Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Internet Happenings, Events and Sources


Wednesday, December 31, 2003  

Directory Resources
http://www.DirectoryResources.info

Directory Resources is a Subject Tracer™ Information Blog developed and created by the Virtual Private Library™. It is designed to bring together the latest resources and sources on an ongoing basis on Internet Directories. The goal of this site is to be the Internet's Directory of Directories! We always welcome suggestions of additional sites and resources to be added to this comprehensive listing and please submit by clicking here. This site has been developed and maintained by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. . Additional links and resources by Marcus are available by clicking here.

posted by Marcus | 9:24 AM
 

This edition of Current Awareness Happenings on the Internet by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. (December 31, 2003 V1N29) is dedicated to my personal Blog: Zillman.us . Click on the below audblog link to hear an audio describing this site focusing on my current awareness resources and happenings. The site is available from the following address:

Zillman Blog
http://www.zillman.us/

Powered by audblogaudblog audio postThis research is powered by Subject Tracer Bots™ from the Virtual Private Library™. Isn't yours?

posted by Marcus | 5:14 AM
 

Renardus
http://www.renardus.org/

Renardus allows you to find Internet resources selected according to quality criteria and carefully described by Subject Gateways from several European countries. You discover the individual resources and collections by searching and browsing these descriptions (metadata), not the full text of the resources themselves. Having selected the most relevant ones informed by the descriptions you can use the URL's provided to go to the original resources. A special feature of Renardus is the option to "Browse by Subject" through hierarchical trees of topics and subsequentially to jump to one or several related subcollections of the contributing Subject gateways.

The Renardus partner gateways cover about 64000 predominantly digital web-based resources from within most areas of academic interest, mainly written in English.

posted by Marcus | 4:22 AM


Tuesday, December 30, 2003  

Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Resource Guides
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=resguides

The huge growth in the availability and choice of resources to support learning, teaching and research can make the business of finding quality resources relevant to your subject area both time consuming and frustrating. To make life easier, the JISC Resource Guides support staff and students engaged in higher education activities by directing them to a selection of key, high quality resources in seven subject areas.

Each Guide is compiled by a dedicated Resource Guide Adviser who selects the key resources for the subject area and presents them in both print and Web format. Advisers offer a programme of outreach activities in response to your subject needs, including hands-on workshops and training events. They also play a crucial role in soliciting community feedback, helping to ensure that communication about the provision and use of resources and support and advisory services remains two-way. The seven subject areas are:

* Arts and Humanities
* Engineering, Mathematics and Computing
* Geography and the Environment
* Health and Life Sciences
* Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism
* Physical Sciences
* Social Sciences

posted by Marcus | 12:45 PM
 

Bloggers: The New face of Journalism
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-30-blogging-usat_x.htm

The TV networks and major newspapers now face spirited competition from blogs (i.e., Web logs) offered by independent political commentators. Here are a few blogs you might want to become familiar with: Instapundit.com; AndrewSullivan.com; TalkingPointsMemo.com; DrudgeReport.com; DailyKos.com; RealClearPolitics.com; and Kausfiles.com. Washington lobbyist Ellen Miller says that blogging "takes the media out of the hands of the corporate world and puts it into the hands of guys with computers"; Glenn Reynolds, a law professor and blogger (Instapundit.com) says the blogosphere has become an "idea farm" for the established media; Andrew Sullivan (AndrewSullivan.com) says blogging is "like having a giant communal brain"; and Tom Bevan (RealClearPolitics.com) says that blogging means that "if you have something to say that's interesting, you will eventually be heard."

posted by Marcus | 12:26 PM
 

PSIGate - Physical Sciences Information Gateway
http://www.psigate.ac.uk/homenew.htm

PSIgate is a free service that offers access to high quality Web resources in the physical sciences; there are currently 9417 resources in astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences, materials sciences, physics, and science history and policy.

posted by Marcus | 11:44 AM
 

Digging Into Documents
http://www.computerworld.com/databasetopics/data/datamining/story/0,10801,88351,00.html

Formerly used primarily by the intelligence community and businesses that are strongly dependent upon research, text mining technologies are now beginning to find more general acceptance. The mounds of unstructured data that have been piling up in companies for decades are growing larger as a result of new regulatory requirements that are forcing companies to retain e-mail and other documents - and to be able to find specific information in them. The key to making text mining work for business -- not to mention the intelligence community -- is striking a balance between accuracy and speed, says Ronen Feldman, chief scientist at text mining software company ClearForest Corp. in New York. In a recent interview with Computerworld's Tommy Peterson, Feldman discussed how text mining technologies work and what promise they hold for business.


posted by Marcus | 10:54 AM
 

A Roadmap to Text Mining and Web Mining
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/pebronia/text-mining/

A comprehensive portal covering all protocols and sources related to text mining and web mining. Text mining is about looking for regularities, patterns or trends in natural language text, and usually is about analyzing text for particular purposes. Inspired by data mining, which discovers prominent patterns from highly structured databases, text mining aims to extract useful knowledge from unstructured or semi-structured text. Text Mining is a cross-disciplinary field including, but not limited to:

* Information Extraction(IE)
* Natural Language Processing(NLP) and Computational Linguistics(CL)
* Machine Learning(ML)
* Information Retrieval(IR)
* Data Mining(DM) or Knowledge Discovery from Databases(KDD)
* Information Management and Visualization

This has been added to Data Mining Resources Subject Tracer™ Information Blog.

posted by Marcus | 10:52 AM
 

TerraFly®
http://terrafly.fiu.edu/

TerraFly® changes the way you view your world. Simply enter an address, and our system will put you at the controls of a bird's view aerial imagery to explore your digital earth. A public service of Florida International University sponsored by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the United States Geological Survey, and IBM.

posted by Marcus | 10:43 AM
 

Ontology Generator
http://progos.hu/ontology_generator.html

Ontology Generator can be used to generate RDF Schema (RDFS), owl or daml+oil, from an uploaded RDF file, RDF file URL or from RDF pasted directly into the page.

posted by Marcus | 8:03 AM


Monday, December 29, 2003  

The Signaling Gateway New Enhanced Molecule Pages
http://www.signaling-gateway.org

The AfCS/Nature Signaling Gateway is pleased to announce that the first of the Molecule Pages have now been enhanced with peer-reviewed information, entered by a panel of experts and held in a highly structured, searchable database.

posted by Marcus | 6:03 PM
 

America's Online Pursuits: The Changing Picture of Who's Online and What They Do
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=106

A report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project analyzing the responses of more than 64,000 Americans to phone surveys in the past three years shows that 63 percent of U.S. adults now are online and many of them - especially those with several years of online experience - have built Internet use into their lives in practical ways. Among our findings about change in the Internet world over time:

- Online activity has consistently grown over the course of our research. Internet users discover more things to do online as they gain experience and as new applications become available. This momentum often fuels increasing reliance on the Internet in everyday life and higher expectations about the things people can do online.

- Despite this growth in activity, the growth of the online population itself has slowed. There was almost no growth over the course of 2002 and there has been only a small uptick in recent months to leave the size of the online U.S. adult population at 63 percent of all those 18 and over.

- Different people use the Internet in different ways. The report is full of examples of how people in different demographic groups use the Internet for different purposes.

- Experience and the quality of online connections matter. Those with more experience online and those who have high-speed connections at home generally do more online more often than those with lower levels of experience and those with dial-up connections. The growth of the cohort of veteran users, those with at least three years of online experience, has been striking. Nearly three-quarters of Internet users have at least three years of experience.

- Online Americans' experience with the commercial side of the Internet has expanded dramatically in spite of the economic slump. Financial and transaction activities such as online banking and online auctions have grown more than any other genre of activity.

- Email continues to be the "killer app" of the Internet. More people use email than do any other activity online. Many report their email use increases their communication with key family and friends and enhances their connection to them.

- Big news stories drive lasting changes in the news-seeking audience online.

posted by Marcus | 4:31 PM
 

CBIR Online
http://www.buffalostate.edu/orgs/cbir/

Creativity Based Information Resources (CBIR) is a database maintained by the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College- State University of New York. Currently, the database contains 12,180 annotated references of works focusing on creativity literature. To search the database, enter an author, title, key words, or descriptors and click the "Search" button.

posted by Marcus | 4:05 PM
 

SBA - PRO-Net
http://pro-net.sba.gov/

Pro-Net is an electronic gateway of procurement information -- for and about small businesses. It is a search engine for contracting officers, a marketing tool for small firms and a "link" to procurement opportunities and important information. It is designed to be a "virtual" one-stop-procurement-shop.

posted by Marcus | 9:38 AM
 

Journal of Digital Information (JoDI)
http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

JoDI is supported by the British Computer Society and Oxford University Press. JoDI published its first papers in April 1997, when it was one of very few electronic-only journals. It continues as an electronic-only journal today. Not all papers can be printed. JoDI has over 3500 registered users who have signed up to receive email alerts of new issues. The JoDI vision established by the editors is to be:

(a) a prestige site for papers
(b) a linking 'hub' for other Web services and information
(c) self financing
(d) low cost to the reader
(e) easily accessible

The principal editorial offices are at Loughborough University and Southampton University in the UK.

posted by Marcus | 7:32 AM
 

Papers Written by Googlers
http://labs.google.com/papers.html

A partial list of papers written by people now at Google, showing the range of backgrounds of people in Google Engineering. Very interesting resource of papers in the information retrieval and related fields!

posted by Marcus | 7:26 AM


Sunday, December 28, 2003  

ConsumerSearch
http://www.consumersearch.com/

ConsumerSearch is a Web-based publishing company that helps consumers find answers about what products are top-rated or best bets in their class. We try to provide consumers fast answers on top-rated products and provide an intelligent search engine to the best articles on any given product or service. Their mission is to reduce to minutes the time it takes consumers to make an intelligent purchase. The process begins when their editors scour the Internet and print publications for comparative reviews and other information sources relevant to the consumer. They then analyze these reviews and sources and rank them according to how credible they are, based on specific criteria they have developed for this purpose (see below for more on these criteria). Their website is partly a search tool (see All The Reviews Reviewed page) and partly a consolidator of wisdom and analysis (see Editors' Report and Fast Answers sections). Use whichever of these tools you find most useful.

posted by Marcus | 3:39 PM
 

Using Sensors in the Web Crawling Process
http://arxiv.org/pdf/cs.IR/0312033

This paper offers a short description of an Internet information field monitoring system, which places a special module-sensor on the side of the Web-Server to detect changes in information resources and subsequently reindexes only the resources signalized by the corresponding sensor. Concise results of simulation research and an implemenation attempt of the given "sensors" concept are provided.

posted by Marcus | 9:51 AM
 

Brain Rewards Us for Laughing: Study By Merritt McKinney
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&e=1&u=/nm/brain_laughing_dc

Researchers report that humor seems to activate brain networks that are involved in rewards. Humor is no laughing matter, according to Dr. Allan L. Reiss of Stanford University in California, who led the research. "Humor has significant ramifications for our psychological and physical health," he told Reuters Health. Our sense of humor, he said, "often dictates if, how and with whom we establish friendships and even long-lasting romantic relationships." Humor is also a "universal coping mechanism" for dealing with stress, Reiss added.

