Information Technology and the Conduct of Research The User's View (1989) / Chapter Skim
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The Use of Information Technology in Research
The Use of Information Technology in Research
Pages 11-46
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From page 11... ...
, computational speed increased by a factor of 1 trillion, computational cost decreased by a factor of 10 million, and the smallest useful calculator went from the size of a typewriter to the size of a wristwatch. At present, personal computers selling for a few thousand dollars can put significant computing power on the desk of every scientist.
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From page 12... ...
HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS: SCIENCE DRIVES THE LEADING EDGE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY An example helps to illustrate the direction in which many disciplines are moving: high energy physics could not be done without information technology, and offers an extreme example of the trends for computing and communication needs in many scientific disciplines. Most high energy physicists work on the same set of questions: what is the behavior of the most elementary particles, and what is the nature of the fundamental forces between them?
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From page 13... ...
In a final part of this section, we discuss new technological opportunities and their implications for the conduct of research. new W and Z particles were isolated from millions of collision events in the CERN accelerator offers a striking illustration of the dependence of high energy physics on the most advanced aspects of information technology.
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From page 14... ...
Future networking needs for high energy physics involve very high transmission speeds (as high as 10 megabits per second) between laboratories, with provision for exchange of collision event files, graphics, and video conferencing.
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From page 15... ...
Biologists, high energy physicists, magnetic fusion physicists, and computer scientists each have their own network; oceanographers, space scientists, and meteorologists are also linked together. Networks also connect researchers with one another regionally; an example is NYSERNET, the New York State Education and Research Network.
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From page 16... ...
The simulations were understood by the use of computer graphics, and led to the explicit construction of infinite families of new examples. The modern computer is the first laboratory instrument in the history of mathematics.
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From page 18... ...
Word processing and electronic mail are arguably the most pervasive of all the routine uses of computers in research communication. Electronic mail sending text from one computer user to another over the networks is replacing written See box on document and telephone communication among many communities of scientists, and is processing, page 19.
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From page 19... ...
The laboratory publishes a biweekly newsletter on advances in high-temperature superconductivity research, available in both paper and electronic forms; the electronic version is sent out to some 250 researchers. · Researchers are making new collaborative arrangements.
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From page 20... ...
Electronic chalkboards allow researchers to draw on their chalkboard and have the drawing appear on their computer and on the computers of collaborators across the country. Directory services, or "namese~vers," supply directories of the names and network addresses of users, processes, and resources on a given network or on a series of connected networks.
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From page 21... ...
One technique that is likely to receive more attention in the future is data compression, which removes redundant information and converts data and images to more compact forms that require less time to transmit. Among the most important of potential applications of information technology is the emergence of a truly national research network-that is, a set of connections, or gateways, between networks to which every researcher has access.
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From page 22... ...
These bulletin boards serve as a medium for discussing issues relating to the databases and as a place where users of the databases can obtain assistance. Along these same lines BIONET has developed the GENPUB program that facilitates submission of sequence data and author-entered annotations in computer-readable form directly to GenBank and EMBL via the electronic mail network.
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From page 23... ...
One kind of database holds factual scientific data. The Chemical Abstracts Service, for example, has a library of the molecular structures of all chemical substances reported in the literature since 1961.
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From page 24... ...
Fuchs and Freeman approached the directors of other academic computer centers with major IBM installations to invite them to become members of the new network. The plan of shared resources that BITNET offered included two proposals: a)
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From page 25... ...
Difficulties Encountered For all disciplines, both factual and reference databases promise to be significant sources of knowledge for basic research. But to keep this promise, a Pandora's box of problems will have to be solved.
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From page 26... ...
At their first meeting, Panel members and staff decided it would be useful to establish electronic communication links for the Panel. Using a network to which he had access, one of the Panel members devised a distribution-list scheme for the Panel.
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From page 27... ...
A difficulty common to both scientific and reference databases is a pressing need for new and more compact forms of data storage. Disciplines such as oceanography, meteorology, space sciences, and high energy physics have already gathered so much data that more efficient means of storage are essential; and others are following close behind.
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From page 28... ...
Increasingly, however, in disciplines like meteorology and the biomedical sciences, submis sion of primary data to data banks has become accepted as a duty. In the field of economics, the National Science Foundation now requires that data collected with the support of the Economics Program be archived in machine readable HOW A LIBRARY USES COMPUTERS TO ADVANCE PRODUCTIVITY IN SCIENCE In 1985 the William H
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From page 29... ...
The Welch Medical Library provides the computers, network gateways, database maintenance and management, and user support. finally, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute provides partial support for access, maintenance, and future development of the system.
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From page 30... ...
NASA has expended time, effort, and money building a number of satellite data distribution systems that provide digital data archives and a catalog of satellite data holdings, as well as images and graphical analyses produced from satellite data. For example, NASA's National Space Science Data Center received and filled some 2,500 requests for tapes, films, and prints in the first half of fiscal 1988, and also provided network access to specific databases.
