The FrontDoor page also has a link to "technical reports at other
sites", which linked to one of the most valuable pages, labeled "tech
reports listed by site" (http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cms.edu/
user/jblythe/Mosaic/cs-reports.html). This showed about 120 links
to other university and corporate collections. It also had links to
two very large, searchable indices in Indiana and Australia that
cover papers from hundreds of sources (see sidebar on Other Resources).
The FrontDoor also contained links for card catalogs, books, journals,
selected bibliographies, and reference works (the online dictionary of
computer science terms is great - http://wombat.doc.lc.ac.uk/).
All in all, I would use the CMU SCS Technical Report archive if I had a
specific paper I knew was written at CMU that I wanted to get. Also,
browsers can enjoy following interesting subject links from the
Computer Science page. Since there is a link there to the Technical
Report archive, that is where I would probably start all my connections
to this server. For the really hard core searcher, however, I would
recommend the query engine at Indiana first, followed by the "tech
reports listed by site" page. SENN
-Don Barstow
---------------
SUMMARY RATING
---------------
I want to say that, given that this site is probably run by all
volunteer effort (read "slave" grad student labor), it is quite well
done and useful. Here then are my ratings, on a scale of 1 to 10.
Types of access: 7
I can't blame anyone for only providing WWW access for browsing, but I
don't think I can give it a 10, either.
Connectivity: 9
They have the important links here to Indiana and other technical
report sites.
Organization: 5
I would like to see some improvements in the way of the
subject/author/title index, and not having to wander around to get to
the local query engine and the subject index on the Computer Science
page. All of the above could be coalesced into the single Technical
Reports Archive page.
Content: 6
Pre-1990 papers would be nice, as would text copies, but there was a
good variety of papers. I can't evaluate the actual contents of all
the papers, however.
Ease of use: 7
Again, the organization could be improved, and the query engine,
although sophisticated, is non-trivial to figure out.
Currency: 10
Very up-to-date.
Overall Rating = 7.3
----------------
OTHER RESOURCES
----------------
The searchable index of technical reports in Indiana was awarded an
Honorable Mention in the "Professional Service" category of the "Best
of the Web, 94" awards. You can find it at
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/cstr/search. Be sure to read the tips for
effective searching. You can find all the "Best of" awards at
http://wings.buffalo.edu/contest/awards/.
One practically unknown resource is an ftp archive of Usenix papers. I
did not see this mentioned in any of the links I followed at CMU. They
are available via anonymous ftp at ftp.sage.usenix.org in /pub/usenix,
where they are organized by conference date (e.g. summer1988).
Hard core UNIX hackers may also want to go straight to "the source" and
start at the archive at Berkeley. Go to http://cs-tr.cs.berkeley.edu/.
==========================================
N E T S C O P E
WHAT'S NEW ONLINE?
A joint project to maintain a database of animated chemical structures,
hypertext papers about chemical structures, and other chemical
information in World Wide Web format has been undertaken by the
chemistry department of Imperial College and the School of Chemistry of
Leeds University, United Kingdom. The Hyperactive Molecules project is
keyword searchable and already contains many examples of text,
diagrams, pictures, movies, and hypertext papers about chemical
structures. The project can be reached with a WWW reader at:
http://chem.leeds.ac.uk/Project/MIME.html
For software engineers looking to tame the development process, the
Data and Analysis Center for Software (DACS) is extending its services
to users of the World Wide Web. The DACS is a Department of Defense
Information Analysis Center that supports the development, testing,
validation, and transitioning of software engineering technology to the
defense community, industry, and academia. DACS' subject areas
encompass the entire software life cycle and include software
engineering methods, practices, tools, standards, and acquisition
management. Infomation resources that are available electronically
through the DACS site include DACS newsletters, a library of online
journals and searchable sites, and information on how to access other,
related information. The DACS homepage is:
http://www.utica.kaman.com:8001/
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has created
a Satellite Active Archive (SAA) that is accessable through the
Internet. The SAA is designed to allow users to search, browse, order,
and receive satellite data. The SAA contains descriptive information
about data sets, and permits users to search inventories of data
holdings for availability based upon geographic and date requirements.
The SAA also provides an online graphical browse tool which can assist
the user in determining geographic coverage of individual data sets and
display online digital representations of those data sets. Once the
data requirements have been determined, an order may be placed
electronically, and data may be delivered either electronically or
through a physical medium. Currently the only satellite data that is
available is from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR),
but many other kinds of satellite data will be available in the near
future. The SAA can be reached at: http://ns.noaa.gov/saa
/homepage.html
NOAA has also created the NOAA Data Set Catalog, a forms based tool for
searching for environmental data throughout the world. Data sources
include descriptions related to climatology, meteorology, ecology,
pollution, geology, oceanography, and remote sensing satellites. The
wide variety of data and data sources described in the NOAA Data Set
Catalog makes it a valuable multidisciplinary research tool for the
scientist, the educator, researcher, or any member of the general
public. Currently there are over 26,000 data set descriptions in the
NOAA Data Set Catalog. While the data set descriptions do not hold the
data themselves, they do document the existence, location,
characteristics and availability of environmental data. Wherever
possible, however, attempts are made to link the data set description
to either the data set itself, the data center where these data are
located, or an order form at the data center of interest. The NOAA
Data Set Catalog can be reached at:
http://www.esdim.noaa.gov/NOAA-Catalog/NOAA-Catalog.html
The Biotechnology Information Center, one of eleven information centers
at the National Agricultural Library, is providing agricultural
biotechnology information via Gopher and WWW. Information available at
the site includes biotech educational resources, legislation and
regulation information, select full text ag/biotech patents, and full
text biotech newsletters. In addition, there are links to other
agricultural biotechnology WWW sites and Gophers. The gopher site
is: gopher.nalusda.gov, dir: NAL Information Centers / Biotechnology
Information Center (BIC) Or use WWW access at:
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/AgrEnv/Biotech
This in, just in time for winter, for those of you who relish the cold,
a Polar Information Sources Gopher has been created at the University
of Calgary. It contains information that relates to Arctic, Antarctic,
and other cold regions. Subject areas include Polar Libraries, Polar
Bibliographic Databases, Polar Information Directories, Polar Research
and Other Institutes, Polar Electronic Serials and Newsletters, Polar
Data Sets, and Other Polar Internet Sources. The gopher site is:
gopher.ucalgary.ca, dir: University Library/Polar Information Sources
To light the way for optics engineers, the Society of
Photoinstrumentation Engineers (SPIE) has added two new mailing lists
to its online services. The two new lists are the Laser Sources
Listserv (info-lasersrc) and the Laser Beam Transport Listserv
(info-lasertrans). The new listservs are open to anyone interested in
lasers but many not be used for commercial purposes, except in
connection with an information request form another member of the
listserv. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the new listservs, send an
e-mail message to info-optolink-request@spie@org with the words
subscribe info-lasersrc or unsubscribe info-lasersrc in the body of the
message. Commands are not case sensitive.