posted by Marcus | 9:03 AM
 

Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean World
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/dl/proj/neh2

"...The University of Chicago Library has completed a project that preserves deteriorated research materials relating to the history, art and archaeology of the ancient Near East and the ancient Mediterranean world. Materials published between 1850 and 1950 were drawn from the Library's outstanding Ancient Near East and Classics Collections. The
Library addressed the preservation and access needs of the collections using three options: microfilming of 2,420 volumes, rebinding and providing enclosures for 6,530 volumes and digitizing thirty-five volumes...Preserved materials relate to the study of the ancient Near East and cover such topics as the archaeology, art, history, language, law, and religions of Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Nubia, Persia, and other ancient peoples of Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent. Classics materials span the time from the rise of Bronze Age Aegean culture through the period in the Middle Ages and include volumes relating to the history, art and archaeology of the classical world."

posted by Marcus | 8:56 AM
 

StartupJournal - The Wall Street Journal Center for Entrepreneurs
http://www.startupjournal.com/

The last word on starting a business and entrepreneurial issues from The Wall Street Journal. Read powerful content and search a database of thousands of business for sale.

posted by Marcus | 8:54 AM


Saturday, December 27, 2003  

January 2004 Zillman Column - Finding Experts on the Internet 2004
http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/Finding Experts on the Internet 2004.pdf
http://www.zillmancolumns.com/
http://www.InternetExperts.info/

The January 2004 Zillman Column is now available and is titled Finding Experts on the Internet 2004. This column brings together the many resources for finding qualified experts on the Internet. The Internet is the source for literally thousands upon thousands of experts on every subject and this column gives you a comprehensive listing of where to find these experts and is taken from my Subject Tracer™ Information of Blog. This is a "must" reference for anyone even thinking about obtaining the leading expert in your business or special interest subject area!

posted by Marcus | 4:56 PM
 

TSNN.com - Trade Show, Exposition and Exhibitor Resource
http://www.tsnn.com/

TSNN.com is the leading online resource for the 22nd largest industry in the world - the trade show and exhibition industry. TSNN owns and operates the most widely consulted database on the Internet for the trade show industry, containing data on more than 15,000 trade shows and conferences, and through a strategic partnership, more than 30,000 seminars.

TSNN.com helps facilitate the exchange between buyers and sellers to achieve bottom-line objectives. TSNN.com was redesigned in direct response to the increase use of the Net among trade show industry constituents. TSNN.com's site will further customize information for ease of access and use by the various segmented markets of the trade show industry. TSNN.com is a practical tool for the trade show industry, offering resources, solutions, and a forum for exhibitors, producers, designers, marketers and attendees.

posted by Marcus | 4:55 PM
 

Web Intelligence (WI)
http://www.maebashi-it.org/WI04

Web Intelligence (WI) has been recognized as a new direction for scientific research and development to explore the fundamental roles as well as practical impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) (e.g., knowledge representation, planning, knowledge discovery and data mining, intelligent agents, and social network intelligence) and advanced Information Technology (IT) (e.g., wireless networks, ubiquitous devices, social networks, wisdom Web, and data/knowledge grids) on the next generation of Web-empowered products, systems, services, and activities. It is one of the most important as well as promising IT research fields in the era of Web and agent intelligence.

The 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI'04) will be jointly held with the 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'04 http://www.maebashi-it.org/IAT04). The IEEE/WIC/ACM 2004 joint conferences are sponsored and organized by IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computational Intelligence (TCCI) (http://www.cs.uvm.edu/~xwu/tcci/index.shtml), Web Intelligence Consortium (WIC) (http://wi-consortium.org), and ACM-SIGART (http://www.acm.org/sigart/).

posted by Marcus | 4:24 PM


Friday, December 26, 2003  

PETTT Papers
http://depts.washington.edu/pettt/papers/

The Program for Educational Transformation through Technology (PETTT) was established in 2000 as a University Initiative at the University of Washington. Their mission is to make it easier for educators to use technology to transform the ways in which teachers teach and learners learn, and to disseminate this knowledge locally and nationally.

PETTT's vision is to evaluate the interplay of technology and pedagogy in real settings in order to promote a strong connection between research and the design and use of educational technology.

posted by Marcus | 9:07 AM
 

OWL - Ornithological World Literature Database
http://www.birdlit.org/

The American Ornithological Union, the British Ornithological Union and Birds Australia have launched OWL, the Ornithological World Literature database, freely available. OWL is a successor to ROLO, Recent Literature of Ornithology Online and the earlier, printed Recent Literature of Ornithology. The database is hosted by the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, based in the Zoology Department of Oxford University, UK. At present the database contains 19,000 records, with an emphasis on serials and gray literature. The intent is to extend the database retrospectively to 1950. The sponsors expect the database to contain 100,000 entries by the end of 2004.

posted by Marcus | 8:39 AM


Thursday, December 25, 2003  

Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research
http://www.llrx.com/features/supremectwebguide.htm

Gail Partin's thorough and up-to-date guide provides annotated links to the most reliable, substantive sites for U.S. Supreme Court research. Her focus is predominantly on information that is freely or inexpensively available on the Internet.

posted by Marcus | 7:17 PM


Wednesday, December 24, 2003  

Public Technology
http://www.publictechnology.net

IT News from the eGovernment and Public sectors.

posted by Marcus | 7:32 AM


Tuesday, December 23, 2003  

RFPzone
http://www.rfpzone.com/

RFPzone is a sales productivity tool designed to help you find revenue opportunities tailored to your products and services. Whether you want to do business with the federal government, state governments, or the private sector, RFPzone can take you there. Search for RFP's based on a geographical territory, keywords and industry segments. Grow your pipeline with a couple of mouse clicks.

posted by Marcus | 8:46 PM
 

Cites & Insights
http://cites.boisestate.edu/civ4i1.pdf

Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large 4:1 (January 2004) is now available for downloading at the above URL. This 26 page issue, PDF as usual includes the following:

*Bibs & Blather (looking forward & back, plus weblog blather

*First Have Something to Say: 15: Breaks and Blocks (the third and final free chapter)

*Scholarly Article Access (PLoS publicity and feedback; other OA notes; and why this is the final Scholarly Article Access)

*Following Up (Martin Luther King, Jr. library; DVD compatibility; Amazon's Search in the Book and swamping)

*Ebooks, Etext and PoD (the ebook biz, elibraries, devices)

*Copyright Currents (DMCA exemptions, the SunnComm follies, more music stuff, SCO and Linux)

*A Scholarly Access Perspective: Tipping Point for the Big Deal? (Elsevier, ScienceDirect, Cell Press, and academia)

posted by Marcus | 8:36 PM
 

Upcoming IPv6 Forum Conferences and Events
http://www.ipv6forum.org/navbar/events/global.htm

posted by Marcus | 8:30 PM
 

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
Twelve Drummers Drumming

.-} .-} .-}
|_| |_| |_|
(_) (_) __ (_) .---.
| \ .--. | \.' '. | \/
|\_|--o ) |\_|--o ; |\_|--o |
|:| '--' |:|'.__.' |:|\ /
|:| |:| |:| `---`
|:|_ |:|_ |:|_
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
|M| |E| |R| |R| |Y| |X| |M| |A| |S|
(_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_)
/\Y/\ /\Y/\ /\Y/\ /\Y/\ /\Y/\ /\Y/\ /\Y/\ /\Y/\ /\Y/
[XXX] [XXX] [XXX] [XXX] [XXX] [XXX] [XXX] [XXX] [XXX]
||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| |||
||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| |||
_|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Eleven Pipers Piping
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
,/_) ,/_) ,/_) ,/_) ,/_) ,/_) ,/_) ,/_) ,/_) ,/_)
(") (") (") (") (") (") (") (") (") (") (")
/I\ /I\ /I\ /I\ /I\ /I\ /I\ /I\ /I\ /I\ /I
(/^\) (/^\) (/^\) (/^\) (/^\) (/^\) (/^\) (/^\) (/^\)
||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| |||
||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| |||
_|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ _|||_ l||_ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ten Lords A-Leaping

w w
w 0__ \0__
\0__ w /|_ w /_
/_ __0/ '\/ / \0_ '\/ / w
'\/ / /_ ` /_ ` __0/
` `\/ \, _\ \, /_
w ` `\/ \,
\0__ w w
/_ 0__ w \0__
_\ \, /|_ __0/ |_
` `\/ \, /_ _\ \,
`\/ /, `

Nine Ladies Dancing

|~
() () 0` |~
() _/)(\_ () _/)(\_ 0`
_/)(\_ /^^\ () _/)(\_ /""
/~~\ /____\ _/)(\_ /``\ /____
/____\ /""\ /____\ ()
() /____\ _/)(\_ ()
|~ _/)(\_ () /^^\ _/)(\_
0` |~ /``\ _/)(\_ /____\ /~~
0` /____\ /~~\ /____

Eight Maids A-Milking

__.----. __.----. __.----. __.----.___
(\(__)/)-' (\(__)/)-' (\(__)/)-' (\(__)/)-' ;--`
`(uu)' _ `(dd)' _ `(gg)' _ `(vv)' _ |
) ( (|) ) ( (|) ) ( (|) ) ( (|) |
(o o) 8~8 (o o) 8~8 (o o) 8~8 (o o) 8~8 ,/
`--'\_ (__).`--'\_ (__).'`--'\_ (__).'`--'\_ _(__)|
`|||~~/\|| `|||~~/\|| `|||~~/\|| `||~|| /\||
^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^
__.----. __.----. __.----. __.----.___
(\(__)/)-' (\(__)/)-' (\(__)/)-' (\(__)/)-' ;--`
`(99)' _ `(66)' _ `(aa)' _ `(ee)' _ |
) ( (|) ) ( (|) ) ( (|) ) ( (|) |
(o o) 8~8 (o o) 8~8 (o o) 8~8 (o o) 8~8,/
`--'\_ (__).'`--'\_ (__).`--'\_ (__).`--'\_ _(__)|
`|||~~/\|| `|||~~/\|| `|||~~/\|| `||~|| /\||
^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^

Seven swans A-Swimming

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
/,_ \ /,_ \ /,_ \ /,_ \ /,_ \ /,_ \ /,_ \ _,
|/ )/ |/ )/ |/ )/ |/ )/ |/ )/ |/ )/ |/ )/ / |
// _/ |// _/ // _/ // _/ // _/ // _/ // _/ |
/ (_/ / (_/ / (_/ / (_/ / (_/ / (_/ / (_/ _)
/ ` / ` / ` / ` / ` / ` / ` _/)
\ ~=- \ ~=- \ ~=- \ ~=- \ ~=- \ ~=- \ ~=- /
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~

Six Geese A-Laying
__ __ __ __ __ __
>(' ) >(' ) >(' ) >(' ) >(' ) >(' )
)/ , )/ , )/ , )/ , )/ , )/ ,
/(____/\ /(____/\ /(____/\ /(____/\ /(____/\ /(____/ /
\ ` =~~/ \ ` =~~/ \ ` =~~/ \ ` =~~/ \ ` =~~/ \ ` =~~/
`---Y-' __ `---Y-' __ `---Y-' __ `---Y-' __ `---Y-' __ `---Y-' __
~~' (__) ~~' (__) ~~' (__) ~~' (__) ~~' (__) ~~' (__)

Five Golden Rings

.-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
((_)) ((_)) ((_)) ((_)) ((_))
'-' '-' '-' '-' '-'

Four Calling Birds

___ ___ ___ ___
('v') ('v') ('v') ('v')
(( )) (( )) (( )) (( ))
-/-"---"---/-"---"---/-"---"---/-"---"--

Three French Hens

(\ }\ (\ }\ (\ }
( \_('> ( \_('> ( \_('>
(__(=_) (__(=_) (__(=_)
-"= -"= -"=

Two Turtle Doves
_ _
<')_,/ <') ,/
(_==/ (_==/
='- ='-

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree
_
('>
/))@@@@@
/@"@@@@@()@
@@()@@()@@@@
@@@O@@@@()@@@
@()@@\@@@()@@
@()@||@@@@@
@@||@@@
||
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year 2004 !

