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The article discusses information on the CA Surveyor: Food and Feed Chemistry CD-ROM database produced by Chemical Abstracts Service from the "Chemical Abstracts" magazine. The database contains all abstracts related to the chemical aspects of food and feeds published in the magazine from 1991 through 1993. The CA Surveyor works on either PC/Windows or a Macintosh with CD-ROM drive. The database is utilized for the benefit of individual food or feed chemist at the worksite, the special librarian in a food or feed corporation, or the literature searcher who wants to develop a search strategy before going on-line.

In September 1992 Washington State University at Tri-Cities became one of the nation's first subscribers to OCLC's FirstSearch in order to make user-accessed AGRICOLA and its other automated indexing services available free of charge to everyone on the Ethernet, the branch campus computer network, with its telnet access to the Internet. Arrival of user-accessed AGRICOLA at WSU Tri-Cities was timely due to the addition of a new bachelor of science degree program in the integrated cropping systems typical of the surrounding Columbia Basin arid lands region; the opening of a Food and Environmental Quality Laboratory to monitor local use of pesticides and other substances; the presence on campus of the Cooperative Extension Services District Office, covering eleven counties in the area; and close links with the WSU Agriculture Research and Extension Center at nearby Prosser. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the current effort to develop a standardized data set, or suite of digital video sequences, that can be used for test and evaluation of digital video motion detectors (VMDs) for exterior applications. We have drawn from an extensive video database of typical application scenarios to assemble a comprehensive data set. These data, some existing for many years on analog videotape, have been converted to a reproducible digital format and edited to generate test sequences several minutes long for many scenarios. Sequences include non-alarm video, intrusions and nuisance alarm sources, taken with a variety of imaging sensors including monochrome CCD cameras and infrared (thermal) imaging cameras, under a variety of daytime and nighttime conditions. The paper presents an analysis of the variables and estimates the complexity of a thorough data set. Some of this video data test has been digitized for CD-ROM storage and playback. We are considering developing a DVD disk for possible use in screening and testing VMDs prior to government testing and deployment. In addition, this digital video data may be used by VMD developers for further refinement or customization of their product to meet specific requirements. These application scenarios may also be used to define the testing parameters for future procurement qualification. A personal computer may be used to play back either the CD-ROM or the DVD video data. A consumer electronics-style DVD player may be used to replay the DVD disk. This paper also discusses various aspects of digital video storage including formats, resolution, CD-ROM and DVD storage capacity, formats, editing and playback [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The nation's first distance learning Graduate Certificate and Master's degree program as well as undergraduate courses in gerontology were developed at the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California. This article describes the beginning of the distance education program with the formation of our interactive multimedia division called Ageworks, faculty concerns about online education, faculty and student benefits, and changes in technology and costs over the first three years of program development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study of refugees and forced migration is a growing field. However, few specialized reference sources are available to help in the research process. This article describes the evolution of refugee and forced migration studies, identifies several factors that render it a challenging field to research, and highlights a variety of Internet-based and other electronic resources that can be used to locate monographs, periodicals, grey literature, and current information. A brief bibliography of reference materials in print is also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After the novel, and subsequently cinema privileged narrative as the key form of cultural expression of the modern age, the computer age introduces its correlate — database. Why does new media favour database form over others? Can we explain ist popularity by analysing the specificity of the digital medium and of computer programming? What is the relationship between database and another form, which has traditionally dominated human culture — narrative? In addressing these questions, I discuss the connection between computer's ontology — the way software represents the world — and the new cultural forms privileged by computer culture such as database. I propose that computerisation of culture involves projection of two fundamental parts of computer software — data structures and algorithms — onto the cultural sphere. Thus CD-ROMs and Web databases are cultural manifestations of one half of this ontology — data structures; while new media narratives are manifestations of the second part — algorithms. I conclude by proposing that in computer culture database and narrative do not have the same status. Given that on the level of data organisation most new media objects are databases, it is not surprising that on the level of form database also dominates new media culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interactive CD-ROM program designed to reduce adolescent substance use was developed and evaluated. The program uses video vignettes to teach refusal skills and socially acceptable responses to substance use situations, specifically offers of marijuana. In a randomized pretest-to-posttest experiment with 74 public school students from six classes in three high schools, significant changes were observed at posttest on (1) the adolescent's personal efficacy to refuse the offer of marijuana, (2) the adolescent's intention to refuse marijuana if offered, and (3) the adolescent's perceptions of the social norms associated with substance use and the importance of respecting another's decision to refuse a drug offer. In addition, adolescents in the treatment condition were able to recall approximately 50% of the portrayed refusal strategies. Findings are discussed with regard to the potential benefits of an interactive multimedia approach for conducting substance use interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the authors, Historic Parishes of England and Wales aims to provide one possible solution to 'a major lacuna militating against the effective exploitation of many post-medieval to mid-Victorian historical sources collected by local administrative areas.' That is 'the lack of information on the boundaries of those administrative areas: the so-called "historic" or "ancient" parishes of England and Wales.' There is no doubt that this is indeed a problem, and that such information will find a wide potential audience. As they admirably illustrate in the accompanying book, parish boundaries have been some of the most enduring and stable organising units, certainly formed by the thirteenth century and largely unchanged until the nineteenth. However, a series of Victorian parliamentary acts sought to rationalise the parochial pattern, and no national sources exist that record the status quo preceding these changes. Kain and Oliver point to an impressive number of historians of locally compiled sources who would benefit from reliable information on these pre-Victorian boundaries, and their list is by no means exhaustive. The core of the package is a database of 'metadata', intended for use with either Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Excel, which records the character of each administrative unit mapped, and the origins of the evidence for its boundaries. Three CDs contain this database in addition to maps of the 'historic' parish boundaries of England that can be read using Acrobat Reader, with the necessary reader software supplied. A further six CDs contain those same maps saved as three separate interactive layers, to be viewed using Adobe Illustrator but this software is not included.