The new mailing lists join SPIE's other listservs: Biomedical Optics
Society (info-bios), Electronic Imaging (info-ei), Holography
(info-holo), Adaptive Optics (info- adopt), Fiber Optics (info-fibers),
Optical Computing and Processing (info-opcom), Robotics (info-robo),
and Optomechanical and Instrument Design (info-optomech). You can
subscribe and unsubscribe to these lists in a similar manner.
CERN (European Particle Physics Laboratory) maintains a WWW Virtual
Library on an amazing amount of engineering information -- even such
esoteric subjects as technical ceramics! Topics covered include:
aerospace engineering, amateur radio, chemical engineering, civil
engineering, control engineering, electrical engineering, industrial
engineering, materials engineering, mechanical engineering, nuclear
engineering, software engineering, and technical ceramics. You'll also
find pointers to ANSI Standards activity summaries, ASEE case histories
for use in engineering education, the Measurement Science & Technology
Branch of NASA Langley, and selected aerospace notices. All in all, you
could spend weeks perusing this site. We'll be sure to provide more
detailed coverage, including critical reviews, in upcoming issues.
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/bySubject /Overview.html
A number of online services have emerged recently trying to leverage an
advertising-based funding model. One case, DSPnet, focuses on digital
signal processing (DSP). The service is available in several formats: a
WWW site at http://www.dspnet .com, a telnet site at dspnet.com
(198.3.252.10), and a dial-up bulletin board at +1 617-899- 6810.
Advertisers fund the service so it's free to access (other than the
phone call).
Once you get there, you'll find that you can't do much without
registering first. After registering, you'll find the usual product
spec sheets, background information on various DSP vendors, vendor
newsletters, and a place to post questions and answers. Kudos to the
DSPnet team, though, for taking the whole concept one very useful step
further. Here you will also find an Online Lab! That's right, a place
where you can dial-up and test drive many of the leading DSP hardware
and software products remotely before buying. You can check out new
chips or boards, or you can time the performance of a C compiler.
The whole service is based on a Sun SPARCstation which acts as a
gateway to a slew of other CPUs and terminals, including 486s, Macs,
VMEbus, and S-bus systems. To run remote Windows or X sessions, you
must first download a special software package from their server which
manages the display on your machine.
Word has it that the DSPnet folks are looking to expand their
services. It seems they've proven the concept and now they want to turn
the system into a broad based engineering- type net. Stay tuned...
The MacPsych ftp archive, <ftp.stolaf.edu> dir: /pub/macpsych, is
primarily used by experimental psychologists, particularly those
involved in the areas of sensation, perception, and cognition. The site
contains several packages to help with the collection and analysis of
data from experiments in visual and auditory psychophysics. There is
also help for cognitive psychologists who want to present stimuli at
very fast intervals (e.g. <10ms) or to collect responses at ms
accuracy. The README document on the archive lists all the software
available. The archive also houses records of the participants'
conversations on the list as they try to make all the hardware and
software work!
---------------------------
NOTE TO NEW NET NAVIGATORS
---------------------------
One of the unfortunate facts of Internet life is that an address might
suddenly stop working. Sometimes computer administrators will change a
server's name without warning or will move an ftp site from one server
to another. Or sometimes the server's just down for routine
maintenance. If the address doesn't work after a week of repeated
attempts to connect, you should probably try something else. The best
thing is to ask around... get on a related mailing lists or browse a
USENET newsgroup and post a question. Someone's bound to have run
across the same problem and will probably be able to direct you.
---------------------------
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS
---------------------------
There are many ways to access the Internet. The first step is to check
with your organization's IS department. If you have a corporate
connection to the Internet, it's likely that you have access to the
standard services: ftp (File Transfer Protocol), Telnet (remote login),
USENET (newsgroups), Gopher, and mailing lists (via e-mail).
If you work for a small company or want to access the Internet from
home, you'll need to check out one of the dial- up Internet Service
Providers. With all the hype over the Internet, public-access UNIX
systems with connections to the Internet will soon be a dime a dozen.
In the meantime, some of the more well-known providers include The
World (Brookline, MA), Delphi (Cambridge, MA), The Well (Sausalito,
CA), and Netcom (San Jose, CA). When evaluating providers, make sure
you find one with an access number that's a local phone call for you.
Also, with all the new World Wide Web sites coming online, you should
probably go with a SLIP or PPP account if you can't do a direct TCP/IP
connection. That lets out some of the above-named providers for the
moment, although everyone is promising they'll support the Web in the
near future.
For a complete listing of providers, Peter Kaminski,
kaminski@netcom.com, maintains The Public Dialup Internet Access List.
To receive a copy, send e-mail to <info-deli- server@netcom.com> with
<SEND PDIAL> in the body of the message.
==========================================
R E S O U R C E S F O R
MEDICINE & HEALTH
Jon Nakamoto, MD
The Internet as a health/medical resource is most definitely a work in
progress . In contrast to molecular biology resources, or to
subscription databases such as Medline, the freely available
information resources for health/medicine are not yet comprehensive
enough to become indispensable tools for health care workers. Despite
this caveat, there are a number of very impressive World Wide Web
(WWW) sites which demonstrate the tremendous potential of the Internet
as an information tool for the medical field. Because most of the newer
resources have sprung up on the WWW, the majority of sites on this list
require an application such as Mosaic or MacWeb/ WinWeb for access.
When possible, I will include one or more resources for those whose
access is limited to gopher, ftp, or e-mail alone.
The first stop is the Internet equivalent of the Yellow Pages-the
Medical Matrix. Updated regularly, this comprehensive list of clinical
medicine resources is an ideal starting point for browsing World-Wide
Web, Gopher, ftp, and mailing list sites. The list is organized into
categories such as clinical practice issues, medical education, and new
resources. You can also search by disease or specialty categories,
although the listings are far from comprehensive (reflecting the
immaturity of medical resources on the Net) and heavily weighted
towards subject areas such as AIDS or cancer medicine. Access via
Mosaic or other WWW client software, by loading the following URL:
http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/cwis/units /medcntr/Lee/HOMEPAGE.HTML
Those without WWW access can download the current list of resources
using ftp to ftp2.cc.ukans.edu in the /pub/hmatrix directory (look for
the file medlstxxx.txt, where xxx is the month-year of the most recent
version- currently 994). For those with e-mail access only, you can get
periodic e-mail notice of new medical resources by sending the message
subscribe hmatrix-L <your full name> to listserv@ukanaix.cc ukans.edu.