Marcus

posted by Marcus | 8:07 PM


Monday, December 22, 2003  

MetaSuite
http://www.dstc.edu.au/Products/metaSuite

MetaSuite is DSTC's toolset for creating and managing high quality Dublin Core style metadata for information holdings. Key components include a metadata repository and query engine, metadata indexers, a web crawler, a metadata entry tool and a metadata schema compiler.

posted by Marcus | 9:26 PM
 

"Panning for Gold" in the Maize Genome
http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?pr03148

Decoding of a variety of plant genomes could accelerate due to two complementary methods that remove from analysis vast stretches of DNA that do not contain genes. The approaches, applied jointly in efforts to determine the gene sequences in maize, are described in the Dec. 19 issue of the journal Science. The evaluation of these methods and the assembly of the resulting sequences were undertaken by two groups led by researchers from The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Md., and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's Plant Genome Research Program. Only about a quarter of the maize genome codes for genes, and these are found in small clusters scattered through a mixture of non-coding DNA and transposons (mobile DNA segments). Two different methods tested by the TIGR group successfully captured parts of the maize genome containing genes. The gene-sequences are of most interest because they provide the specific blueprint for an organism’s development, structure and physiology. With so much non-gene sequence to deal with, it has not been feasible to sequence and assemble the whole maize genome with current technologies. Thus, it is a major shortcut to capture only the portion of the maize sequence containing its genes without having to sequence the entire genome.

"Collecting the maize genes for sequencing is like panning for gold," said Jane Silverthorne, program director for NSF's plant genome program. "Just as gold can be separated from the surrounding rock because it is denser, maize genes can be separated from the surrounding DNA by their chemical and sequence properties."

posted by Marcus | 8:53 PM
 

Requirements Published: Internationalization of Web Services
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-ws-i18n-req-20031217/
http://www.w3.org/International/

The Web Services Internationalization Task Force of the Internationalization Working Group has published the first public Working Draft of "Requirements for the Internationalization of Web Services." The document lists requirements for achieving worldwide usability for Web services. The group expects to republish the draft as a Working Group Note. Visit the Internationalization home page.

posted by Marcus | 6:56 PM
 

OWL Web Ontology Language Is a W3C Proposed Recommendation

W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of the OWL Web Ontology Language (OWL) to Proposed Recommendation. Comments are invited through 19 January. OWL is used to publish and share sets of terms called ontologies, supporting advanced Web search, software agents and knowledge management. The OWL language is presented in six parts.

* OWL Overview
A simple introduction
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-owl-features-20031215/

* OWL Guide
Demonstrates OWL through an extended example. Provides a glossary
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-owl-guide-20031215/

* OWL Reference
A compact, informal description of OWL modelling primitives
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-owl-ref-20031215/

* OWL Semantics and Abstract Syntax
Normative definition of the OWL language
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-owl-semantics-20031215/

* OWL Test Cases
Test cases illustrating correct OWL usage, the formal meaning of constructs, and resolution of issues. Specifies conformance
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-owl-test-20031215/

* OWL Use Cases and Requirements
Usage scenarios, goals and requirements for a Web ontology language
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-webont-req-20031215/

Read about the Semantic Web Activity.
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

posted by Marcus | 6:49 PM
 

Resource Description Framework (RDF) Is a W3C Proposed Recommendation

W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) to Proposed Recommendation. Comments are invited through 19 January. The RDF language is presented in six technical reports. RDF is used to represent information and to exchange knowledge in the Web.

* "RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)" Update for XML, namespaces, the Infoset, and XML Base
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-rdf-syntax-grammar-20031215/

* "RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema" Describes how to use RDF to build RDF vocabularies. Defines a basic vocabulary and conventions for use by Semantic Web applications
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-rdf-schema-20031215/

* "RDF Semantics" Formal mathematical theory for reasoning about RDF data
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-rdf-mt-20031215/

* "RDF Primer" An introduction for all readers
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-rdf-primer-20031215/

* "RDF Test Cases" Machine-processable test cases
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-rdf-testcases-20031215/

* "Resource Description Framework (RDF): Concepts and Abstract Syntax" Syntax, design goals, concepts, the meaning of RDF documents, character normalization and handling of URI references
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/PR-rdf-concepts-20031215/

posted by Marcus | 6:44 PM
 

Prix Ars Electronica
http://www.aec.at/en/global/press_detail.asp?iPressID=39

Prix Ars Electronica features a New Category in 2004 Vienna (December 17, 2003) – The premiere of the Digital Communities category featuring an awards ceremony and exhibition of outstanding projects in New York will highlight the 2004 Prix Ars Electronica. A total of seven Golden Nica prizes as well as Awards of Distinction and Honorary Mentions will be handed out in six categories. Another innovation this year is a spin-off of the Prix Ars Electronica’s u19 freestyle computing category: [the next idea] competition honors outstanding concepts for not-yet-produced projects by artists age 19-27. Entries may be submitted for Prix Ars Electronica consideration from January 12 to March 12, 2004."

posted by Marcus | 6:33 PM


Saturday, December 20, 2003  

Business Intelligence from Unstructured Data by Sundar Kadayam
http://intelliseek.com/whitepapers.asp

An excellent white paper on Business Intelligence from Unstructured Data by my good friend Sundar Kadayam.

posted by Marcus | 7:03 AM
 

Unstructured Information Management by Robert D. Kugel of IntelligentBPM
http://www.intelligentbpm.com/feature/2003/12/0312feat2_1.shtml

This white paper, from Ventana Research, offers a lucid explanation of what "unstructured information" actually means, and why it will consume a significant amount of IT resources in the coming years. Structured data is the easily classified stuff -- names, addresses, zip codes, SKU numbers, etc. Unstructured data "does not readily fit into structured databases except as binary large objects (BLOBs)." Examples given include e-mails, multimedia files, document files.... Although these objects may have some structure -- e.g., an e-mail address -- they are not easily classified for storage in a structured format that makes a typical database happy. As the amount of this unstructured data increases exponentially, solutions are being sought; XMLis a big help because of its flexible tagging system. If this data cannot be efficiently stored and retrieved, it has little or no utility. The white paper identifies six potential components of a viable storage system: document management, Web content management, records management, digital rights management, collaboration, and image capture. All of these elements are emerging as critical, especially in light of today's more stringent regulatory environment (i.e., Sarbanes-Oxley) which dictates compliance standards for information retention. (Current Cities December 2003)

posted by Marcus | 6:48 AM


Thursday, December 18, 2003  

Virtual Community Makes Open Source Encyclopedia Succeed
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/ciffolilli/index.html

An open source encyclopedia seems to defy all logic. Anyone can contribute -- and anyone can change, deface or erase the information it contains. Yet Wikipedia is successful for several reasons. First, it's being constructed by a purpose-built virtual community, whose members share the same goals and passions. Another factor is the low cost associated with IT and virtual communities. In a way, technology has virtually eliminated transaction costs for editing and updating information. This not only stimulates development of the community and the project, it provides a full exploitation of massive collaboration economies. Another secret of Wikipedia's success is its "creative construction" of information, rather than a "creative destruction" of it. Initially, some observers expected an endless war among reliable contributions, as well as graffiti attacks that would deface and delay the development of the Web site. In reality, that hasn't happened. Every change made to every article is stored; unapproved modifications can be undone with a single click. Thus, hackers and graffiti artists waste more of their time and effort trying to litter a page than administrators require to correct it. Through this mechanism of editing and undoing meaningless changes or graffiti, an evolutionary process is fostered. Among other results, that means only the best contributions survive.

posted by Marcus | 12:16 PM
 

Realizing the Potential of the Semantic Web
http://www.oclc.org/research/announcements/features/tbliview.htm

World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee says the Semantic Web is "a key to realizing the potential of the Web… The library community has historically seen the Semantic Web as primarily about metadata. While that is important, it is only one aspect of the larger picture. There is financial data, chemical data, biotechnology data, experimental data, geographic data and more. All of these domains have their own vocabularies, with few explicit points of connection. The Semantic Web is aimed at bridging those gaps, and allowing links across fields… To the extent that data can be encoded in common syntaxes like RDF [Resource Description Framework] and described with public vocabularies, they can be more accessible and more useful... Perhaps nowhere in the academic environment is this more important than the area of scholarly communication." But Berners-Lee warns that there are several impediments to be overcome before the benefits of the Semantic Web can be realized: "We currently lack an ethos for reliable Web publication. We need a closer connection between the technology and the institutional commitments necessary to maintain persistent identifiers and namespaces. We need a realignment of legal constraints and recognition of fair use within the context of the new digital infrastructure. We need to avoid as far as possible the constraints of patents or monopoly at any of the layers of the infrastructure. We also need to sustain the open connectivity -- the linking among people, organizations, data and ideas -- that drive the growth and diversity of the Web."

posted by Marcus | 12:13 PM
 

Google™ Print
http://print.google.com/print/faq.html

Google's mission is to provide access to all the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible. It turns out that not all the world's information is already on the Internet, so Google has been experimenting with a number of publishers to test their content online. During this trial, publishers' content is hosted by Google and is ranked in our search results according to the same technology we use to evaluate websites.

On Google Print pages, we provide links to some popular book sellers that may offer the full versions of these publications for sale. Book seller links are not paid for by those sites, nor does Google benefit if you make a purchase from one of these retailers. In addition, these pages show contextually-targeted AdWords ads that are served through the Google AdSense program. During the initial phase of this beta test, advertisers will not be charged for clicks they receive on these pages, and neither Google nor the publishers with whom we work profit from these ads.

posted by Marcus | 11:46 AM
 

Keeping Found Things Found: Web Tools Don't Always Mesh With How People Work
http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?pr03146

Of all the personal computers to be unwrapped during the holiday season, more than 80 percent will be used to go online and search the Web's more than 92 million gigabytes of data (comparable to a 2 billion-volume encyclopedia). Getting online is the easy part, finding a useful Web page is a bit harder—keeping track of a useful Web page is another issue altogether.