The CD is designed to be read using most standard web browsers and is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems. Occasionally in order to view a diagram you are transported into Adobe Acrobat, a copy of which is on the CD. The CD is the culmination of a community based project based on the medieval abbey at Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, England. According to the sleeve of the CD the project was paid for by a Royal Society and British Association Millennium Award, which was funded by the Millennium Commission to 'encourage people's understanding of science, engineering and technology in the community'. The science in question largely involves the small-scale, perhaps even surgical, use of resistance, magnetic and ground penetrating radar (GPR). The project, however, had a more interesting agenda, one that involves the testing of an archaeological problem. In short, the Archaeological Field Unit (AFU) of Cambridgeshire County Council found that there were competing hypotheses concerning the location of the former church on the now-ruined abbey site. The CD pieces together the evidence for the church, collected with the help of the children at the school that now occupies the site. The CD can be seen as part of the remit to reach the wider community that also involved open days, seminars and a web site.

This book/CD-Rom publication seems intended to enhance the 'method and theory' segment in many undergraduate archaeology degrees, to escape from traditional drawings of sections and information on various digging styles. As such it is a bold move, especially when budgetary considerations also feature writ large in the planning - as indeed they must on all real excavations.

The CD-Rom format has been around for some time now with CD-Rom readers a standard fitting on even the most basic PC. The strength of this technology is that it enables large amounts of data to be stored (650-700 MB) on a reliable, portable and economical medium. The character of data stored is virtually only dependant on developments in the hardware and software used to generate and manage datasets, whether numeric arrays, databases, digital imagery or multimedia. These features have made it a popular mode for a diverse range of interactive educational, reference and entertainment software. As a medium that can hold thousand of 'pages' of text, spreadsheets, colour images, animations and digital movies, CD-Rom technology also offers obvious benefits for the delivery of the diversity of data produced by archaeological research. It is surprising then that projects such as the bilingual Cornaline de l'Inde/Carnelian in India are few and far between.