Another comprehensive directory of medical resources on the World Wide
Web is the WWW Virtual Library-Biosciences- Medicine (Keith Robison).
Unlike the Medical Matrix, the listing is strictly organized by site
and does not include non-WWW resources, such as mailing lists
(LISTSERVs). An experimental searchable index is available, but it
requires some experience in structuring queries to guarantee that one
will find the resources sought. One advantage of this resource is that
backing up to the home page (go to Complete List of Biomedical WWW
Sites ) will give a comprehensive listing of more general biological
resources on the Internet. Access by loading:
http://golgi.harvard.edu/biopages/medicine.html
The National Library of Medicine has established a small selection of
Clinical Practice Guidelines currently covering seven topics: examples
include acute pain management, benign prostatic hypertrophy, HIV
infection, and sickle cell disease. Access via gopher to
gopher.nlm.nih.gov and open the HSTAT directory. In this directory
there is also a selection of topics from the US Task Force Guide to
Clinical Preventive Services which lists screening recommendations in a
variety of areas from vascular diseases to ophthalmologic disease. For
example, in the metabolic disease section there are recommendations for
screening strategies for diabetes, thyroid disease, obesity and PKU.
The files with the practice guidelines can also be downloaded by
anonymous ftp to nlmpubs.nlm.nih.gov, in the HSTAT directory.
Highly recommended is Oncolink. This cancer-oriented site won a Best of
the World Wide Web 1994 award in the Professional Services category.
For physicians there is a case of the month, listing of journal
articles relevant to cancer medicine, clinical practice guidelines,
listings of all current clinical trials, book reviews, short
tutorials/minireviews of molecular genetics (e.g. information on the
recent identification of the familial breast cancer gene BRCA1), FDA
information, and links to other oncology resources. For patients there
are listings of support groups and patient information sheets. Access
via: http://cancer.med.upenn.edu or gopher to cancer.med.upenn.edu,
port 80.
Another impressive multimedia resource is the Virtual Hospital. Still
incomplete but growing, multimedia mini- textbooks on topics in
pulmonary and radiologic subjects are currently available. Patient
simulations and radiologic teaching files can be studied online. You
can also look at a complete set of medical student Introduction to
Clinical Medicine notes, or read the Morbidity & Mortality Weekly
Report. Transcriptions of a few Grand Rounds lectures presented at
University of Iowa are available (unfortunately the slides are not
online). Much more is already present or under construction. Access
via: http://indy.radiology.uiowa
.edu/VirtualHospital.html
The biweekly Health Info-Com Network Medical Newsletter is available
for perusal via WWW (via a mirror site, http://cancer.med.
upenn.edu:3000). It can also be received as an e-mail subscription
(send email with the message Subscribe MEDNEWS <your first and last
name> to mednews@asuvm.inre.asu.edu). There is an emphasis on public
health-related medical news (communicable disease outbreaks,
epidemiology, nutrition, drug information, updates on surgical
procedures). For example, there was extensive coverage of the
Hantavirus and plague outbreaks that occurred recently. Searches of all
past issues can be done using a WAIS index search.
Category I Continuing Medical Education credits can be obtained by
logging onto the University of Washington Radiology Webserver
(http://www.rad.washington.edu). The cases selected for study are
relevant to anyone interested in radiologic anatomy, with an emphasis
on musculoskeletal (especially trauma & sports medicine-related) and
pulmonary radiology. Case histories and digital radiographs are
presented, and a short self-assessment questionnaire is filled out
after each case. One CME credit hour is awarded for every 10 cases
done, with a charge of $10/credit hour + $25 administrative fee payable
to the University of Washington. There is also a small online textbook
of musculoskeletal, TMJ, and joint anatomy/radiology.
Online tutorials are a growing area of World Wide Web activity.
Tutorials in general virology can be found at the WWW server for the
Institute for Molecular Virology (http://www.bocklabs.wisc.edu/
tutorial.html). Advantages over standard textbooks include the ability
to include hypertext links (click on a highlighted term and jump to a
discussion of that term) and more topical coverage-for example, there
is a fairly extensive discussion of hantaviruses included. There is
also an online medical biochemistry tutorial, NETBiochem
(http://www.hahnemann.edu/HemeIron/NetWelcom.html), which includes
complete (text, graphics, and animations) sections on heme and iron
metabolism, purines & pyrimidines, and text-only sections on membranes,
nucleic acids, and macromolecules.
Software (primarily shareware for DOS, some for Mac) relevant to
medical education can be found at the UC Irvine Medical Education
Software Repository by anonymous ftp to ftp.uci.edu in the
/med-ed/ms-dos or /med-ed/mac directories. The selection for DOS
machines is the most extensive (a few Windows-compatible programs are
included), ranging from tutorials to simple office-management and
bibliographic database programs. Offerings for the Mac are sparse, and
much more is available at well-known Macintosh sites at Stanford and
Univ of Michigan. More Mac and PC biomedical software is also available
by gopher at dean.med.uth.tmc.edu. CHAT (Con-versational Hypertext
Access Technology ) is an interesting, although currently
underdeveloped, experiment in natural language information systems
which may have future applications in the medical field. At present
there are databases for AIDS, epilepsy, and sex education which allow a
user to ask questions in standard English sentences. The system parses
the question and does a reasonable job of returning an appropriate
reply. The databases are meant to be a demonstration of what is
possible, not a comprehensive information source. Nevertheless, the
promise of information databases which do not require specialized
experience to search is an appealing prospect. Access by telnet to
debra.doc.ca 3000 (192.16.212.15).
==========================================
R E S O U R C E S F O R
CONTROL ENGINEERING
Shari Worthington
>From the shop floor to the production database, computer technology has
changed the way manufacturing works. And the Internet is speeding up
this wild technology ride. Already it has become a powerful discovery
mechanism for control engineering with a growing number of interesting
resources, including newsgroups, ftp sites, Web pages, and more.
We'll start at the World Wide Web site of the Industrial Computing
Society, http://www.control.com/ics/. The ICS is an organization of
computer professionals working in various manufacturing enterprises,
both discrete and process-based. Although this site is relatively new,
past president and board member, Ken Crater, has done a great job with
an all volunteer effort.