People have devised many tricks—such as sending e-mails to themselves or jotting on sticky notes—for keeping track of Web pages, but William Jones and Harry Bruce at the University of Washington's Information School and Susan Dumais of Microsoft Research have found that often people don't use any of them when it comes time to revisit a Web page. Instead, they rely on their ability to find the Web page all over again.

posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM


Wednesday, December 17, 2003  

PDA Translates Speech
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2003/121703/PDA_translates_speech_121703.html

Getting over the language barrier usually requires the services of a human translator, but handheld computers are getting powerful enough, and speech recognition software accurate enough, that travelers, soldiers and aid workers in foreign countries could soon have automatic speech translation in hand. A prototype Arabic-English medical translator is a significant milestone on the long road to universal translation.

posted by Marcus | 3:21 PM
 

Bioinformatics Moves Into the Mainstream - An Explosion of Data Is Being Tamed with New Systems By Jennifer Ouellette in The Industrial Physicist (Volume 9, Issue 6)
http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-9/iss-5/p14.html

Genome mappings, those completed and those in progress, have generated a vast amount of biological data, and now more than ever, scientists need sophisticated computational techniques to make sense of it. To meet those ever-increasing needs, bioinformatics is shifting from software designed for a specific project in academic laboratories to the commercial mainstream. Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary research area loosely defined as the interface between the biological and computational sciences. In practice, the definition is narrower, according to Michael Zuker, a professor of mathematical sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. For Zuker and many others, the term applies to the use of computers to store, retrieve, analyze, or predict the composition or structure of biomolecules. These include genetic materials such as nucleic acids, as well as proteins, the end products of genes. ... The need to manage and analyze this data largely drives the current bioinformatics boom. 'Biology is awash in data,' says Eric Jakobsson. 'We cannot exploit the body of data that is currently out there -- we cannot mine it -- without computers, and now we cannot even handle the data in our own individual labs without sophisticated computation.'"

posted by Marcus | 2:17 PM
 

Quality Of Online Health Information Imperative To Physicians, Patients
http://rdr.sbml.cc/Click?q=18-WhZzI98YBTJgODLT6MBeRLjR

The increasing number of people using the Internet for health information will have a "profound effect on medicine," according to a new report, "The Impact of Health Information on the Internet on Health Care and the Physician-Patient Relationship." The report, which appeared in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, noted that it is unclear whether the effect will be beneficial or harmful, however. "The advantages of the Internet as a source of health information include convenient access to a massive volume of information, ease of updating information, and the potential for interactive formats that promote understanding and retention of information," the report said. "Health information on the Internet may make patients better informed, leading to better outcomes, more appropriate use of health service resources, and a stronger patient relationship."

However, the report said, health information on the Internet may be misleading or misinterpreted, compromising health behaviors and health outcomes, or resulting in inappropriate requests, either because "refusal is time consuming, or because they fear refusal would weaken the physician-patient relationship."

posted by Marcus | 1:35 PM
 

SLA Announces the Launch Date of New Web Site
http://www.sla.org/content/memberservice/communication/pr/pressrelease/2332.cfm

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) will debut its new Web site in late January 2004. The new site will feature a cleaner, more modern appearance, with functional design, structure and enhanced user-friendly access. A diverse sector of the Association played a key role in the development of the Web site. In addition to working with a Web design firm, SLA members and staff participated in surveys and focus groups, which provided valuable feedback to the Association's Web revision team. The new site at www.sla.org features improved access to all major resources. The enhancements have been facilitated by developing a taxonomy, thesaurus, and new content management system and by reorganizing the content within redesigned navigation tools.

posted by Marcus | 12:54 PM
 

The Asian Studies WWW Monitor
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/asia-www-monitor.html

"The Asian Studies WWW Monitor" (ISSN 1329-9778) was established 21 April 1994. The journal, a pioneering and the only publication of this kind in the world, provides daily abstracts and reviews of new/updated online resources of significance to research, teaching and communications dealing with Asian Studies. It is published by the Internet Publications Bureau, RSPAS, National Institute for Asia and the Pacific, ANU. The periodical forms a key element of the global, cooperative project Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library. For further details see a page About the Asian Studies WWW Monitor. The journal is complemented by its sister publication Pacific Studies WWW Monitor which was established in April 2000.

posted by Marcus | 7:29 AM


Tuesday, December 16, 2003  

Exploring New Roles for Community Technology Centers: Can CTCs Serve as Nonprofit Technical Assistance Providers?
http://www.compumentor.org/ctcstudy/

CompuMentor Report Examines the Capacity of CTCs to Provide Technology Assistance to Nonprofits. Over the past several years, much discussion has taken place in the nonprofit sector and particularly in the community technology movement around the evolving roles of community technology centers (CTC). One idea that has received significant attention is whether CTCs may expand their roles to act as nonprofit technology assistance providers (NTAPs).

With the support of the AOL Time Warner Foundation, CompuMentor took a closer look at this issue and published its findings in the report "Exploring New Roles for Community Technology Centers: Can CTCs Serve as Nonprofit Technical Assistance Providers?" CompuMentor's interest in this subject came from two vantage points. First, as an NTAP we understand there is a very large unmet need in the nonprofit sector for technology support services. Second, as a provider or services and technical assistance to CTCs, we know that sustainability is a huge challenge.

The key findings of the report, conducted by Rem Hoffmann, include:

* Although CTCs are perceived as tech-savvy organizations, they may not have the capacity to function as NTAPs.

* Technology skills are only one of five categories of qualifications necessary to serve as an NTAP. Others are mission congruency, business capabilities, the ability to subsidize the cost of providing service, and position in the community. While a number of CTCs meet some of these qualifications, very few meet all or most of them.

* NTAPs reported that fundraising to subsidize the cost of providing services was critical to succeeding. The report found that it costs much more to provide these services than nonprofits are able to pay, which directly contrasts the perception that CTCs acting as NTAPs can generate earned income to support their other programs.

There appears to be a small subset of CTCs that can offer NTAP services. The paper concludes with a recommendation to conduct further research of new models for NTAPs and CTCs to partner to deliver services to community-based organizations.

posted by Marcus | 4:13 PM
 

Bloggers Converge on World Summit

DailySummit
http://www.dailysummit.net/

Highway Africa
http://www.highwayafrica.org.za/hana/

OneWorld TV
http://tv.oneworld.net/tapestry?cluster=21

Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth
http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/

Last week's World Summit on the Information Society was covered by bloggers from around the world, using articles and streaming media to capture summit events. DailySummit.net, an online collaboration of British and Arab journalists, reported on the ins and outs of the summit almost in real time, with contributors blogging via Wi-Fi-enabled laptops during events and press conferences. Student journalists from sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, contributed articles and streaming video as part of the Highway Africa News Agency, a project of South Africa Broadcasting Corporation and Rhodes University. Similarly, OneWorld TV featured a team of young journalists from South America and Asia who created video diaries for distribution over the Internet. And Communications-Related Headlines' own Andy Carvin offered his own perspective on his Waste of Bandwidth blog, covering events and speeches ranging from Stanford University's Lawrence Lessig and Richard Stallman of the free software movement to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and
Iranian President Mohammed Khatami.

posted by Marcus | 3:40 PM
 

OCLC Research Announcements
http://oclc.org/research/announcements/

Founded in 1967, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs. More than 45,000 libraries in 84 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it.

OCLC Research is one of the world's leading centers devoted exclusively to the challenges facing libraries in a rapidly changing information technology environment.

posted by Marcus | 12:53 PM
 

President Bush Signs National Anti-Spam Law
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4437-2003Dec16.html

A new law signed by President Bush will attempt to rid the Internet of unsolicited commercial e-mail ("spam") -- though many technology experts believe it will not be impossible for legislation passed by a single country to eliminate spam, because it is a global problem. However, supporters of the legislation say it gives state and federal law authorities the tools needed to track down and prosecute the largest and best-organized spammers. Democrat Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a coauthor of the CAN-SPAM bill, explains: "Our message is the fight has just begun and enforcement has got to be tough, tough, tough."

posted by Marcus | 12:24 PM
 

Annoyed or Not, You Will Keep Getting Pop-Ups
http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology10dec16,1,7761116.story?coll=sns-ap-toptechnology

A federal judge in Baltimore has ruled that a California company called D-Squared can continue sending "pop-up" Internet ads until the matter is decided at trial. Said U.S. District Judge Andre Davis: "It's not clear to me ... if there's substantial injury to consumers. The case had the odor of extortion as it was originally prosecuted ... but it certainly doesn't look like extortion to me." The Federal Trade Commission believes that D-Squared's advertisements caused "substantial injury" to consumers, and FTC attorney Monica Spivack says: "They clearly knew that this practice was in fact causing consumers' computers to crash. The defendant's own marketing material said this." D-Squared attorney Anthony Dain's counter-argument is: "Should our clients be shut down from their best marketing tool and from the tool that best serves the customer, whether they're annoyed or not?"

posted by Marcus | 12:22 PM
 

United Nations Votes to Study Administration of the Internet
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/12/15/technology/15divide.html

The delegates at a U.N. conference on the Internet have decided that a "working group" should be set up to consider introducing more international oversight of the Internet and its administrative bodies (such as ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a company that has a U.S. Commerce Department contract to coordinates Internet addresses and some other technical issues). At the conference, delegates from the developing countries were unsuccessful in getting the U.N. to take full administrative control of the Internet, although they did get a promise that ways will be explored to close the "digital divide" between richer and poorer nations. Eli M. Noam, who heads the Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia University, notes: "Even if it is not true, there is a perception that the U.S. government is running the Internet."

posted by Marcus | 12:19 PM


Monday, December 15, 2003  

Wired for Health: How Californians Compare To the Rest of the Nation
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=105

Low-income Californians who use the Internet are just as likely as more well-to-do Internet users to go online in search of health care information and two-thirds of those poorer Internet users report they gain important benefits from their online searches, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and funded by the California HealthCare Foundation. Relatively poor Internet users in California are more wired and have more online experience than their peers in other parts of the nation. This finding suggests that as more low-income Americans go online and become comfortable with using the Internet they will enjoy the same benefits as more upscale Internet users who do searches online for important medical information.

The survey also found that Californians in all income brackets and of all ethnicities are in line with the rest of the country when it comes to most Internet health search habits. However, online Californians differ from other wired Americans in three areas of online health:

* 31% of online Californians have searched the Internet for information about health insurance, compared to 24% of the rest of the country’s Internet users.

* 33% of online Californians have searched for alternative treatments, compared to 27% of the rest of the country’s Internet users.