It was whilst putting together a piece of work on 'The Romans in South Gloucestershire' for primary school children that I was asked to review Journeys in the Roman Empire. So often one is left disappointed by the quality or content of a supposedly educational CD-ROM, even when those contributing should provide a high-class product. It is a rare beast that combines exceptional images with a high and enjoyable educational element and academic rigour. Thankfully, this CD-ROM is just such a product. Assembled under the auspices of the British Museum, Verulamium Museum and Channel Four Television, Journeys in the Roman Empire is a CD-ROM that could well prove invaluable to schools studying Rome as part of Key Stage II (8-11 year olds) of the National Curriculum. My delight in finding such a good piece of work was tempered by the knowledge that, in spite of my best efforts, any 'rival' would perhaps seem limited by comparison.

This article outlines a personal view on the content and production of a CD-Rom on the Roman world produced by The British Museum, Channel 4, Verulamium Museum and Braunarts: Journeys in the Roman Empire. I discuss some of the benefits of and problems with multimedia production and outline feedback from various evaluation projects of the CD-Rom. I also briefly discuss the future of CD-Roms in the face of a rapidly expanding internet with reference to other multimedia projects at The British Museum.

The megalithic monuments of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region of northern Germany are relatively well known from a conventional archaeological perspective, having attracted scientific attention for well over a century. Cornelius Holtorf approaches them from an entirely different viewpoint, in a search for answers to three questions: How were the megaliths of the area socially and culturally meaningful, and how are they meaningful today? Are there cultural memories which helped the megaliths acquire cultural values in later prehistory? Did later prehistoric people in the area connect the megaliths with their ancestors by endowing them with particular interests, concepts, and ideas? The results of his labours appear not in printed form, but as a hypermedia document presented both on a CD-Rom and on the Web. He presented his doctoral dissertation in this format as well (see Internet Archaeology 6), on the grounds that this was an effective way of presenting what he describes as an open-ended inquiry. The author tells us that he will continue to add to the research at intervals and when the urge moves him. One is somewhat at a loss as to how to describe this multimedia presentation, but clearly the author considers it an invitation to explore, a database with freeflowing links to all manner of topics.

Archaeologists agonise about using the experience of people living in the present to help them think about people's lives in the past. Beneath the rhetoric, however, lies the simple fact that if you study the work of anthropologists, you are confronted with real individuals and communities. The practise of learning from such communities can be particularly liberating if you mix with them yourself, as I learnt when writing a book about Stonehenge (Pitts 2001).

How impressive is Olduvai Gorge? For me, enough to remember for a lifetime. For Clive Gamble, who visited recently, far more than in any photograph. For generations of students, though, Olduvai is little more than a 'site' illustrated by photographs in an introductory textbook. How then do we get across the scale and importance of Olduvai? Jeanne Sept has addressed this in a CD which allows exploration of Olduvai from a number of different perspectives, including geology, history and animal life as well as the archaeology. Sept, based at Indiana University, was well placed to do this, as a palaeoanthropologist widely experienced not only in human origins research but in the range of African environments that are relevant to the background of hominisation. Indiana also has a long history of fostering electronic approaches to learning, establishing IHETS (Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication system as early as 1967 (a Conference at which Sept spoke; see also http://www.ind.net/). Not surprisingly, Indiana University has a Teaching and Learning Technologies Lab. which collaborated in producing the CD.

Oral history, by its very nature, lends itself well to nonprint media. An interview starts as a spoken dialogue or performance which is situated within a specific context and is [...]

In 1990, the London Chapter of the Ontario Archaeological Society published an anthology of invited articles dealing with the entire range of aboriginal cultural occupations in southwestern Ontario. Because of its goals and content, and its striking cover colour, the book was quickly nicknamed. Since that time, the 'Green Bible' has become the primary reference work for all archaeologists working in this region, and an indispensible aid for research in adjacent parts of Canada and the United States. The CD provides the entire text of the Green Bible, with links to references, maps and many illustrations of artifacts. A pull-down index, accessible from the tool bar at any point, provides links to chapters.

'Beowulf? .... that's by Seamus Heaney. Sorry we're sold out.' It is hardly surprising that Heaney's new translation of Beowulf should seem like a completely new work. It has been a very long time since Grendel's mother was on the archaeology reading list, let alone among the best sellers. The new translation has a parallel, less popular but in many respects more interesting, product from the British Library in the shape of Electronic Beowulf, a CD-Rom (or two) which provides virtual access to the medieval manuscript itself.