The group's online activities include the Web site, an Internet-based
bulletin board for members (telnet to control.com and login as ics),
and a Manufacturing Automation gopher (MAGGIE, gopher ics.org). Within
these sites, you'll find some real gems: articles from Industrial
Computing magazine in html format, conference proceedings, and notes
from the ICS President's meetings.
The best part, though, is the Poetry Corner of their Web site. PLC
pioneer Dick Morley's latest rants and raves are in the form of a poem
called "The Consultant". The poem has been posted online and starts
out "Once upon a meeting dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over
many a quaint presentation of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly
napping..."
In addition to the much appreciated irreverence, the Industrial
Computing Society site also does a great job of pointing to a number of
other important control engineering resources. CERN (European Particle
Physics Laboratory) maintains a WWW Virtual Library on Engineering (see
related news item on page 3). Topics covered include: aerospace
engineering, amateur radio, chemical engineering, civil engineering,
control engineering, electrical engineering, industrial engineering,
materials engineering, mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering,
software engineering, and technical ceramics.
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.html
Cambridge University has the most impressive site when it comes to
control engineering resources, specifically. You may need to go have a
cup of coffee while this page loads, though! This site allows you to
access all the sites mentioned here, and more! They start with
conferences and calls for papers, such as the Industrial Computing
Society conference held in October 1994 in conjunction with the
Instrument Society of America. You'll also find a slew of technical
reports from various Systems and Control labs around the world, e.g.
Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, or the Center for Advanced
Process Technology at Caltech. Other information includes
bibliographies, software archives, pointers to technical societies
online, and more. http://www-control.eng.cam.ac.uk/extras/
Virtual_Library/Control_VL.html
The Robotics Internet Resources Web site,
http://piglet.cs.umass.edu:4321/robotics.html, points to Web pages,
ftp sites, Gopher servers, online software, and robot demos around the
world. Start with the comp.robotics FAQ for general information (ftp to
rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq). There is also a new
European Robotics Archive, ROBOTS, that is dedicated to storage of
robotics related information. It can be reached via ftp at
ftp.essex.ac.uk, dir: /pub/robots. The International Society for
Optical Engineering (SPIE) has a robotics mailing list, info-robo. To
subscribe, send an e-mail message to info-optolink-request@mom.spie.org
and include the words subscribe info-robo in the body of the message.
Once you're connected, you can even get hands-on experience controlling
robots around the world.
Don't forget to check out the following USENET newsgroups with topical
messages on control and manufacturing issues. sci.engr.control
sci.engr.manufacturing sci.bio.technology sci.chem comp.ai.neural-nets
comp.realtime comp.robotics
There are some good society Gopher servers in addition to the MAGGIE
site run by the Industrial Computing Society. info.computer.org is the
site of the IEEE Computer Society. acm.org is the Association for
Computing Machinery site. gopher.eunet.es is the Gopher server for
IFAC, the International Federation of Automatic Control.
==========================================
WELCOME TO THE INTERNET, THE WORLD'S LARGEST INFORMATION
ARCHIVE...
And welcome to the premiere issue of Science and Engineering Network
News! This publication is devoted to working scientists, engineers, and
other professionals in technology- related fields. SENN helps you
navigate through the vast resources of the global Internet to
efficiently find the information you need.
We start by bringing you news on the latest network resources for
science and engineering. For instance, this month, we cover
Medicine/Health and Control Engineering resources, in addition to our
regular "What's New" column. Other disciplines we cover include:
biology/agriculture/environmental science, chemistry/chemical
engineering, electrical engineering/CAE, materials science, mechanical
engineering, molecular biology, physics/optical engineering, social
sciences, software engineering/computer science, and space
sciences/GIS.
We also provide articles on cross-disciplinary computing tools and
where to find them online. This month's feature is on "imaging
resources." Other issues will cover CAD/CAM/CAE, data acquisition &
control, data analysis & visualization, databases, DSP & multimedia,
educational tools, math/stats, modeling & simulation, and specific
tools for DOS, Windows, Mac, and UNIX.
Then there are our in-depth reviews. Our editors honestly critique the
usefulness of online resources and books. If a site isn't easily
accessible, well connected to other sites, logically organized,
easy-to-use, current, and useful, we'll let you know.
For those who haven't yet reached "net god" status, our tutorials show
you how to get connected and use the latest Internet navigation tools.
We strive to provide you with the knowledge you need to find and
utilize the resources available on the Internet and related online
services.
To take full advantage of the information available in this newsletter,
you must have some level of access to the Internet. That could be as
simple as an account on a commercial online service (such as America
Online or Compuserve) or as complete as a direct Internet connection.
If you don't currently have access to the Internet, or are confused as
to the level of access you might have, there are a number of books
currently available (see Recommended Reading sidebar) that can help
orient you and answer most of your fundamental questions (see sidebar
Internet Service Providers)
Since this newsletter is dedicated to you, the working scientist,
engineer, or technology manager, computer jargon and network lingo are
kept to a minimum. We expect that you are more interested in obtaining
useful information and software from the network than you are in the
intricacies of network protocols. We provide enough background material
to make sure you are oriented in the overall structure of the Internet,
but we concentrate on providing you with the tools and knowledge you
need to find the resources you want.
We expect that you are comfortable using a personal computer (usually
Mac, DOS, or Windows) or a workstation, but that you are not
necessarily interested in the computer as anything other than a tool.
We will do our best to provide you with a basic understanding of the
Internet by briefly reviewing it's history and present organization,
and we will give you tutorials on what to do once you 'get connected.'
If you already know how to tap into the Internet, we will give you
specific information on where to go for various resources, saving you
untold hours of browsing time.
We provide articles on the main information access structures within
the Internet- electronic mail, Telnet, anonymous FTP, USENET, Gopher,
WAIS, and the World Wide Web. Don't worry if you these names don't mean
anything to you right now-as you learn to navigate the Internet these
names will become synonymous with certain kinds of useful information.
We also provide detailed instructions on how to tap into these
information structures (and other, more specialized information) using
popular and easy-to-use (and mainly free) software that is widely
available- software like NCSA Telnet, TurboGopher, Fetch (for anonymous
FTP access), and Mosaic (for World Wide Web access).
No matter how many resources we point you to, there will always be
other resources or pieces of information that you will need for your
work that might be available through the Internet. To find this
information on your own you will need to develop some basic Net
searching skills. To help develop those skills, we will also have a
monthly feature called The Science and Engineering Internet Hunt, based
on a more general information 'treasure' hunt that currently exists on
the Net. In our hunt, three questions concerning science and
engineering will be asked in each issue. You are encouraged to try to
answer these questions yourself, using the main searching tools on the
Internet. In the next issue of SENN, the answers to the hunt questions
will be given, and, more importantly, the methods used to get the
answers will be listed.