* 23% of online Californians have searched for experimental medical treatments, compared to 17% of the rest of the country’s Internet users.

posted by Marcus | 11:37 AM
 

The Educator's Reference Desk
http://www.eduref.org

The people who created AskERIC announce a new service and name to access the resources you've come to depend on for over a decade. While the U.S. Department of Education will discontinue the AskERIC service December 19th, you will still have access to the resources you've come to depend upon. Through The Educator's Reference Desk you can access AskERIC's 2,000+ lesson plans, 3,000+ links to online education information, and 200+ question archive responses. While the question answer service will no longer be active, The Educator's Reference Desk provides a search interface to the ERIC Database, providing access to over one million bibliographic records on educational research, theory, and practice.

posted by Marcus | 11:27 AM


Sunday, December 14, 2003  

Registry of Library Knowledge Bases
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/KBL.htm

Gerry McKiernan, The Basic, Knowledgeable Librarian, Iowa State University, Ames IA 50011 has created a new registry titled Library Knowledge Bases. This registry and site will host the latest library knowledge bases used for reference and information resources. This site is a work in progress and is in constant development.

posted by Marcus | 5:53 PM
 

Proteome BioKnowledge Library
http://www.proteome.com/

Six database volumes of biological information about proteins comprise Incyte's Proteome BioKnowledge Library. Each volume focuses on a different organism important in pharmaceutical research. Incyte scientists manually collect and curate the information in each BioKnowledge Library volume from current scientific literature. The information in each volume represents thousands of independent research results. The BioKnowledge Library currently contains information about more than 60,000 scientific references on more than 80,000 proteins, including data on protein classification and function.

posted by Marcus | 5:43 PM
 

Pertinence Information Network (PIN)
http://www.pertinence.net/pin/index.jsp?ui.lang=en

Discover free of charge this new text watch platform "Pertinence Information Network (PIN)". PIN allows you to define your focuses of interest, then sends you e-mail alerts (NewsAlert bulletins) listing the latest publications relevant to these focuses of interest. You may choose a language from the list of 12 available languages, and keywords to target your focuses of interest (common names, proper names, phrases, sentences...). You can then select sources from a pool of several thousands – from classic publications (medias, press releases, news agency reports) to information portals, researchers' sites or individual news brokers (via controlled registration). All the documents in the NewsAlert messages are accompanied by a static, automatically derived summary. It is also possible to summarize each document automatically produced dynamically and where the selected keywords are highlighted. Moreover, you have at your disposal an online "personal folder " (shareable with other users) where you can classify and archive documents under customized categories and subcategories. Those documents can be selected articles from NewsAlert but also local files, notes, or the URL of a web page. You can also create a diffusion channel restricted to a group of selected users. PIN also proposes a customized information feed in which you can dynamically summarize all the articles. Look up our site for other interesting functionalities.

posted by Marcus | 11:25 AM
 

The Gridbus Project to Release GriSim 2.2 Software
http://www.gridbus.org/gridsim/gridsim2.2
http://www.gridbus.org/

The open source Gridbus Project, led by the Grid Computing and Distributed Systems (GRIDS) Laboratory at the University of Melbourne, Australia, is pleased to release the next-version of Grid simulation software, the GridSim 2.2 toolkit.

posted by Marcus | 11:08 AM
 

GRANTS: RESOURCES: A Selection of Sources on the Internet for Listings of Grant Information and Sources: Webliographies of Grant Information
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetGold/message/798

Finding sources of funding is not a matter to be taken for granted. This small group of source lists for grant funding should grant the reader a starting point for finding the needed grant or grants for research or other purposes.

posted by Marcus | 10:11 AM


Saturday, December 13, 2003  

State Tourism Links : Recreation.gov
http://www.recreation.gov/statelinks.cfm

Connect to the tourism office and the events (fairs, festivals, shows, etc.) calendar of each state of the United States.

posted by Marcus | 6:26 AM


Friday, December 12, 2003  

BioTech Future
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-biotech12dec12,1,7490704.story?collla-headlines-technology

Merchant banker G. Steven Burrill predicts that 2004 will rank among the biggest ever for biotech IPOs, and that drug development partnerships between small biotechs and established drug firms will be a key source of financing (thereby allowing big drug companies to stock their product development pipelines more cheaply and efficiently than by company acquisitions). Burrill says, "They won't buy a company, because they don't need to."

posted by Marcus | 7:16 PM
 

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's leading research funding and training agency addressing economic and social concerns. We aim to provide high quality research on issues of importance to business, the public sector and government. The issues considered include economic competitiveness, the effectiveness of public services and policy, and our quality of life.

posted by Marcus | 6:58 PM
 

MetaSuite
http://www.dstc.edu.au/Products/metaSuite

MetaSuite is DSTC's toolset for creating and managing high quality Dublin Core style metadata for information holdings. Key components include a metadata repository and query engine, metadata indexers, a web crawler, a metadata entry tool and a metadata schema compiler.

posted by Marcus | 3:01 PM
 

Disability Database for Museums, Archives and Libraries
http://www.resource.gov.uk/action/learnacc/00access_03.asp

In a United Kingdom plan to reduce access barriers in museums, archives and libraries, an organization called Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries has created a database of 200 trainers, auditors and consultants specializing in disability issues. The database offers support and advice on all disability issues. Marcus Weisen, Resources Disability Officer, says: "In the past databases of disability trainers, auditors and consultants in the cultural sector were merely address lists and they were not available on the Web. With this new system, we can allow users to browse categorized listings to find the best match for their needs." The disability database is available on the Resource Web site at:

posted by Marcus | 1:04 PM
 

all.info
http://www.all.info/

All.info is a searchable directory of topics focused on web site credibility. Our directory provides searchers with additional info provided by the site’s producer. This information helps our searchers better find and evaluate sites. All.info also runs the popular search resource center, SearchEngines.com. Since June 2000, hundreds of thousands of users, search professionals and members of the media have relied on SearchEngines.com as a collection of top-quality information about searching.

All.info is the first search directory to tackle the issue of site credibility in a scalable system. Aside from a proprietary ranking algorithm, All.info uses the information provided by web site producers, who know most about their sites, to help users better find and assess the credibility of these web sites. When a professor assigns a paper, or when a manufacturer is looking for unbiased industry information, or a third-grader is trying to learn more about math, All.info will help identify which information would be most useful, relevant and credible.

posted by Marcus | 6:24 AM


Thursday, December 11, 2003  

ISBN Free Database
http://www.isbndb.com/

The goal of the project is to create a multilingual database of books with well defined remote access protocols and free individual access. This database and site is under constant development.

posted by Marcus | 1:05 PM
 

Searching the Invisible Tabs
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3115131

Tired of wading through thousands -- possibly millions -- of results to your Web searches? How would it be if search engines offered lists of category tabs -- so you could confine your search to relevant Web sites? Too restrictive, too cumbersome (after all, how many categories would there need to be)? Well then, how about invisible tabs -- behind-the-scenes functions that would automatically categorize your query and deliver results within that category? AskJeeves and others already do it to a degree. Example: Test AskJeeves against Google for "pictures of DNA." AskJeeves delivers images; Google offers a list of URLs. "It's not rocket science to see your query and decide that it makes sense to push the invisible image tab for you. But the change it produces, and perceived relevance to me, is dramatic," says SearchEngineWatch.com editor Danny Sullivan. To avoid frustrating searchers by, say, returning shopping lists instead product reviews, the search engine might come back with questions formatted as listings: "What would you like to do? Show me prices for this product from merchants across the Web; Show me product reviews from across the Web; Show me general matching content from across the Web."

posted by Marcus | 9:29 AM
 

Beyond Simple Search
http://www.intelligententerprise.com/031210/619decision1_1.shtml

As anybody who has used one knows, the text search capability offered by commercial search engines can be frustratingly limited. Instead of getting you to the right information source easily, writes Seth Grimes, "text-search results sometimes seem like the generic wisdom you get randomly from a Magic 8 Ball: They're so lacking in contextual relevance that they may answer many questions other than the one you're asking." Text mining, a much more analytical approach to searching, is poised as a potential solution, promising to structure information in ways that enable decidedly more intelligent search. The basic problem is that human beings and computers think differently. We have a superior ability to understand abstraction, context and linguistic variations, and can detect and apply patterns. But computers beat us every time on speed, volume, consistency and breadth. The challenge is to design information technology that matches human language comprehension while bringing to bear the advantages of automation. New text mining applications tackle that problem through a process of categorization and classification. While the technology is primarily in use by companies and government agencies for very specialized applications right now, Grimes predicts that text mining will become much more mainstream in the near future.

posted by Marcus | 9:27 AM
 

China Works Out e-Paper Prototype
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-12/07/content_1217789.htm

A different wallpaper every day in your house? It may soon be a possibility, as electronic paper and ink will soon make it easier and cheaper, just like the way you change the wallpaper on your desktop. Researchers with the Southwest China Normal University announced earlier this week their success in building the country's first e-paper prototype, which combined organic transistors with e-ink that could be sprayed at very low cost on virtually any material: plastic, metal, cloth and conventional paper.

E-paper, a small, ultra-thin, radiation-free screen that consumes little power and gives a dynamic display of massive information, was designed to imitate to the maximum advantages of conventional paper and ink: flexibility, low cost and the ability to be read using ambient light. "By replacing conventional paper with e-paper, we can protect our ecological environment by cutting less trees and minimizing pollution brought by the traditional paper mills," said Prof. Fu Xiangkai with the university's Applied Chemistry Institute.

posted by Marcus | 9:20 AM
 

Adobe® Intelligent Document Platform
http://www.adobe.com/events/splash.jsp?eventID=1262

To comply with Section 508, your agency must deliver information that is accessible to people with disabilities such as blindness. The Adobe® Intelligent Document Platform helps you create documents and forms that incorporate navigational aids, include text that can be interpreted by assistive technology such as screen readers, and add information that explains images in documents and fields in forms. View this Adobe Seminar OnDemand to learn how you can quickly and efficiently meet Section 508 requirements.

posted by Marcus | 8:37 AM
 

Statistics, Measures and Quality Standards for Assessing Digital Reference Library Services: Guidelines and Procedures

"Statistics, Measures and Quality Standards for Assessing Digital Reference Library Services: Guidelines and Procedures" is now available full text online. This manual is the result of a study developed at the 2nd Annual Virtual Reference Desk conference and funded by the library community. The study was conducted by Charles McClure, David Lankes, Melissa Gross and Beverly Choltco-Devlin of the Information Institute of Syracuse and the Information Use Management and Policy Institute at Florida State University. See the Quality Study website for more details and to download the workbook.