In an as yet unpublished paper on computer-assisted visual anthropology, Michael D Fischer and David Zeitlyn [1] describe a 'book model' approach to multimedia, not strictly sequenced, but essentially consisting of a main text with hyperlinks to supporting information. At first glance this CD-ROM appears to conform to this model: a dominant text, in this case a complete digitization of Tim Asch and Napoleon Chagnon's 1974 film The Ax Fight, supplemented with a variety of additional information in the form of still photographs, genealogies of the main participants, maps, diagrams, short essays and transcriptions. In short, a main text plus footnotes and appendixes. If this were so, then Yanomamö Interactive would be a valuable but rather limited product, useful really only to those aquainted with the film who wished to learn a little more about it and its content.

Aquest article planteja una reflexió sobre les possibilitats dels sistemes interactius multimèdia en general i dels CD-ROM en particular per tractar qualsevol mena de qüestió relacionada amb les arts plàstiques. S’analitza la confluència de mitjans diversos que planteja el multimèdia i com han anat evolucionant els sistemes interactius d’acord amb la tecnologia, amb èmfasi particular en els productes sobre art. Finalment una anàlisi de diversos CD-ROM ens porta a la conclusió que amb sistemes interactius es poden fer, com en qualsevol altre mitjà i amb les seves característiques úniques, obres neutres o obres més personals i compromeses.

Aquest article planteja una reflexió sobre les possibilitats dels sistemes interactius multimèdia en general i dels CD-ROM en particular per tractar qualsevol mena de qüestió relacionada amb les arts plàstiques. S’analitza la confluència de mitjans diversos que planteja el multimèdia i com han anat evolucionant els sistemes interactius d’acord amb la tecnologia, amb èmfasi particular en els productes sobre art. Finalment una anàlisi de diversos CD-ROM ens porta a la conclusió que amb sistemes interactius es poden fer, com en qualsevol altre mitjà i amb les seves característiques úniques, obres neutres o obres més personals i compromeses.

The CD-ROM Excavating Occaneechi Town: Archaeology of an Eighteenth-Century Indian Village in North Carolina has become a familiar site on my desk in the last few months. Not, I admit, because I have been avidly scouring its content on a regular basis, but because I have been putting off writing this review. A wealth of information can be an intimidating thing.

Cornelius Holtorf's article in Internet Archaeology, Issue 6 (1999) is a strident call for a radical application of hypermedia techniques to archaeological publishing. Like Holtorf, I recently produced and submitted a Ph.D. dissertation on electronic medium entitled Simulation and Modelling for Anthropological Archaeology (Costopoulos, 1999). My experience of the process, however, was quite different from Holtorf's. While his work concentrates on the hypertextuality of electronic media, mine tends to show the advantages of mass storage and easy access which are inherent to the media. My dissertation is a quite traditionally linear text which is intended to be read sequentially. My effort points, however, to the possibility of including non-textual documents and massive amounts of raw data in an academic publication. I was able to include in my dissertation a working version of my simulation as well as 150 000 pages of simulated data on which the analysis was based. These would clearly have had to be left out of a strictly paper document. In response to Holtorf, I am offering up a short account of the production and submission of my CD dissertation, concentrating on the differences and similarities between the processes we experienced as well as the approaches we used. I plan to present electronic publishing as a natural development of the communication of scientific results rather than as a hypertext revolution.

This paper outlines why and how I have used hypermedia technology and the World Wide Web in the construction of my Ph.D. thesis, how the end result compares with my initial aims and what I would do differently if I could start again. I also discuss how I persuaded my supervisor and the University of Wales to accept a doctoral thesis written in HTML and submitted on CD-Rom, and how my examiners coped before and during the viva. There are also sections about my perspective of the problems and potentials of hypermedia writing in future archaeology. Among the most important challenges are, in my view, questions of permanent accessibility and necessary changes of reading habits. The benefits of publishing without commercial publishers, and making use of non-linear writing, expressing intertextuality, and keeping the text open-ended and thus 'alive' will become obvious when they are used more radically than is often the case now.