What kind of information, exactly, can you expect to find on the
Internet that relates to science, engineering, and technology? Here is
just the barest sampling:
o Physics and Astrophysics Journals in electronic format,
o Scientific conferences conducted entirely using electronic mail,
o Shareware and freeware programs for Windows, DOS, Mac, and UNIX that
do everything imaginable, from scientific calculators to symbolic math
manipulators, from electronic circuit analysis to electron orbit
calculations, from simple graphing to complex visualization, from
descriptive biology to DNA sequencing, from image acquisition to image
analysis,
o Discussion groups devoted to topics such as cold fusion, optics,
processing Hubble telescope data, airliner technology, organometallic
chemistry, biomedical engineering, manufacturing technology,
geophysical fluid dynamics, scientific image processing, symbolic
mathematics, medical physics, chaotic systems, psychology, and
nanotechnology,
o Mailing lists devoted to topics such as industrial design, linear
algebra, holography, issues in mathematics, lactic acid bacteria, and
many different lists devoted to discussion of a specific, commercial
scientific software package, such as NIH Image or Mathematica, and
o Databases containing DNA sequences, protein sites, ocean
temperatures, weather statistics and star positions. So, get ready to
use the biggest archive of information on the planet-the Internet. Our
goal is to help you find what you want quickly and efficiently,
allowing you to do your own job faster and better, using the computer
as the tool it was always meant to be. SENN
-Mike Duncan, PhD
--------------------
Recommended Reading
--------------------
For Beginners-
LaQuey, Tracy, and Jeanne C. Ryer. The Internet Companion: A
Beginner's Guide to Global Networks. Reading, Mass: Addison-
Wesley, 1992.
Estrada, Susan. Connecting to the Internet: An O'Reilly
Buyer's Guide. Sebastopol, Calif: O'Reilly & Associates,
1993.
For those who are really serious about the Internet-
Krol, Ed. The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog, 2nd ed.
Sebastopol, Calif: O'Reilly & Associates, 1994.
==========================================
THE SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING INTERNET HUNT
The ability to search for and find information for a specific task is a
skill that all scientists and engineers have. For most of us, that
skill was learned using conventional library tools that dealt with
books and journals. In the electronic world of the Internet, the same
types of skills can be applied, but a new set of tools must be learned.
The purpose of the Science and Engineering Internet Hunt is to help you
learn how to use these new tools, as well as inform you of the types of
information that are available over the network.
The Science and Engineering Internet Hunt will consist of questions on
various aspects of science, engineering, technology, and related
topics. The answers to the questions must be obtained using resources
that exist on the Internet. Since the purpose of the hunt is to help
individuals learn more about how to access the resources of the
Internet, all answers must detail the steps that were taken to obtain
any individual answer. The original hunt was started in 1992 by Rick
Gates (then a librarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara)
and continues today.
Here is a sample question:
Q. I've heard about a monthly Internet info treasure hunt
called 'the Internet Hunt'. How can I find the questions and
answers to these hunts?
A: Gopher to the site gopher.cic.net and go to the directory 11/hunt
Discovery process:
Connect to the Netscape Homepage by starting Mosiac Netscape
(WWW client)
Choose Internet Search
Choose Lycos Home Page: Hunting WWW Information
Choose Search the Lycos October 27th database
Type in keywords: Internet Hunt
Choose 4th item gopher.cic.net/11/hunt
Choose Hunt Results
Q&A for past hunts are listed here
This month's hunt contains three questions. Answers may depend on
information provided in this issue of SENN (hint, hint). In general,
there will be many paths that can be taken to reach the same
information. All are valid. Please submit answers to
senn@world.std.com. The first entry we receive that has all three
questions correct will receive instant fame and recognition by being
listed in the next issue of SENN ;-) Heck, we'll even throw in a free
SENN subscription. Good luck...
1. I have heard that there is an e-mail discussion list devoted to the
program nih-image. Where can I find out how to join the list, where are
the messages from that list archived, and is there a FAQ (Frequently
Asked Questions) file for that list?
2. I own Mathematica and I would like to do finite element analysis. Do
any Mathematica notebooks already exist that can help me?
3. I met a fellow researcher at a conference but I forgot to get his
last name and his e-mail address. He is a chemist at the Colorado
School of Mines and his first name is Arnold. What is his full name,
phone no, and e-mail address?
-Mike Duncan, PhD
==========================================
PROLIFIC NETWORK TOOLS ARE SOPHISTICATED AND INDISPENSIBLE
The Internet is a globally interconnected network of computers that
holds a vast amount of information and provides a number of superb
communication services. Details of how the participating computers are
connected and how they pass information to each other are not important
for individuals who want to utilize the network. What is important,
however, is to understand the main communication methods and
information retrieval tools that are in current use on the Internet.
Here we will provide an overview of those tools and discuss their
relative importance. In subsequent issues, we will provide you with
in-depth information on specific tools, especially those tools that are
the most important for scientists and engineers. We will also provide
you with the latest information on new tools, emerging standards, and
updated services. Let's start with a little history...
Many of the tools and protocols now used on the Internet were shaped by
the purposes and needs of the original group of computers that made up
the early Internet. In general, each tool or service had its own
protocol, information structure, and program that ran on both the host
and users' computers. This pattern is still generally the case today,
although there are a couple of recent attempts to bring more services
under the control of one unified user interface. Given the growth of
the Internet and its use, the trend toward one common interface will
continue. The outcome will almost certainly be a single interface that
allows access to all Internet services.
Before we discuss specific tools, it is important to understand that
the Internet, while physically defined by an interconnection of
computers and computer networks, is really an interconnection of
people, institutions, and businesses. It is not a faceless entity that
you can mine like a vein of ore-it is a living, breathing,
conglomeration of people who chat, discuss, and argue, who accumulate
and make available software, databases, and other information, and who
are usually available for consultation, help, and advice. The Internet
can extend your own personal network, multiplying the interactions you
already have with people and organizations. In addition, the Internet
allows those interactions to be efficient, to the point, and global.
Network Tools
What are the main tools that will be important in utilizing the
information and communication capabilities of the Internet? On the
communications side are tools that allow you to receive and send
electronic mail (e-mail) and read and post to USENET newsgroups (a kind
of world-wide distributed bulletin board system for discussing various
topics). On the information side are tools that allow you to connect to
and run programs on a remote computer (for example, to search a
database), transfer computer data files (programs, text files), and
search broad databases for information that might exist on the Internet
(these databases might be for software titles, text file names, or for
people who have e-mail addresses). Most of these methods of
communication and information retrieval do a single job well but have,
in general, grown up independently of one another. Typically, this
means that each type of access has a different command structure to
learn.
