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7.  National Challenge Applications

 Since FY 1994 one of the goals of the HPCC Program has been to  address the National Challenges,fundamental applications with  broad and direct impact on the Nation's competitiveness and the well-being of its citizens.  These Challenges rely on the computing,  communications, and informationinfrastructure technologies  developed by the Program and in many cases also on development of  GrandChallenge applications.  Two of the National Challenge  applications described below, DigitalLibraries and Electronic  Commerce, are fundamental enabling applications that will be used  by manyof the other National Challenges. 
**Digital Libraries**
Wide use of library information requires both the information itself  and convenient access methods. The past year has seen  unprecedented growth in the amount of information available  electronicallyand user access to it.  This growth has resulted from  several developments, some key ones of whichwere either funded by  the HPCC Program or were begun by HPCC agencies prior to the  creation of theProgram and continued since then.  They include: 
- The Internet and its successful exponential growth  (described in Section II.1.)   Client/server technology in which a user at a workstation (a client) could connect to a remotecomputer (a server) 
The World Wide Web (WWW), providing uniform mechanisms (using URLs, html, and http) foridentifying and accessing information located on servers throughout the Internet 
(described earlier) 
NCSA Mosaic, a browser that provides a single easy-to-use feature-rich flexible and extensibleenvironment for accessing WWW files 
(described earlier) 
***Joint Digital Libraries Research Initiative*
In FY 1994 NSF, ARPA, and NASA jointly funded a four-year digital  libraries research and technologiesdevelopment activity.  Awards  were made to six consortia, each led by a university and including more than 10 other organizations such as libraries, museums,  publishers, schools, and computing andcommunications industry  companies. 
The initiative's objective is to advance the means to collect, store,  and organize information indigital forms, and make that information  generally available for searching, retrieval, and processinglocally  and via communication networks -- all in user-friendly ways.  The  projects address relatedresearch issues such as human-computer  interaction, pricing and charging, privacy and security,collections  management and archiving, librarianship, and user evaluation.  The  projects also containextensive outreach and education components.   The six projects are: 
- "The Environment Library:  A Prototype of a Scalable, Intelligent, Distributed Library"  led bythe University of California at Berkeley.  This project will produce a prototype digital libraryfocusing on the California environment.  The information will include not only environmental impactstatements and reports, but also photos, videos, computer models, county general plans, maps, anddatabases of environmental information.  The multimedia information will be made available through adatabase-oriented client-server system to users engaged in environmental planning and studies at thestate and local levels.  Research thrusts include automated indexing, intelligent retrieval and searchprocesses, data base technology, and data compression and communication tools.  http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~wilensky/proj-html/proj-html.html
The University of Michigan Digital Libraries Research Project is creating a large evolvingmultimedia testbed of Earth and space science data.  Its contents will range from page images tointeractive, compound documents, and eventually to real-time interaction with scientific data, replaysof collaborative sessions, and human expertise.  The research will focus on building a cooperating setof software agents -- user interface, mediator, and collection interface agents.  Potentiallyconnecting thousands of users and information repositories, the system will be designed to systematizethe vast amount of information on the Internet on an array of topics. 
http://sils.umich.edu/UMDL/HomePage.html 
The Alexandria Project is based at the University of California at    Santa Barbara.  It focuseson providing easy access to large and diverse collections of maps, images, and other pictorialmaterial as well as a full range of new electronic library services.  The initial objective is to turna large cartographic collection -- now totaling more than 4 million items -- into electronicallyaccessible forms, and to build a system that allows users to locate maps and other spatially-indexedmaterials in geographically dispersed digital libraries and databases.  The testbed architecture isdivided into user interface, catalog, storage, and ingest components.  Content-    based search willbe developed for the catalog component. 