Following on from the impressive development of the new HSBC Money Gallery in 1997, the British Museum has launched into the world of electronic publishing with the World of Money, an "interactive exploration of money worldwide from ancient times to the present day". Intended for ages ten to adult, the CD promises "a mine of information about the use, form, history and importance of money around the globe", and "fun and information for all the family". Reviewing in a Mac-unfriendly environment, I have been able to run the CD only on a PC. On a 166Mhz MMX with 32Mb RAM and a 12x CD it runs impressively quickly, with no more than two or three seconds of the "loading new page" display when switching between different parts of the program. Minimum requirements are listed as a 486 with 8Mb RAM, 40Mb free hard disk space, Windows 3.11 or Windows 95, 4x CD drive, 1Mb 256 colours graphics card, 16-bit Sound Blaster compatible sound card, and a VGA monitor. Minimum requirements for the Mac are listed as System 7, 603e processor, 16Mb RAM, 40MB free hard disk space, 6x CD drive, 1Mb video card and Apple monitor or Multisync with adaptor. The CD opens with an image of the British Museum portico, through which we are taken into the foyer, complete with the sound effects of massed ranks of tourists. We have four options available on a lectern, or by turning left, right or going upstairs: History of Money, Information Centre, Activities, and Options. Clicking on a large question mark brings up the Help screens (Figure 1).

The excavation between 1986 and 1995 of a complete Early and Middle-Saxon settlement at West Heslerton, North Yorkshire, England, by The Landscape Research Centre on behalf of English Heritage (Archaeology Commissions Programme) remains one of the largest excavation programmes undertaken in Britain. This excavation, following on from the excavation of an associated cemetery situated only 350m to the north-east of the settlement, forms part of a broader project in landscape archaeology. The Heslerton Parish Project was designed to examine the evolution of the human landscape on the southern margins of the Vale of Pickering from the Mesolithic to the present day. The excavation covered an area in excess of 20ha, examined using open area techniques. The project has been the testing ground for a number of innovative techniques, particularly in the area of applied archaeological computing. These innovations included the use of hand-held computers for field recording (introduced in 1984) and the individual recording of all the finds, the location of each being recorded in 3D using initially an Electronic Distance Meter (EDM) and later a Total Station. These approaches to data collection were supported with the addition of digital 3D site plans, often digitised in the field, and the application of high-resolution magnetometry as an aid to excavation. The data set includes: ◦Context Database (27,000 Records) ◦Object Database (90,000 Records) ◦Animal Bone Database (>800,000 Bone Fragments) ◦Environmental Database ◦Digitised Plan incorporating over 15,000 individual drawing objects ◦Drawing Database ◦Photographic Database ◦Stratigraphic Matrices ◦Geophysical and other survey data The examination, analysis and interpretation of this large data set as part of the post-excavation and reporting process combined with the need to distribute as much data as possible to the many contributing specialists pose a number of challenging problems. These are exacerbated by the large scale of the excavation and consequently the size of the data sets. This is a challenge in the best possible sense.

'Poggio Colla. The 1995 Season Sampler' is a single CD-ROM for the Macintosh published by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Southern Methodist University. It contains details of the first season of excavation at Poggio Colla, an Etruscan hilltop s ettlement in the far north-east of Tuscany. The excavations in 1995 were directed by Greg Warden of Southern Methodist University and Susan Kane of Oberlin College. The CD-ROM contains a multimedia presentation and associated text and image files.

Informação é conhecimento, poder e comunicação. A informação exerce influência direta sobre as diversas atividades humanas: econômicas, educacionais, sociais, culturais e políticas. O avanço da tecnologia projetou o computador, o CD-ROM e as redes como meios primordiais na coleta, armazenagem e disseminação da informação. Se se reconhece, por um lado, o progresso da informação, da produção editorial, das telecomunicações e da teleinformática, que tornou o acesso à informação mais rápido, mais amplo e mais preciso; por outro lado, há a necessidade de capacitar o usuário para ser mais especializado, mais independente e melhor informado. Daí a importância de investir na infra-estrutura da informação e capacitar o usuário para o próximo milênio.