Recently, two new navigation methods have appeared, unifying the way
certain types of information can be searched for and accessed over the
Internet. Both of these methods call for a more "graphical" interface
on your local computer (if you have direct access to the Internet) and
depend on other "helper" programs running on your computer to do things
like view graphics files. In addition, these methods require special
programs be running at the remote computer that you are connected to.
Since these new methods define a way that information is prepared as
well as accessed, they represent a new kind of structure in the
Internet. One of these structures is defined as "Gopherspace" and is
accessed using Gopher software. The other new structure is called the
World Wide Web (WWW) and is the subject of intense activity, both in
terms of the number of new sites that support WWW and the number of
Internet users who are accessing WWW sites. The WWW was created by
scientists and engineers to fit some of their special needs, so it will
be of particular interest to the readers of SENN. Currently the most
popular tool to use for WWW access is Mosaic software.
I will briefly discuss each major Internet tool below. Next to each
tool will be a category - important, very important, essential, or most
essential. The category rating is a rough guide to how important each
tool will become to you as you use the Internet more often.
E-mail (Most Essential)
I use e-mail more than any other electronic communications method. It
is the most fundamental service that exists on the Internet. E-mail
accounts are usually kept on a workstation or larger class of computer
and almost everyone in a research or engineering environment can easily
get an e-mail account. A typical account would be on an institutional
mainframe or UNIX computer that is connected to a local network, then
to the Internet. Your computer would access the account by establishing
a Telnet session (see below), or by using a special program on your
desktop computer that downloads the e-mail and presents it to you in an
organized manner.
WWW (Most Essential)
Sites on the World Wide Web organize information through
hypertext-information with links to other information. These links
point to info and resources that exist elsewhere on the Internet,
giving WWW browsers tremendous navigation power and speed. Web
information can be formatted (fonts, colors, typestyles) and can
contain pictures and interactive text fields. Graphically oriented WWW
software is now commonly available for PCs, allowing simple point and
click navigation. Other services, such as FTP and Gopher can be
accessed through WWW. Because of the power of linked information, and
because of the ease of use of the client software, the growth in the
number of WWW servers has been tremendous. But, this growth, and the
inherent difficulty in organizing many levels of linked information in
the Web, has made resource discovery a haphazard process for users. In
spite of this, I believe that in the near future almost all interaction
over the Internet will take place using the Web.
Telnet (Essential)
Telnet is another fundamental service and is used to log into other
computers on the Internet. Those computers might be next door, or they
could be across the world. You might have an account on that remote
computer that lets you receive and send e-mail, as I do, or you might
be using your account to write and run software on the other computer.
Other services on the Internet also operate through Telnet. For
example, you might log on to a remote computer using a prescribed user
name and password and then have access to a database or other
information that exists on that remote computer. In general, the
commands that the other computer responds to are different depending on
the computer and on the remote program running. A commonly used program
for Telnet is NCSA Telnet (for Mac and DOS), a free program from the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).
Gopher (Very Important)
On the user side, Gopher is a menu-driven information browser, with
nice searching capabilities. On the server side, Gopher represents a
method of organizing information and services and making them available
using a single method of access. Gopher was the first attempt at
combining a number of Internet services under one program, and all of
the computers that serve Gopher information make up Gopherspace. FTP
servers, Archie servers, and WAIS databases are all accessible through
Gopher. In addition, Gopher has powerful searching tools of its own
called Veronica and Jughead (yes, the names are from the Archie
comics). There are a very large number of Gopher servers, but I find
Veronica to be a quick and comprehensive way to search those servers.
Gopher can also work with local "helper" programs to provide access to
special data types, such as sound and pictures.
FTP (Important)
File Transport Protocol is the principle method used for transferring
files from computer to computer. FTP client software (software you
would run on your desktop computer) is usually fast and easy-to-use.
Such software gives you the capability to browse and download software
from thousands of sites around the world.
USENET News (Important)
USENET News is nothing more than a huge bulletin board system where
people discuss various topics in a public forum. Each topic usually has
its own newsgroup, and many exist for subjects in science and
engineering. The electronic messages that make up the USENET newsgroups
travel from computer to computer in a kind of diffusion process.
Nevertheless, they manage to travel around the world in just a few
hours. USENET News is usually handled by UNIX computers. To read from
or post messages to newsgroups requires a connection with a UNIX
computer through Telnet or with special client software running on your
desktop computer. A number of commercial services now provide USENET
access, such as America Online.
Archie (Important)
Archie is an Internet search tool that looks for file names in Internet
host computer directories. To use Archie, you would use a special
program on your desktop computer or use Telnet to connect to a computer
that is running an Archie server. Using simple commands, you can search
for specific file names. The results of the search tell you where to
get those files (usually by FTP). Archie client programs exist for a
number of desktop computers, and some of them allow you to both search
and retrieve files.
WAIS (Important)
WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) is a method of doing full text
searches on databases. Once connected to a WAIS server you can search
through hundreds of databases. Queries can be made in plain English and
the responses are rated by their relevance to your question. WAIS
servers can be accessed using special client software, through Telnet,
or through both Gopher and WWW software. I find WAIS to be a powerful
and useful tool (though occasionally slow) when searching for specific
information. SENN
-Mike Duncan, PhD
---------------
NETWORK GROWTH
---------------
Since the early 1980's the growth of the Internet has been exponential,
as can be seen from the chart below. The number of connected host
computers has grown from a few hundred in 1981 to over 3.8 million
today (October, 1994). That number is conservative since a single host
computer can be an access point for more than one desktop style PC. The
number of people who use the Internet has also grown exponentially.
Estimated numbers vary, but there are probably over 20 million people
in the world today who use the Internet for, at least, the exchange of
email.
This tremendous growth of the Internet means that in just a few years
every person in the United States will have access to the Internet. It
will become a standard part of everyday life, just as the telephone
has. The Internet will become ubiquitous, and the skill to navigate
through it will become essential.
==========================================
TURN TO ENGST BOOKS FOR GENERAL INTERNET INFORMATION
Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh, 2nd Edition, by Adam Engst (1994,
Hayden Books, Mac ISBN 1-56830-111-1) The Mac version includes Internet
software (MacTCP, MacPPP, InterSLIP, Eudora, Anarchie, MacWAIS, MacWeb,
and TurboGopher) and two weeks free time with an Internet access
provider. A Windows version is also available.