http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu
The objective of the Stanford Integrated Digital Library Project (SIDLP) is to develop theenabling technologies for a single integrated "virtual" library capable of providing uniform access toa large number of emerging networked information sources and collections.  Targeted informationresources range from personal information collections to collections that one finds today inconventional libraries and to the large data collections shared by scientists.  The main objective isto build the "glue" that will make worldwide collections usable as a unified entity, by people with awide range of expertise -- all in a scalable and economically viable fashion. 
http://www-diglib.stanford.edu 
The University of Illinois project will include a customized version of NCSA Mosaic.  Prototypeswill be built to make library information readily accessible to Internet browsers by forming the"Interspace" in which information is linked coherently and displayed in appropriate formats. Initially focusing on engineering and science journals and magazines, the comprehensive collectionwill contain full articles, including texts, pictures, tables, equations, and references.
http://www.grainger.uiuc.edu/dli 
The Informedia Project led by Carnegie Mellon University is developing an interactive digitalvideo library system.  Speech, image, and natural language understanding technologies are used tobuild the library corpus and to perform content-based search and retrieval of audio and videomaterials.  The library testbed will initially contain 1,000 hours of video from public television andeducational archives.  Early users of the library will include primary and secondary school students. 
http://fuzine.mt.cs.cmu.edu/im/im-proposal.html
***Digital Library Technology Projects*
NASA funds R&D in digital library technology to support access to  and distribution of remote sensingimages and data, particularly  scalable applications in both the public and private sectors.  In addition to participating in the joint initiative described  immediately above, NASA funded sevendigital library technology  projects in FY 1994 and early FY 1995.  Awardees include public  schools,museums, colleges and universities, and small and large  businesses.  The awards follow.  The URL is: 
http://sdcd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ISTO/DLT/dlt_projects.html
- Universal Spatial Data Access Consortium (Bell Communications Research) -- Will develop toolsfor locating, accessing, browsing, transporting, and reusing NASA imagery and other geospatial data. Tools will integrate existing public domain software with new software for graphical user interfacedesign, data screening, data compression, and distributed database technology.  http://superbook.bellcore.com/USDAC/home_page.html 
Retrieval of Digital Images by Means of Content Search (IBM) -- Will improve the speed ofimage-retrieval algorithms for content-based search.  Current systems are limited by either the kindof search that they can perform, the size of database they can effectively support, or both.  Thetestbed will test the technology on up to 100 GB of information. 
http://www.ibm.com/News/950222/nasa-00.html 
Reaching NASA from Home:  Internet Access via Cable TV (Computer Science Corporation) -- Willconduct a field trial showing how various pieces of the existing infrastructure can be integrated toprovide Internet access to every household served by cable TV. 
http://sdcd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ISTO/DLT/abstracts.html
Creating the Public Connection:  Interactive Experiences with Real-    Time Earth and SpaceScience Data (Rice University) -- Will link the Houston Museum of Natural Science, with over 2 millionvisitors annually, to Rice University, a major hub on the Internet, so that NASA near-real-time dataand imagery can be transmitted from Rice to the Museum and the public in the form of planetariumprograms, computer-based interactive kiosks, and space and Earth science problem-solving simulations. 
http://space.rice.edu/hmns/connect.html 
Project Horizon (University of Illinois) -- Will provide easy-to-use scalable digital librarytechnologies for the public to locate, integrate, move, and analyze both Earth and space science dataover the Internet.  Activities include developing a "scientific data server" that integrates data inmany common formats, enhancing client software such as Mosaic, and R&D on scalable servers andinformation systems. 
http://sdcd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ISTO/DLT/abstracts.html
Compression and Progressive Transmission of Digital Images (University of Wisconsin ) -- Toprovide a new compression scheme and transmission protocol along with servers and visualizationsoftware.  A prototype has reduced bandwidth requirements by factors as large as 100. 
http://jerry.sal.wisc.edu/~jwp/can.html 
SAIRE -- A Scalable Agent-based Information Retrieval Engine (Loral AeroSys) -- Will developsoftware to provide both expert and novice users access to metadata about Earth and space sciencedatasets available from the U.S. Global Change Master Directory over the Internet.  With the aid ofintelligent software agents, this software will accept simple descriptions of a request in a domain-   restricted natural language format, structured query, or menus, then correct errors or add missinginformation, learn the user's preferences, and shield the user from complex querying mechanisms. 