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From page 31... ...
For USES OF SIMULATION IN ECONOMETRICS Simulation techniques take estimated relationships or numerical models that appear to be consistent with observations of actual behavior and apply them to problems of predicting the changes induced by time, or of measuring the relationships among sets of economic variables. For example, simulation models have been utilized to study the effects of oil price changes on the rate of inflation, proposed policies regarding labor law, and future interest rates.
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From page 32... ...
Secretaries who prepare manuscripts for scientists have better interactive control and visual feedback with their word processors than scientists have over large computing resources that cost several thousand times as much. Traditionally, scientific problems that required large-scale computing resources needed all the available computational power
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From page 33... ...
The ability to visualize results or guide the calculations themselves requires substantially more computing power. Electronic media, such as videotapes, laser disks, optical disks, and floppy disks, are now necessary for the publication and dissemination of mathematical models, processing algorithms, computer programs, experimental data, and scientific simulations.
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From page 34... ...
We have identified six such impediments that seem to affect research in most or all disciplines: MOLECULAR GRAPHICS The use of interactive computer graphics to gain insight into chemical complexity began in 1964. Interactive graphics is now an integral part of academic and industrial research on molecular structures and interactions, and the methodology is being successfully combined with supercomputers to model complex systems such as proteins and DNA.
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From page 35... ...
recognized the strategic importance of information technology to the conduct of biomedical research. In response to a study released by the AAMC in 1982, the National Library of Medicine has supported eleven institutions in efforts to develop strategic plans and prototypes of an Integrated Academic Information Management System (L\IMS)
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From page 36... ...
Consequently, NCBI's mission requires experts in both information technologies and biotechnologies. NCBI staff must · Provide directories to knowledge sources; · Create useful network gateways between · Assist users in using databases effectively; · Reduce incompatibilities in retrieval approaches, vocabulary, nomenclature and data structures; · Promote standards for representing inforrnation that will reduce redundancy and detect inconsistencies or errors; · Provide useful tools for manipulating and displaying data; and · Identify new analytic and descriptive services and systems.
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From page 37... ...
The Problem of Standards The development of standards for interconnection makes it possible for every telephone in the world to communicate with every other telephone. The absence of commonly held and implemented standards that would allow computers to communicate with every other computer and to access information in an intuitive and consistent way is a major impediment to scholarly communication, to the sharing of information resources, and to research productivity.
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From page 38... ...
. As more information about individuals is collected and cross-linked, fears are raised that determined and technically sophisticated computer experts will be able to identity specific individuals, thus breaching promises of confidentiality and privacy of information.
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From page 39... ...
Gaps in Training and Education The training and education necessary for using information technology are lacking. Two decades ago many researchers dealt with computers only indirectly through computer programmers who worked in data processing centers.
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From page 40... ...
In 1968, Doug Englebart demonstrated a simple hy pertext system for hierarchically-structured documents-that is, a list of sections, each of which decomposes into a list of subsections, each of which decomposes into a list of paragraphs, and so on to which annotations could be added during a multiple-workstation conference. Today hypertext refers to information storage in which documents are preserved as networks of linked pieces rather than as a single linear string of characters; readers can add links and follow links at will.
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From page 41... ...
Small-scale hypertext systems, such as Apple's Hypercards for the Macintosh, are available on personal computers; their promoters claim these systems will change information retrieval as radically as spreadsheets changed accounting a few years ago. SOURCE: Peter and Dorothy Denning, personal commu nication, 1987.
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From page 42... ...
Just as use of a large collection of books is made possible by a building and shelves in which to put them, a cataloguing system, borrowing policies, and reference librarians to assist users, so the use of a collection of computers and computer networks is supported by the existence LEGAL CONSTRAINTS TO AN ELECTRONIC VERSION OF A LABORATORY NOTEBOOK Today, the paper laboratory notebook is the only legally supportable document for patent applications and other regulatory pro cedures connected with research. Some or ganizations, however, routinely distribute electronic versions of laboratory notebook information to managers and other profes sionals who would otherwise have to visit the research site physically or request photo copies.
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From page 43... ...
An infrastructure that supports information technology applications to research should provide · Access to experts who can help; · Ways of supporting and rewarding these experts; · Tools for developing software, and a market in which the tools are evaluated against one another and disseminated; · Communication links among researchers, experts, and the market; and · Analogs to the library, places where researchers can store and retrieve information. Several different kinds of experts in information technology help researchers.
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From page 44... ...
The Panel believes that one of the most important services that computer networks can provide is the link between users and expert help. Existing links often take the form of electronic bulletin boards on various networks; other mechanisms also exist.
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From page 45... ...
The conferences also allow users with common interests to exchange other sorts of information in the traditional bulletin board style. AI researchers debate the usefulness of the concept of intentionality or discuss how software engineering methodologies apply to expert systems development; computer graphics and vision workers talk about the number of bits required to present a satisfacto~y image to the human eye.
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