Internet Explorer Kit for Macintosh, by Adam Engst and William Dickson
(1994, Hayden Books, ISBN 1-56830-089-1) Includes Internet software for
the Macintosh (Anarchie, Finger, MacWAIS, MacWeather, TurboGopher)
The number of books being published about the Internet has reached
alarming proportions. How do you choose between them? Which one is
right for the novice, the casual user, the experienced networker?
Which ones have information useful to scientists and engineers who want
to utilize the resources of the Internet? Which ones don't?
To help answer these questions, SENN will regularly review books
concerning Internet access, Internet resource utilization, or general
Internet information. Books will be rated on how well their
information content serves the needs of scientists, engineers, and
technology managers who want to use the Internet to enhance their
work.
This month I review two related books-the Internet Starter Kit for
Macintosh, 2nd Edition (Adam Engst) and the Internet Explorer Kit (Adam
Engst and William Dickson). I chose these two because they are very
popular and representative of many of the books being published about
the Internet: In addition to information about how to use Internet
access tools, these books try to give an overview of some of the actual
resources available on the Internet. Let's see how well these books do
for an audience of scientists and engineers...
Internet Starter Kit
The Internet Starter Kit is initially a delight to read. Adam Engst
uses a very informal, chatty style to talk about the history of the
Internet and what it has grown into. He describes the main types of
information exchange on the Internet, major protocols, and major tools
in a simple and clear way. He devotes separate chapters to e-mail and
USENET newsgroups, and describes all of the major Internet services,
such as FTP, Telnet, Archie, WAIS, Gopher, and the World Wide Web. He
spends a lot of space describing the various methods of Internet
access-online services, shell accounts, UUCP access, and direct access
(direct access is with MacTCP, since I read the starter kit for
Macintosh users; there is also a Windows version). Finally, Engst uses
a portion of the book to list Internet resources. For a number of
general topics those resources include FAQ files and FTP sites, mailing
lists, Telnet sites, WAIS sources, gopher servers, and World Wide Web
sites. He also lists all currently active USENET groups and provides a
long list of Internet service providers.
Useful TCP/IP Software
The software that is provided with the Internet Starter Kit is
extremely useful for someone relatively new to the Internet. MacTCP
(the driver software necessary for a Mac to utilize TCP/IP) is
included, and is worth the price of the book by itself. The other
pieces of software provided with the book allow for the easy use of
e-mail, FTP, gopher, and the World Wide Web. These software tools are
among the best available for the Macintosh; on top of that, most are
freeware! They allow Internet navigation while taking full advantage of
the Mac graphical interface. More experienced users will already have
most of the software that is provided with the book, especially MacTCP,
and will have fairly easy access to other Internet navigation software,
but it is nice for those who are just getting started to have the
software all in one place.
Engst also devotes a chapter in the book to what he calls "step-by-step
Internet." This is a detailed, one step at a time, introduction to all
of the programs provided with the book, and then some. Anyone who is
using those programs for the first time is led through a set-up
procedure, if needed, and then is given a detailed example of how to
gain access to or search for a particular Internet resource. This kind
of demonstration is of great importance to new or even moderately
experienced Internet users, and it is something that Engst does very
well.
Long and Chatty
The Internet Starter Kit is complete and friendly in many ways. If
you have the time, there is much to learn and much to enjoy in the
book. However, for the normal professional who has a limited amount of
time to spend on learning how to use new tools, the chatty style
quickly becomes tedious and eventually becomes an impediment to
acquiring needed information. The book is very long and has
information about Internet resources that will be of no interest to
someone who wishes to learn how to use the Internet as a professional
tool. For example, Engst discusses a number of Internet services that
are purely recreational. This is a valid topic for the book, but not
necessarily for the readers of SENN.
Internet Explorer Kit
Initially, I had very high hopes for the Internet Explorer Kit. I
thought that here, finally, would be a discussion of all of the tricks
and methods that I could use to ferret out useful information from the
vast Internet! Unfor-tunately, this was not to be. The Internet
Explorer Kit is, essentially, a travelogue through the Internet by two
people (Adam Engst and Bill Dickson) who discuss everything they
encounter. The style is a dialogue between the two and, while
entertaining at times, has a very low informational content. Engst is
very good at emphasizing the "people" aspect of the Internet, and that
is exactly the subject of the first half of the book.
Engst and Dickson discuss, in great detail, various ways to find and
contact people on the Internet. They talk about USENET newsgroups and
the personalities and culture surrounding them. They discuss the
Internet Relay Chat (a computer terminal equivalent of a multi-person
conference call) in great detail and provide a complete transcript of
one session. While there is some useful information in all of this,
especially about social conventions on the Internet, almost all of the
subject matter is recreational.
Discovery Tools Discussion
It is only in the second half of the book that Engst and Dickson talk
about some of the powerful searching and resource discovery tools
available on the Internet. They take their readers to various places
on the Internet using Mosaic (a World Wide Web client program from the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications) and Gopher, and they
begin to show some of the range of resources that are available. They
also illustrate the use of Veronica (a tool utilized through Gopher),
Archie, and WAIS for performing searches on the Internet. Specific
examples of searches are given, giving the reader a real feel for how
things are done.
Some Useful Software
The software that is provided with the Internet Explorer Kit is useful,
even though it does not include MacTCP. The emphasis is on software
that will help in searching for information: Anarchie for file
searching and downloading, Finger for finding people on the Internet,
MacWAIS for full text searching of Internet WAIS servers, and
TurboGopher for connecting to Gopher servers. All of the important
software provided with the Internet Explorer Kit is also provided with
the Internet Starter Kit.
In general, I found very little of interest in the Internet Explorer
Kit. As an introduction to the social aspects of the Internet it
wouldn't be a bad choice. As a guide to resource discovery, however,
it tells too little in too rambling a style.
Final Recommendations
So, what are my final recommendations? If you are relatively new to
the Internet, or if you need the software that is provided with The
Internet Starter Kit , this is a good, general guide to the Internet
and how to use its resources. It is easy to read, fairly complete, and
reasonably timely (no book on the Internet will stay timely for long).
If, however, you are familiar with the major Internet access tools and
you have most of the software, you will probably want to find a leaner
book with a higher signal-to-noise ratio.
As for the Internet Explorer Kit, I believe it is the wrong choice for
the readers of this newsletter. It concentrates on the social aspects
of the Internet and only gives an erratic view of resource discovery.