The handbook is at:

http://quartz.syr.edu/quality/Quality.pdf

The Quality Study site is at:

http://quartz.syr.edu/quality/

posted by Marcus | 8:34 AM
 

Architecture of the World Wide Web
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-webarch-20031209/
http://www.w3.org/2003/12/tag-pressrelease
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/

The W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) has released a Last Call Working Draft of the "Architecture of the World Wide Web, First Edition." The document is written for Web developers, implementers, content authors and publishers. It describes the properties that are desired of the Web and the design choices that have been made to achieve them. Comments are invited through 5 March 2004. Read the press release and visit the TAG home page.

posted by Marcus | 8:31 AM


Wednesday, December 10, 2003  

The Word on Text Mining by Seth Grimes
http://www.intelligententerprise.com/031210/619decision1_1.shtml

Text analytics provide concept discovery, automated classification, and innovative displays for volumes of unstructured documents. This article written by Seth Grimes for Intelligent Enterprise gives the latest and most current happenings on text mining on the Internet.

posted by Marcus | 10:06 AM
 

Open Access (Journal) Collections
http://www.joanconger.net/ERIL/list_issues_openaccess.html

A listing of Open Access Journal Collections available over the Internet from ERIL ( Electronic Resources in Libraries ) that is an ongoing work in progress.

posted by Marcus | 9:35 AM
 

IP3
http://www.ip3.gatech.edu/

IP3 provides a framework to coordinate Internet policy-related research in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. It promotes dialogue between researchers within and outside of the Institute, offering forums for debate and discussion. It invites researchers to Georgia Tech from outside the community, sponsoring guest speakers, workshops, and conferences. It connects the academic research community with policy-makers in the larger society.

posted by Marcus | 6:37 AM
 

Understanding WSIS: An Institutional Perspective on the UN World Summit on the Information Society
http://www.ip3.gatech.edu/research/research.htm#WSIS

New events and institutions present opportunities for groups to advance their agendas. This research examines the concrete achievements made by groups at UN world summits over the last ten years and uses those insights to assess the opportunities in the on-going WSIS. This research is being conducted in partnership with CPSR's Civil Society Democracy Project (CivSoc of CPSR) with funding from the Open Society Institute through the Internet Democracy Project.

* US Format .pdf
* European A4 Format .pdf
* Plain Text Format

posted by Marcus | 6:35 AM


Tuesday, December 09, 2003  

The Internet Topic Exchange
http://www.topicexchange.com/

The Internet Topic Exchange hosts topic channels, public archives of weblog posts on defined topics. Here are some popular channels:

* Topic Exchange <-- ping this if talking about the site
* Test channel <-- do what you like here
* Social Software <-- blogging and the like
* The Matrix <-- the film, the religion, ...
* Austin Blog <-- Austin politics
* Wi-Fi
* Montreal, Quebec, Canada
* Directorio Blogs Hispanos <-- Spanish blog directory

posted by Marcus | 5:38 PM
 

PubMed Tutorial
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pubmed_tutorial/m1001.html

Welcome to the "PubMed Tutorial", the Web-based learning program that will show you how to search PubMed®, the National Library of Medicine's (NLM™) journal literature search system. This tutorial has been designed to work with Microsoft Internet Explorer® version 4+ and Netscape™ version 4+. It contains animated demonstrations of procedures, for which you will need the Macromedia Flash™ player.

posted by Marcus | 5:31 PM
 

OSDN - Open Source Development Network
http://www.osdn.com/

OSDN (Open Source Development Network, Inc.) is the most dynamic community-driven media network on the Web. OSDN publishes two world-renowned networks of Web sites: the OSDN technology network, and the MediaBuilder network. OSDN delivers more than 225 million page views and reaches 12 million unique visitors per month.

posted by Marcus | 1:18 PM
 

Free/Open Source Research Community
http://opensource.mit.edu/home.html

Free/open source software (F/OSS) is software for which the human-readable source code is made available to the user of the software, who can then modify the code in order to fit the software to the user’s needs. The source code is the set of written instructions that define a program in its original form, and when it’s made fully accessible programmers can read it, modify it, and redistribute it, thereby improving and adapting the software. In this manner the software evolves at a rate unmatched by traditional proprietary software. For many years free/open source software has been building momentum. Beginning amidst the technical cultures that produced the Internet and World Wide Web, it is now causing quite a stir in the commercial world as large software corporations are finding themselves competing against commercially available open source software.

This new demand for free and open source software has piqued interest among scholars in disciplines ranging from sociology to economics to social psychology, and has raised questions in fields of application ranging from innovation processes to strategic management. As an aid to these scholars, they offer the Free / Open Source Research Community. By having visitors contribute to our research databases, they hope to establish a community of information exchange that will lead to a greater understanding of open source and it's applications.

In the spirit of free and open source software (F/OSS), they are attempting to establish a community in which information will be freely exchanged, so that others may further the understanding of open source and its implications outside the realm of software development. They invite researchers to post their papers on open source and free software here, and to add themselves to the research directory, so that their community can become steadily larger and more comprehensive.

posted by Marcus | 1:06 PM
 

InterSAINT - International Sensible Artificial Intelligence Network of Thoughts
http://www.intersaint.org/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/intersaint/

The aim of the InterSAINT project is to develop a global scale AI using as many computers as possible. Since the computing power of all the computers in the world is enormous, I think it could be very dangerous too. So, I think the use of this enormous computing power should be very precisely defined. That is the reason why I chose the name "InterSAINT". The word SAINT is not only an acronym, it tries to suggest the good ends of the system.

posted by Marcus | 12:52 PM
 

Open Textbook Project
http://otp.inlimine.org/

The mission of the open textbook project is to develop openly copyrighted (copylefted) textbooks using the free software development model. The books, developed collaboratively, would be freely available to download, modify, print and distribute. Not only are textbooks unavailable to a great number of students in the US and abroad simply due to cost, few textbooks are universally suitable for courses in any given subject and many are simply sub-standard. The Open Textbook Project aims to address these issues by using a collaborative development model which has proven its effectiveness in the world of free software.

posted by Marcus | 12:44 PM


Monday, December 08, 2003  

EServer
http://www.eserver.org/

The EServer is a unique website where 281 writers, artists, editors and scholars gather to publish and discuss their works (currently 31849 of them in all). The EServer (founded in 1990 as the English Server) attempts to provide an alternative niche for quality work. They offer 44 collections on such diverse topics as contemporary art, race, Internet studies, sexuality, drama, design, multimedia, accessible publishing and current political and social issues. In addition to written works, they publish hypertext, audio and even video recordings. Their collections grow as they welcome new contributions, and as they teach new members how to publish works to the Web and to the million or so readers who visit their site per week.

posted by Marcus | 6:23 AM
 

The ETEXT Archives
http://www.etext.org/

Home to electronic texts of all kinds, from the sacred to the profane, from the political to the personal. Our mission is to provide electronic versions of texts without judging their content.

posted by Marcus | 6:21 AM
 

The Oxford Text Archive
http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/

The Oxford Text Archive hosts AHDS Literature, Languages and Linguistics. The OTA works closely with members of the Arts and Humanities academic community to collect, catalogue, and preserve high-quality electronic texts for research and teaching. The OTA currently distributes more than 2000 resources in over 20 different languages, and is actively working to extend its catalogue of holdings.

posted by Marcus | 6:17 AM
 

The Online Books Page
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/index.html

The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all. Major parts of the site include:

* An index of thousands of online books freely readable on the Internet
* Pointers to significant directories and archives of online texts
* Special exhibits of particularly interesting classes of online books
* Information on how readers can help support the growth of online books

posted by Marcus | 6:13 AM
 

Bartleby - Great Books Online
http://www.bartleby.com/

The preeminent Internet publisher of literature, reference and verse providing students, researchers, and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge.

posted by Marcus | 5:58 AM
 

This edition of Current Awareness Happenings on the Internet by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. (December 8, 2003 V1N28) is dedicated to the radio interview by Marcus P. Zillman on: The Deep Web - Exploring the Secrets of the Hidden Internet - 23 Minute Radio Interview. Click on the below link to to listen to Marcus P. Zillman being interviewed on the Internet newest global radio service Planet Earth Radio:

The Deep Web - Exploring the Secrets of the Hidden Internet - 23 Minute Radio Interview
http://zillman.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_zillman_archive.html#107065172763806106

This research is powered by Subject Tracer Bots™ from the Virtual Private Library™. Isn't yours?

posted by Marcus | 5:13 AM
 

America's Most Literate Cities
http://www.uww.edu/cities/

This study, compiled in summer 2003, pieces together a literacy profile of America's 64 largest cities, drawing from U.S. Census data, newspaper circulation rates, library resources, publishers and other public documents. The study, authored by University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Chancellor and education Professor Jack Miller, draws on statistics from five categories and 13 different measures of literacy to provide a ranking for all cities with a population of 250,000 or more. The Top 10:

1) Minneapolis, MN
2) Seattle, WA
3) Denver, CO
4) Atlanta, GA
5) San Francisco, CA
6) Pittsburgh, PA
7) Washington, DC
8) Louisville, KY
9) Portland, OR
10) Cincinnati, OH

posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM


Sunday, December 07, 2003  

Stu Weibel Interviews Tim Berners-Lee (OCLC)
http://www.oclc.org/research/announcements/features/tbliview.htm

This interview with Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was conducted by OCLC Researcher Stuart Weibel. Tim agreed to discuss his perspectives on major trends in the information landscape and their impact on use and access to public information. This interview was conducted in support of the OCLC environmental scan of the Library and Information communities, developed for strategic planning purposes for OCLC and its member libraries.

posted by Marcus | 6:58 PM
 

OAIster
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/

OAIster is a project of the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Services, originally funded through a Mellon grant (see the final report). Our goal is to create a collection of freely available, difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone (2,228,430 records from 243 institutions updated December 4, 2003).

posted by Marcus | 5:40 PM
 

Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science - RIACS
http://horus.riacs.edu/

(RIACS) Free access to full-text technical reports in PDF format, covering topics such as automated reasoning for autonomous systems, high performance computing and networking, human-centered computing.

posted by Marcus | 5:35 PM
 

E-print Network
http://www.osti.gov/eprints/

The E-print Network is a set of powerful tools that facilitate access to and use of scientific and technical e-prints communicating the results of a wide range of research activities of interest to the Department of Energy. These e-prints reside on thousands of Web sites and data bases, both large and small, at remote locations worldwide, employing a wide variety of technologies, architectures, platforms, formats, software, and search engines to manage and retrieve data. The E-print Network pulls these vast and widely dispersed data together through a Deep Web search capability that allows the patron to search across and into full text as it resides at the various hosting sites and, using the technical capabilities available at each site, returns results that can be combined, assimilated, and used in support of scientific research. In addition, access is provided to a vast store of e-print information available on the Web through a browse capability across more than ten thousand sites.