http://sdcd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ISTO/DLT/abstracts.html 
NASA awards to support public use of Earth and space science data over theInternet are described below.  In late FY  1995, NASA will solicit for a second round of digitallibrary  technology cooperative agreements and grants with industrial and  academic partners.  Theawards are to be made in FY 1996. 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/CAN2.html 
***Satellite Weather Data Dissemination*
NOAA's Satellite Active Archive is a digital library of real-time and  historical satellite imagesfrom NOAA's Polar-orbiting Operational  Environmental Satellites (POES).  The two-TB (terabyte)library  resides on an IBM robotic tape storage system that can be upgraded  to handle 50 TB. 
Users can search inventories of satellite images, preview  representative Earth images, and downloadimages for further  processing and analysis.  Applications include weather analysis and  forecasting,climate research and prediction, global sea surface  temperature measurements, atmospheric soundingsof temperature  and humidity, ocean dynamics research, volcanic eruption  monitoring, forest firedetection, and global vegetation analysis. 
http://www.saa.noaa.gov/
***Environmental Decision Support*
In FY 1996 EPA plans to offer research grants to stimulate  development of technologies supportingintelligent interactive  browsing, retrieval, and integrated analysis of large distributed collections of heterogeneous environmental data.  Research targeted  to address data storage,indexing, query specification and  processing, filtering and summarization, and interoperability of information management systems will enable more integrated  environmental decision support and riskassessment. 
***Computer Science Technical Reports Testbeds*
Under ARPA funding, CNRI is developing methods for linking  distributed heterogeneous electroniclibraries; creating an  experimental testbed of Computer Science Technical Reports and  relatedinformation; exploring alternate network-based search,  display, and retrieval techniques; andinvestigating techniques for  electronic copyright management in a networked environment.  This effort is being carried out in collaboration with five universities  and the Library of Congress.  InFY 1995 the project is  demonstrating: 
- Prototypes of distributed digital library technologies including techniques for scalable storagemanagement and data repositories, persistent object bases, and multimedia objects  A copyright management system providing proof of concept of fully electronic copyrightregistration, recordation, rights transfer, and management 
http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/home/cstr.html 
***Unified Medical Language System (UMLS)*
The disparity in biomedical terminology used to describe related  concepts in different digitallibraries prevents researchers and  practitioners from retrieving and integrating relevant biomedical information from different sources such as biomedical literature,  medical databases, expert knowledgesystems, and clinical records.   To address this situation, NIH/NLM has a collaborative program to create a Unified Medical Language System.  This program, which now  has 500 experimental usersworldwide, will help health  professionals retrieve electronic biomedical information from a  varietyof sources, regardless of how the concepts are expressed.   The UMLS Metathesaurus is the core of theVA Clinical Lexicon  currently being tested by more than 40 VA hospitals in the context of theElectronic Patient Record.  The goal is to make it easy for  users to link information from patientrecord systems, bibliographic  databases, factual databases, and expert systems.  NLM is using  UMLSto provide a single point of information access.  In FY 1996 it  plans to have fully operationalintelligent-agent-mediated multi- database searching available to all NLM users with Internet access. 
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/factsheets.dir/UMLS.html
***CALS Library*
In FY 1995 and FY 1996 NIST plans to establish a demonstration  library that incorporates robustsearch methods and provides access  to information on CALS (Continuous Acquisition Life-cycle Support) to serve manufacturing interests. 
**Public Access to Government Information**
The following are HPCC-funded digital libraries that reside on Internet/WWW servers accessible usingbrowsers such as Mosaic. 