Its travelogue style, two person conversational structure and sometimes
sophomoric humor make the book fine for bedtime reading, but unsuitable
for serious learning about the Internet. SENN
-Mike Duncan, PhD
---------------
SUMMARY RATING
---------------
(1=poor, 10=superb)
Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh, 2nd Edition
Orientation.....New or Moderately Experienced Users
Platforms.....Macintosh or Windows edition
General Readability.....8
Topics Discussed.....10
Resources Listed.....4
Signal-to-Noise Ratio.....6
Overall.....7
Internet Explorer Kit
Orientation.....New or Moderately Experienced Users
Platforms.....Macintosh only
General Readability.....4
Topics Discussed.....6
Resources Listed.....2
Signal-to-Noise Ratio.....2
Overall.....3.5
==========================================
T H E R E F E R E N C E L I S T
A Collection of Our Favorite Resources
Here are pointers to what we consider to be some of the most useful
resources on the Internet for scientists and engineers. In some cases
the resources are directories that lead to more information; in other
cases they contain useful material such as programs or technical
papers. We have used the Universal Resource Locator (URL) method for
describing the location and method of access for these resources. The
first word is an indication of the kind of protocol used to reach that
resource. After the separator (://), the name of the specific host
machine is listed, along with the directory path needed to get to the
exact resource. All of the listed resources can be reached directly by
using a WWW navigation tool such as NCSA Mosaic. The resources listed
as gopher and ftp can be reached by using the appropriate Gopher or FTP
software to connect to the host machine listed.
GENERAL NETWORK RESOURCES
http://www.digital.com/gnn/wic/index.html --
The Whole Internet Catalog. A good general starting point.
Includes Health & Medicine and Science & Technology as main
topics.
http://galaxy.einet.net/ --
EINet Galaxy index. Topics include Engineering and
Technology, Medicine, and Science. Also provides powerful
searching features.
http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo/ --
A guide to Web resources kept at Stanford University.
Resource topics of interest are Environment and Nature and
Science
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/bySubject/Overview2
.html --
The WWW Virtual Library kept at CERN, where the World Wide
Web began. A very complete list of Web resources by subject,
with every major science and engineering discipline included.
http://www.clark.net:80/pub/ari/sciences.html -- Access to
online information in science, technology, and medicine
provided by ARInternet.
http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive.html --
A fast and easy way to access the vast amount of Macintosh
software that exists in the Info-Mac archive. A reasonable
amount of science and engineering related software is
available.
gopher://riceinfo.rice.edu/11/Subject --
A Gopher site that contains links to resources organized by
subject matter. Engineering and all scientific fields are
included.
gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu:70/11/inetdirs/sciences --
A collection of text guides to science resources on the
Internet. The guides are arranged by subject.
ftp://ra.nrl.navy.mil/MacSciTech --
An anonymous FTP site that specializes in scientific and
engineering software for the Mac.
ftp://oak.oakland.edu/pub/ --
A popular and complete mirror of the huge SimTel MS-DOS and
Windows software archive. Science and Engineering programs
are well represented. Can also be reached by WWW at
http://www.acs.oakland.edu.
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
http://marvel.stsci.edu/net-resources.html --
A resource list kept by the AstroWeb Consortium. Lists
astronomical Internet resources by category and by the
resource protocol (Gopher, FTP, etc.). Searchable.
gopher://riceinfo.rice.edu/11/Subject/Astronomy --
A very complete Gopher site that points to astrophysics and
astronomy resources and information on the Internet.
ftp://explorer.arc.nasa.gov/ --
An anonymous FTP site that has a huge number of NASA space
probe images as well as other, more general information
concerning planetary exploration.
BIOSCIENCES
http://golgi.harvard.edu/biopages.html --
Good, general starting point for finding biosciences
resources on the Internet.
ftp://felix.embl-heidelberg.de/pub/ --
A large collection of databases, software and other
information concerning molecular biology. Can also be
reached using Gopher at gopher.embl-heidelberg.de or by WWW
at http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/.
CHEMISTRY
http://www.clark.net:80/pub/ari/chemnet.html --
A good collection of information on chemistry software,
publications, databases, and other chemistry related Internet
resources. Includes information on many chemical and
chemistry related vendors.
gopher://chico.rice.edu/11/Subject/Chemistry --
An excellent listing of chemistry resources on the Internet.
ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/chem/ --
Source of chemistry software for a variety of computers.
EARTH SCIENCES
http://info.er.usgs.gov/network/science/earth/index.html --
An very comprehensive index to earth and environmental
science resources on the Internet
gopher://dillon.geo.ep.utexas.edu:70/11/EarthScienceRes -- A
good subject-oriented list of geoscience resources.
ftp://ftp.csn.org/COGS/ores.txt --
This is a text document of online resources for earth
scientists by Bill Thoen. It has a tremendous amount of
information, including an index of mailing lists and a long
list of sources for geoscience related data and software.
ENGINEERING
http://epims1.gsfc.nasa.gov/engineering/engineering.html --
A general overview of Engineering resources on the Internet.
Domain specific resource lists are provided. Also includes
pointers to general engineering information and to commercial
vendors.
http://www.cad.strath.ac.uk/EngInfoGuide.html --
A nice overview of Internet resources in a number of eng
fields.
MATHEMATICS
http://archives.math.utk.edu:80/ --
An excellent overview of a large number of mathematics
resources on the Internet. Includes lists of software for
various computers that are included in the University of
Kentucky archive listed below. Can also be reached by gopher
at archives.math.utk.edu/software.html (use Port 80).
gopher://marvel.loc.gov:70/11/global/math --
A Gopher site at the Library of Congress that keeps a list of
math resources on the Internet.
ftp://archives.math.utk.edu/software --
Large compendium of mathematics software for Macintosh, MS-
DOS, UNIX, and other platforms. Very well organized and
documented.
PHYSICS
http://www.het.brown.edu/physics/index.html --
A good general index of physics resources on the Internet
kept at Brown University, even though it is weighted towards
particle physics.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/ --
Excellent source for electronic pre-prints of papers in a
number of physics sub-disciplines. Can also be reached by
FTP at xxx.lanl.gov.
=========================================
SCIENCE & ENGINEERING
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SCIENCE & ENGINEERING
N E T W O R K N E W S
Editor-Shari L.S. Worthington
Senior Editors-
Donald Barstow, Michael D. Duncan PhD
Contributing Editors-
Amara Graps, Vince Kerchner,
Jeff Monti, Jon Nakamoto, MD,
Professor Richard Peskin
Write to the editors at senn@world.std.com
The purpose of this newsletter is to provide news and reviews
of scientific and engineering resources on the Internet and
associated online services.
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