The E-print Network, however, is more than a source for scientists and engineers to find, assimilate, and use scientific and technical e-prints in their fields of interest. Also central to research efforts are the interpersonal activities which occur on a one-to-one basis, in small groups, in classrooms and seminars, and at large or small conferences. These interpersonal activities are in fact research communications, too, and it is frequently through these research communications that much of the strategically important activities in which researchers engage are shared.

posted by Marcus | 5:31 PM
 

Department of Energy Information Bridge
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/

The Information Bridge provides the open source to full-text and bibliographic records of Department of Energy (DOE) research and development reports in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics. The Information Bridge consists of full-text documents produced and made available by the Department of Energy National Laboratories and grantees from 1995 forward. Additional legacy documents are also included as they become available in electronic format. DOE's Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) makes this Web site available to the public in partnership with the Government Printing Office (GPO), through GPO Access.

posted by Marcus | 5:27 PM
 

arXiv.org e-Print Archive
http://www.arxiv.org/

An Open Archives Initiative (OAI) compliant archive, it is one of the oldest archives of free online scholarship. ArXiv is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, and quantitative biology. The contents of arXiv conform to Cornell University academic standards. arXiv is owned, operated and funded by Cornell University, a private not-for-profit educational institution. ArXiv is also partially funded by the National Science Foundation.

posted by Marcus | 5:23 PM
 

Idea a Day - Where Ideas are Free
http://www.idea-a-day.com/

Idea a Day will publish an original idea every day for the rest of time. The ideas published will be free of copyright, however valuable they may be. They are there to be read, to be enjoyed, to be exploited. Whatever. The project represents a completely fresh approach to the handling of ideas and intellectual property. This is not a get rich quick scheme. There are no plans to float, no advertisers or sponsors lined up. idea-a-day.com exists because it can. Because it will be fascinating to see what happens when these ideas are made available to the world.

posted by Marcus | 5:15 PM


Saturday, December 06, 2003  

SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online
http://www.scielo.org

SciELO ... the Scientific Electronic Library Online, is a large scale enterprise mounting STM and social science journals from Latin America and Spain.

posted by Marcus | 8:34 AM
 

The Max Planck Society Electronic Journals Library
http://rzblx1.uni-regensburg.de/ezeit/

The Max Planck Society Electronic Journals Library database allows you to retrieve long lists of international journals "with freely available full-text content" organized by subject.

posted by Marcus | 8:30 AM
 

Global Atlas Of Infectious Diseases - WHO (World Health Organization)
http://globalatlas.who.int/

In a single electronic platform, the WHO’s Communicable Disease Global Atlas is bringing together for analysis and comparison standardized data and statistics for infectious diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The analysis and interpretation of data are further supported through information on demography, socioeconomic conditions, and environmental factors. In so doing, the Atlas specifically acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Over the next year, the system aims to provide a single point of access to data, reports and documents on the major diseases of poverty including malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, the diseases on their way towards eradication and elimination (such as guinea worm, leprosy, lymphatic filariasis) and epidemic prone and emerging infections for example meningitis, cholera, yellow fever and anti-infective drug resistance. The database will be updated on an ongoing basis and in addition to epidemiological information, the system aims to provide information on essential support services such as the network of communicable diseases collaborating centres, the activities of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network among others.

posted by Marcus | 8:24 AM
 

National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)
http://www.nano.gov/start.htm

NNI is a cross-disciplinary government agency supporting research and technology development at the atomic, molecular or macromolecular levels ~1-100 nanometers (nm). The site is a web-portal to government-agency research reports, government-funded research centers, educational materials, information on government funding, and external publications, conferences and news. Seventeen United States agencies are participants, including USDA, DOC, DOJ, DOT, DHS, DOTreas, DOS, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NRC, and NSF.

posted by Marcus | 8:18 AM
 

Ancient Scripts
http://www.ancientscripts.com

Ancient Scripts gives overviews of ancient writing systems, as well as phonetics and historical linguistics. Images of the writing systems are displayed with English phonetic approximation. Searchable, with links and a bibliography.

posted by Marcus | 8:16 AM
 

eScholarship Editions
http://texts.cdlib.org/escholarship/

Included in eScholarship Editions is the full-text of nearly 1400 book-length academic works, of interest to both scholarly and general-interest readers. All titles are accessible by University of California faculty, staff, and students; 400+ titles are available to the general public. eScholarship Editions is an initiative of the California Digital Library. For more information, see About Us.

posted by Marcus | 7:56 AM


Friday, December 05, 2003  

IBM: Ponder This
http://www.research.ibm.com/ponder/

Ponder This is a monthly problem that lets ambitious people "match wits with some of the best minds in IBM Research." The problem is usually fairly abstract and requires refined mathematical skills, critical thinking, and patience to solve. Each month a new problem and the solution for the previous month are posted online. Users are encouraged to submit their answers for possible recognition on the website. Visitors to the Ponder This website can browse previous problems and solutions dating back to May 1998. [From The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003. http://scout.wisc.edu/]

posted by Marcus | 5:29 PM
 

Captology: Computers as Persuasive Technologies
http://captology.stanford.edu/

"The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab creates insight into how computing products -- from websites to mobile phone software -- can be designed to change what people believe and what they do." This unusual field of study is
called captology, and the subject is explored in detail on the lab's homepage. The Key Concepts section provides a brief overview of captology and links to another page with nine topic papers published by researchers at the lab. In a series of examples demonstrating how computers can be used to influence a person, the site's creators separate instances into macrosuasion and microsuasion. Specific websites and computer programs are highlighted to reveal these interesting marketing or motivational tactics. [From The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003. http://scout.wisc.edu/]

posted by Marcus | 5:24 PM
 

UVic Grid Testbed
http://grid.phys.uvic.ca/

A Canadian grid computing project is the focus of this website from the University of Victoria (UVic). The group of research physicists working on the project has "constructed a small Grid-enabled cluster as part of an effort to create a Canadian Grid testbed." Although the work is being conducted on a small scale, it is intended to serve as a model for future grid computing endeavors. The project's homepage provides an insightful overview of grid computing and its applications in high energy physics. Seven papers and nine slide presentations are also available, giving a detailed look at the issues of implementing and controlling massively parallel computing systems. [From The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003. http://scout.wisc.edu/]

posted by Marcus | 5:23 PM
 

Citation Analysis By Country
http://in-cites.com/countries/2003allfields.html

The Year 2003: Top 20 Country Rankings in All Fields

posted by Marcus | 5:11 PM
 

Blizg
http://www.blizg.com/

Blizg is a blog index that focuses on metadata. We want to promote the use of metadata in the blogging community. We're also excited about finding new ways to use metadata that will create useful connections between and among blogs.

posted by Marcus | 5:06 PM
 

University Policy Handbook Index
http://www.campus-adr.org/Staff_Admin_Building/searchpolicies.html

The primary purpose of the University Policy Handbook Index is to assist users who are exploring the creation / revision of Conflict Resolution policies at their institution. The index does this by providing access to examples from other institutions. You can search all of the Policy handbooks in the index or narrow your search to a category that matches the audience you are creating / revising a policy for. The index is not limited in any way to Conflict Resolution related policies, but rather attempts to index all the web-accessible handbooks at major institutions in the United States. Thus it should prove useful in a broad range of circumstances. As of October 1, 2003 there are 975 records in the Policy Handbook database from 691 universities / colleges in the United States.

posted by Marcus | 5:03 PM
 

The Deep Web - Exploring the Secrets of the Hidden Internet - 23 minutes
http://www.planetearthradio.com/
http://www.deepwebresearch.info/

The Deep Web - Exploring the Secrets of the Hidden Internet - 23 Minute Radio Interview

Welcome to The Internet/Technology Channel at Planet Earth Radio. Here you can access the breakthroughs and people changing our world. Hear direct from the world's tech and internet pioneers plus stay ahead of the curve as we bring you the best in new technology and the finest that the internet has to offer. If you're a high tech achiever - and just slightly addicted to the web - this is the channel for you. New Programming is added continually and it’s all Commercial Free!

The web we see everyday is just a drop in the internet ocean. Hidden below the surface is a wealth of material that most of us never experience. Marcus P Zillman is a leading authority on the deep web. His latest manual is 378 pages of URLs. Nobody knows more about the hidden internet than Marcus who will open your mind to a web deeper and wider than you ever imagined.

posted by Marcus | 2:15 PM
 

Technology Research News (TRN)
http://www.trnmag.com/

Technology Research News (TRN) is an independent publisher and news service dedicated to covering technology research developments in university, corporate and government labs. Every story published by TRN is the result of direct, original reporting.

posted by Marcus | 7:56 AM


Thursday, December 04, 2003  

Research 101
http://www.lib.washington.edu/uwill/research101/

Research 101 is an interactive online tutorial for students wanting an introduction to research skills. The tutorial covers the basics, including how to select a topic and develop research questions, as well as how to select, search for, find, and evaluate information sources.

posted by Marcus | 5:50 PM
 

In Russia - A New Integration of Electronic Resources
http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2003/11/25/51464.html

The five largest Russian libraries are creating an integrated electronic catalog of their bibliographic descriptions and full-text electronic resources; the libraries involved are the Russian State Library, the Russian National Library, the All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature, the Parliamentary Library and the Scientific Library of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The aim of the project is to help a closer integration of human and electronic resources of these libraries into the European library network, and to allow Internet users to simultaneously look through the catalogs of the partners' libraries and to access the electronic copies of dissertations, books, periodicals, lectures, map collections, etc. The libraries are working in cooperation with the National Library of Scotland, the Prussian State Library in Berlin and the Italian National Library in Rome.

posted by Marcus | 3:13 PM
 

The Vanishing Web: No Way To Run a Culture
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8730-2003Nov23.html

A new study published in the journal Science looked at footnotes from scientific articles in three major journals (the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and Nature) at 3 months, 15 months and 27 months after publication, and found that the prevalence of inactive Internet references grew during those intervals from 3.8% to 10% to 13%. In another recent study, one-fifth of the Internet addresses used in a Web-based high school science curriculum disappeared over 12 months, and a third study found that 40% to 50% of the URLs referenced in articles in two computing journals were inaccessible within four years. Brewster Kahle, widely admired for his creation of the Internet Archive project, says: "It's a huge problem. The average lifespan of a Web page today is 100 days. This is no way to run a culture."

posted by Marcus | 3:10 PM
 

MR3 (Meta-Model Management Based on RDFs Revision Reflection)
http://mmm.semanticweb.org/mr3/

MR3 (Meta-Model Management based on RDFs Revision Reflection) is an editing tool of RDF-based contents developed for managing a relationship between RDF and RDFS contents. The Semantic Web is one of the most promised candidates as the Web tomorrow, whose basis is on RDF and RDF Schema recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium. The purpose of the idea is to make the data on the Web available not only for displaying but also for automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications. At the moment, a number of supporting environment have been developed as the adopted tools of traditional knowledge engineering based ontologies. These products are mostly concentrating on creating ontologies and managing ontology-based semantic markup. From the standpoint of a significance of information lifecycle on the Semantic Web, in this work, an editing tool of RDF-based contents is developed for managing a relationship between RDF and RDFS contents. MR3 is implemented by JAVA language.

posted by Marcus | 2:33 PM
 

New Age Navigation: Innovative Information Interfaces for Electronic Journals by Gerry McKiernan
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/NewAge.pdf

Article Abstract: While it is typical for electronic journals to offer conventional search features similar to those provided by electronic databases, a select number of e-journals have also made available higher-level access options as well. In this article, we review several novel technologies and implementations that creatively exploit the inherent potential of the digital environment to further facilitate use of e-collections. We conclude with speculation on the functionalities of a next-generation e-journal interface that are likely to emerge in the near future. An offprint/preprint copy of the article is available at the above listed URL.