***Earth Data*
In FY 1994 NASA established a Remote Sensing Public Access Center  to provide access to informationabout numerous digital library  technology and remote sensing database application projects.  This Center is a combined effort of government, large and small  companies, and universities. 
http://www.rspac.ivv.nasa.gov/ 
At the end of FY 1994 and in early FY 1995 NASA funded 18 projects  for remote sensing databaseapplication projects through grants and  cooperative agreements.  Awardees include numerous museums, schools and school districts, universities, and large and small  companies.  The awards are: 
- Athena (Science Applications International Corporation) -- Athena will develop curricular andresource material using geophysical and other data sets accessed over the Internet and prepare thismaterial to form part of the science, math, and technology curricula for grades K-12 now underdevelopment.  http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/Athena.html
BADGER
 (Lockheed Missile and Space Corporation) -- In collaboration with Smart Valley, Inc., alocally-based team led by Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratories will develop the Bay Area DigitalGeoResource (BADGER).  This non-profit community resource will be an on-line visualization system forgeographic data of the San Francisco Bay Area developed from satellite and aerial images, maps, anddatabases.  The system will be accessible over the Internet to municipalities, utilities, and othercommercial, environmental, and non-profit interests.  Environmental features, underground services,property lines, municipal zones, census data, and demographic information will all be depicted in BADGER's multi-layer visualization system. 
 http://www.svi.org/badger.html 
Dissemination of Atmospheric Sciences and Space Science Data and Information for K-12 and thePublic (University of Washington) -- A Pacific Northwest approach with special emphasis on productsfor use in science and mathematics instruction. 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/Puget.html
Earth System Science Community Curriculum Testbed (ECOlogic Corporation) -- The Curriculumfacilitates interactions and communications among members of the Earth System Science Community byproviding curricula designed to guide student investigations of the Earth system, and access to data,tips, techniques and guides, tools, and expert support. 
http://www.circles.org/ESSCC.html 
Emergency and Crisis Management (University of North Texas) -- Develop Internet applicationdemonstrating the usefulness of NASA's remote sensing data in mitigation, preparation, response, andrecovery from natural and technological disasters 
http://pearl.ias.unt.edu/ias/projects.html 
Enhanced Access for Forest Management Planning (University of Minnesota) -- Use LANDSAT images,digitized aerial photography, and ground-based forest databases to manage forest resources 
http://wwwrsl.forestry.umn.edu:10000/fornet/
Enhancing the Teaching of Science in Elementary Education through the Application of NASA RemoteSensing Databases and Internet Technology (The Analytic Science Corporation) -- Develop weather-   based curriculum for grades K-6 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/FIFE.html
Exploring the Environment (Wheeling Jesuit College, WV) -- The NASA Classroom of the Future(COTF) program at the College is engaged in a three-year effort to develop Environment Earth Sciencemodules.  The modules will demonstrate educational application of NASA's remote sensing technologiesand will be available over the Internet/WWW.  While NASA and associated agencies hold terabytes ofremote sensing data that can be used to support educational activities over the Internet, few teachersor students know of the resources or are able to access them.  This project will enable access tothese databases and other near-real-time information through learning modules. 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/COTF.html
Flood Management Enhancement Using Remotely Sensed Data (SENTAR, Inc.) -- The SENTAR CooperativeAgreement will use remotely-sensed data from the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) to enhancethe capabilities of flood disaster management at the Alabama Emergency Management Agency (AEMA). 
http://iquest.com/~sentar/Flood_Management.html
NASA Digital Image Data Distribution for Education, Public Access and Tourism in Hawaii(University of Hawaii and TerraSystems, Inc.) -- Current data and images of the Hawaiian Islands overthe Internet for use by the tourism industry and education, television, and researchers 
http://satftp.soest.hawaii.edu/space/hawaii/
Passport to Knowledge:  Electronic Field Trips to Scientific Frontiers Via Interactive TV andthe Internet (The Childhood Project, Inc.) -- Destinations include the Antarctic, the Kuiper AirborneObservatory (at NASA Ames Research Center), and the Hubble Space Telescope. 
