Bits of Power Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data (1997) / Chapter Skim
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2 Trends and Issues in Information Technology
2 Trends and Issues in Information Technology
Pages 24-46
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From page 24... ...
Table 2.1 frames some of the profound advances in technology that are having an impact on access to and exchange of scientific data and thus on research-related capabilities. The committee's overview of associated technical trends provides some context for its discussion of six barriers to and concerns regarding global access to scientific information, including access by scientists in developing countries.
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The availability of information technology products with ever-increasing computing, communication, and storage capability has contributed to the ubiquitous assimilation of computers into modern daily life, and complex applications taking advantage of continually improving computer performance have emerged. Among other uses, information technology is being applied increasingly to product development, manufacturing, and distribution, as well as to new financial services such as debit/credit transactions and investment portfolio management.
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Increasing Exploitation of Broadband Networks and Capabilities for Transmission of Video Data Commercial providers believe that new applications such as video conferencing, interactive television, and the ability to access movies on demand from a large archive will be the dominant factors in the development of networks over the next 10 years. Voice communications will require an ever smaller share of telecommunications capacity.
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Shifting Dominance in Data Networks The international public infrastructure for data communications is built around the Internet. Originally developed in the United States by the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies to support scientific and technical collaboration,6 the Internet now serves a much wider range of purposes.
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systems, mailing lists, and bulletin boards have enabled rapid information sharing among groups of people distributed throughout the world. Other commercially available computer-based tools and technologies have enhanced collaborative work by facilitating cooperative research involving, for example, the use of remote instruments, and electronic data publishing that speeds the dissemination of research results.8 Indeed, the success of many complex scientific investigations now is predicated on bringing the capabilities of diverse researchers from multiple institutions together with state-of-the-art instruments.
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, advancing techniques in language processing and computer power will make extension to new language domains less costly and time consuming. Some databases, such as the European Dictionaire Automatique, have been developed explicitly to facilitate machine translation and semantic analysis.
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Authentication systems, retrieval systems, and networks can now account for specific activities of users and can support flexible billing systems. Public-key encryption technology is increasingly accepted as a means of protecting data and authenticating users.
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Prominent among these is the Internet II project, which initially is connecting approximately 100 universities over a private, reserved backbone with 622-Mbps links.20 This type of network could be used more broadly by the scientific community and extended to reach international partners to solve specific needs for bandwidth and for real-time control. SPECIFIC TECHNICAL CONCERNS Table 2.3 summarizes six major technical barriers to the international transfer of scientific data and information within the context of the trends discussed above.
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Lack of support for conferencing and collaborative work, large file transfer, or shared scientific infrastructure. collectively dictated its priorities and use.
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This problem apparently can occur even with data exchanges such as e-mail, which computers transmit whenever the lines are open. In nations with very limited network or gateway facilities, e-mail may take a day or more to be transmitted to or from some countries.
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Problems of data compatibility and integration, even within the United States alone, were reviewed in some detail in a 1987 CODATA conference from three different perspectives: government, geography, and technology.24 Rapid Obsolescence of Electronic Storage Media The media on which scientific data are stored are vulnerable to decay and obsolescence. The standard lifetime of a particular disk or tape appears to be less than a decade; the data stored on these media must be copied or refreshed at regular intervals.
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Advances such as floating point and vector accelerators, massively parallel computers, gigabit networks, large-volume storage media, and visualization software were developed because of scientific needs. Continued funding on an international basis for research leading to these kinds of advances is necessary if vendors are to respond to the technical needs of science.
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As scientists in developing nations obtain computers with connections to networks linking them to international collections of scientific information, they greatly increase their research capabilities. Low-cost computers and modern software approaches are available to help developing countries "leapfrog" multiple generations of equipment and approaches.
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Hardware and software for electronic communication in the sciences therefore offer particularly high leverage for return on investment in foreign aid to developing nations. Unfortunately, many of these technologies are not yet widely available in the most developed nations, much less in the developing countries.
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People in other countries also have adopted this strategy. One current approach to reducing communication costs in African countries is the use of the message-forwarding Fidonet system, a low-cost network of individual computerized bulletin board services that uses regular dial-up telephone lines and high-speed modems to transfer electronic messages.3i Although most of Africa currently lacks direct TCP/IP Internet and WWW connections,32 individuals can send and receive electronic mail via the Fidonet service of the Association for Progressive Communications, a U.S.
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should begin a long-term planning effort to assess the carrying capacity and distribution capability of the Internet, using projections of storage and transmission capacity and of demand and taking into account the next generation of Internet protocols. Scientific societies should encourage their publication committees to maintain contact with the IETF and keep their members abreast of advances in technologies useful for scientific information management.
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4. A consortium of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations concerned with the international exchange of scientific data and informationincluding the International Telecommunications Union, the World Bank, the U.N.
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Rau (1995) , "Commercial Applications of Natural Language Processing," Communications of the ACM, November:71-79.
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, Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
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