posted by Marcus | 9:24 AM
 

Directory of Government Online Gazettes
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/gazettes/

Government Gazettes, which are published by federal governments worldwide, are the means through which the government can communicate to officials and the general public. Although most countries publish a gazette, their regularity and content varies widely, which is noted in the description of each gazette. Gazettes are useful not only to monitor the actions of the government, but also as primary source documentation in research. This website attempts to list all online government gazettes and their characteristics to aid researchers. A description of the contents and coverage are included for each gazette. Anyone wishing to do further research on foreign law will find useful resources in the bibliography.

posted by Marcus | 8:20 AM


Wednesday, December 03, 2003  

Search the Web More Efficiently
http://www.llrx.com/features/efficientsearch.htm

Search engine and website design expert Daniel Bazac identifies search tools, features and strategies that will contribute to your successful research efforts on the web.

posted by Marcus | 6:28 PM
 

Making Visualizations of Complex Information Accessible
http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2003/09/call-vis-papers.html

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative's Research and Development Interest Group is extending the call for papers for its teleconference on the accessibility and visualization of complex information. They are seeking position papers from researchers and practitioners (academia, industry, government, consulting) on state of the art work in visualization technologies. Position papers are due 12 December. The telecon is tentatively 26 January 2004 and will include real-time transcription to ensure audio accessibility. Please refer to the above call for papers for more information.

posted by Marcus | 4:52 PM
 

The Spoke
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=4C7240:1F61EF2
http://www.thespoke.net

Microsoft Corp. has quietly launched a Web logging, or blogging, service targeted at tech-savvy people in their teens and 20s, but the service is apparently open to anybody. The service is called TheSpoke and is part of Microsoft's Academic Developer initiative, a Microsoft spokesman said Tuesday. The site was created by Singapore-based marketing services company Earth9 Pte. Ltd. and went live last week, said a spokesman for Smooth Fusion Inc., the Lubbock, Texas, company that hosts TheSpoke.net for Microsoft. Microsoft's academic developer initiative is focused on building a community of students interested in software development, the Microsoft spokesman said. TheSpoke is in a test phase and more features will be added, he said, adding that the site is not intended to be competition for blogging services such as Google Inc.'s Blogger.

TheSpoke looks to be more of a mass-market effort. The first members, dubbed Hubbers, for the site were recruited with postings on Web sites for gamers. In one such recruitment posting, apparently from the team setting up TheSpoke, the call to join goes out to any opinionated young person wanting to blog about technology and gaming. "TheSpoke is an online community for young leaders that are tech savvy and opinionated. TheSpoke provides tools to collaborate, discuss and debate the future of technology," said the recruitment posting, published Nov. 8 on an Xbox enthusiast Web site. Joe Wilcox, a Washington, D.C.-based Jupiter Research senior analyst, doesn't see TheSpoke as a threat to other blog services, but rather as a tool for Microsoft to win support from young software developers who might otherwise choose to work on projects that compete with Microsoft.

posted by Marcus | 2:18 PM
 

Largest Prime Number Ever Found
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994438

A 26-year-old graduate student in the US has made mathematical history by discovering the largest known prime number. The new number is 6,320,430 digits long. It took just over two years to find using a distributed network of more than 200,000 computers. Michael Shafer a chemical engineering student at Michigan State University used his office computer to contribute spare processing power to the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). The project has more than 60,000 volunteers from all over the world taking part.

"I had just finished a meeting with my advisor when I saw the computer had found the new prime," Shafer says. "After a short victory dance, I called up my wife and friends involved with GIMPS to share the great news."

Prime numbers are positive integers that can only be divided by themselves and one. Mersenne primes are an especially rare type of prime that take the form 2 p-1, where p is also a prime number. The new number can be represented as 220,996,011-1. It is only the 40th Mersenne prime to have ever been found.

posted by Marcus | 1:11 PM
 

LoveToKnow Free Online Encyclopedia
http://1911encyclopedia.org/

The LoveToKnow Free Online Encyclopedia is based on what many consider to be the best encyclopedia ever written. As a research tool, this 1911 encyclopedia edition is unparalleled - even today. LoveToKnow is in the process of updating and editing thousands of the entries, preserving the treasured entries that make it so unique, and adding entries on new relevant topics. We hope that you enjoy and learn from the LoveToKnow Free Online Encyclopedia and that it becomes one of your favorite places for reference information.

The Eleventh Edition filled 29 volumes and contains over 44 million words. It contains over 40,000 articles written by over 1,500 authors within their various fields of expertise. What was particularly remarkable was that many of the entries were written by the most famous people of the age. Henry Ford, for example, wrote the article on mass production. As such, it was considered to represent the sum of human knowledge at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Sir Kenneth Clark, in Another Part of the Wood, wrote of the Eleventh Edition: "One leaps from one subject to another, fascinated as much by the play of mind and the idiosyncrasies of their authors as by the facts and dates. It must be the last encyclopedia in the tradition of Diderot which assumes that information can be made memorable only when it is slightly colored by prejudice. When T.S. Eliot wrote 'Soul curled up on the window seat reading the Encyclopedia' he was certainly thinking of the eleventh edition."

posted by Marcus | 7:39 AM


Tuesday, December 02, 2003  

InfoToday Blog
http://www.infotodayblog.com

Information Today, Inc. yesterday announced the launch of its blog. Initially, it will provide breaking news about events at Online Information 2003 in London, which started December 1, 2003.

posted by Marcus | 4:04 PM
 

SUSTEL
http://www.sustel.org/

SUSTEL is a two year research project on teleworking financed by the European Commission's IST initiative. It involves collaboration between seven partners - Avanzi (Italy), BT (UK), Danish Technological Institute (DTI), Empirica (Germany), Telewerk Forum (Netherlands), University of Bradford (UK) and the project coordinator, the UK Centre for Environment and Economic Development (through its research unit, SustainIT). The project commenced in January 2002 and aims to:

* enhance understanding of the economic, environmental and social impacts of teleworking

* assess the extent to which the impacts of teleworking change over time

* identify ways in these can be influenced by organizations and Governments

* develop tools and guidance materials to enable organizations to evaluate and optimize the sustainability of teleworking initiatives.

posted by Marcus | 1:58 PM
 

Microsoft® Research NetScan
http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/

The Netscan System provides detailed reports on the activity of Usenet newsgroups, the authors who participate in them, and the conversation threads that emerge from their activity. Using the Netscan tool users can get reports about any newsgroup for any day, week, month, quarter, or year, since September 1999. Netscan data is updated monthly. Netscan can be used to:

* Find newsgroups where others share your unique interests.
* Monitor the health of newsgroups related to your interests and pursuits.
* Stay informed on current events and the latest trends.
* Locate sources for technical assistance and information.
* Examine troubling issues and hot topics not covered in product documentation.
* Track the participation of your favorite authors across Usenet newsgroups.

posted by Marcus | 12:37 PM
 

The ICT for Development Platform (ICT4D Platform)
http://www.ict-4d.org/

The ICT for Development Platform (ICT4D Platform) aims to enrich the political core segment of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held December 10-12, 2003, by showcasing the development dimension of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in a unique multi-stakeholder gathering. As the largest Summit Event the Platform is organised by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) jointly with the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP).

posted by Marcus | 12:09 PM
 

Internet Gift Economies: Voluntary Payment Schemes as Tangible Reciprocity by Kylie J. Veale
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/veale/

Abstract:

Internet Gift Economies: Voluntary Payment Schemes as Tangible Reciprocity by Kylie J. Veale

The Internet today is a mix of the ‘free and the fee’, though it still remains in part a gift economy. Personal and organisational sharing of free information, products and software continues to flourish as a circle of gifts for returned intangible reward. Though a perceived lack of these rewards, due in part to an inability to quantify them, has resulted in givers seeking more for their efforts. What are their revised motivations? What now are their rewards?

Confronted with this development, I suggest their rewards are voluntary payments as forms of tangible reciprocity. This paper therefore outlines the Internet as a gift economy. It suggests a conceptual path through gift economy principles to reveal voluntary payments as tangible reciprocity. It also documents an analysis of voluntary payment schemes as evidence of operationalising tangible reciprocity. I also introduce monetary, content and purpose gifting mechanisms as tangible reciprocity.

posted by Marcus | 10:05 AM
 

SIMILE: Semantic Interoperability of Metadata and Information in unLike Environments
http://web.mit.edu/simile/www/

SIMILE is a joint project conducted by the W3C, HP, MIT Libraries, and MIT's Lab for Computer Science. SIMILE seeks to enhance inter-operability among digital assets, schemas, metadata, and services. A key challenge is that the collections which must inter-operate are often distributed across individual, community, and institutional stores. They seek to be able to provide end-user services by drawing upon the assets, schemas, and metadata held in such stores.

SIMILE will leverage and extend DSpace, enhancing its support for arbitrary schemas and metadata, primarily though the application of RDF and semantic web techniques. The project also aims to implement a digital asset dissemination architecture based upon web standards. The dissemination architecture will provide a mechanism to add useful "views" to a particular digital artifact (i.e. asset, schema, or metadata instance), and bind those views to consuming services.

posted by Marcus | 8:13 AM


Monday, December 01, 2003  

This edition of Current Awareness Happenings on the Internet by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. (December 1, 2003 V1N27) is dedicated to the Internet-101 television shows. Click on the below link to to watch and listen to Marcus P. Zillman hosting his Internet-101 weekly thirty minute televsion shows.

Internet-101 Television Shows
http://www.WatchMarcus.com/

This research is powered by Subject Tracer Bots™ from the Virtual Private Library™. Isn't yours?

posted by Marcus | 9:38 PM
 

MediaResource: Linking Journalists and Scientists
http://www.mediaresource.org/

The non-profit Media Resource Service (MediaResource) has served as a bridge between science and the media since 1980. Journalists who call (800) 223-1730 can get help at no charge in locating expert sources of information on science and technology to interview for their news and feature stories. Formerly a program of the Scientists' Institute for Public Information (SIPI), MediaResource maintains a database of thousands of (primarily American) scientists, engineers, physicians and policy-makers who have agreed to provide information on short notice to print and broadcast journalists. Working together, the journalist and a staff member will decide what level of expertise is relevant to a particular story. When the issue is controversial, the staff locates experts representing a cross section of views.

posted by Marcus | 12:13 PM
 

U.S. Government Graphics and Photos
http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml

Most of these images and graphics are available for use in the public domain; they may be used and reproduced without permission or fee. However, some images may be protected by license. Therefore we recommend you thoroughly read the disclaimers on each site before use.

posted by Marcus | 11:55 AM
 

Psychological and Mental Health Discussion Groups
http://www.psychnet-uk.com/discussion_groups/index_discussion_groups.htm

Psychological and Mental Health Discussion Groups - Membership of a email discussion group enables you to keep in touch with that particular groups interests. Groups enable their members to pool and distribute like minded information. These discussion groups will not be rated, therefore it is up to you to establish the usefulness of the group. Specific Mail Lists by Email Application.

posted by Marcus | 7:07 AM
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