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/livefrom/passport.html
Public Access to Earth and Space Science Data via Television (WRC-    TV) -- Developvisualizations of current Earth and space science data for inclusion in daily weather and news reportsand for use in science classes with Internet access 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/WRC-TV.html
Satellite Data Driven Real-time Agricultural Management Decision Aids (University of Wisconsin)-- Develop four end-user applications:  (1) irrigation scheduling for on-farm use, (2) irrigationelectrical-    demand prediction system for power generation decisions by utility companies, (3)estimation of the duration of leaf wetness leading to foliar disease prediction in potatoes, and (4)prediction of frost damage for protection of cranberry crops. 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/Wisconsin.html
A Science Infrastructure for Access to Earth and Space Science Data Through the Nation's ScienceMuseums (University of California at Berkeley) -- This project is creating a national ScienceInformation Infrastructure (SII) linking the Nation's science museums to each other.  Theinfrastructure is founded on an established framework of robust Internet connectivity spanning thecountry between public resource centers in science museums, which are linked closely with researchcenters.  The information is made available to the community through the resource centers created incollaboration with local teachers.  In turn teachers will be assisted in extracting information fromthe centers and applying it to developing science curricula. 
http://cea-ftp.cea.berkeley.edu/Education/SII/HomePage.html
Surfing the Net:  Aquatic Applications of Archival Satellite Imagery (Gulf of Maine Aquarium) --Investigate the land/sea interface, oceanographic applications, and the effects of human activities onthe environment for grades K-12 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/Surfing.html
Using Science and the Internet as Everyday Classroom Tools (Smithsonian AstrophysicalObservatory) -- One aim of this project is to make software available to elementary school students sothey can use computers and the Internet to experience the essential quality of scientific research. To do so, research-quality astronomical software is being modified for the K-12 classroom.  Thisincludes the widely-used SAO image display program and astronomical analysis programs that areappropriate for elementary students. 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/SAO.html
VolcanoWorld (University of North Dakota) -- This project will establish interactive informationcenters with Internet-updated current information on volcanoes in the U.S., around the world, and onother planets.  An education testbed in Grand Forks, ND, schools will be established for grades 4-8. Visitor information kiosks will be established at Mt. St. Helens and Hawaii Volcanoes National Parks. 
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/ 
Windows to the Universe (University of Michigan) -- An Earth and Space Science Internet-basedactive-learning system for the general public with simulation-guided animation and voice overlays formuseums and libraries. 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/awards/Windows.html
NASA awards in support of digital library technology are described earlier. In late FY 1995 NASA will solicit for a second  round of remote-sensing database applicationcooperative  agreements and grants with industry and academic partners.  The  awards are to be made inFY 1996. 
http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/CAN2.html 
NOAA is the steward of environmental data and information for the  Nation.  These data represent theenvironmental history of the  country since its inception.  Over this past year significant amounts of the data have become available on line, either through direct  access or on-line orders.  The URLof the NOAA Data Catalog  containing more than 5,000 data sets is: 
http://www.esdim.noaa.gov/NOAA-Catalog/NOAA-Catalog.html
The three NOAA National Data Centers manage and disseminate these  data.  Over the past year each hasexplored new ways of providing  data using HPCC technologies.  The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has developed and put on line the Global Climate Perspectives  System that lets usersmanipulate climate data and see the results  on line.  The National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)provides a  broad range of data from the surface of the sun to the geophysics of  the Earth and fromrecent DMSP satellite images back to  paleoclimate data.  The National Oceanographic Data Center(NODC)  provides on-line access to the most recently acquired oceanographic  data from sources aroundthe world.  Their URLs are: 
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ 
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdc.html 
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/ 
In addition, NOAA has more than 40 locations disseminating on-line  information to the Nation. 
In FY 1996 NOAA plans to develop a data dissemination pilot that  uses advanced data access tools onthe Internet and makes select  heterogeneous NOAA environmental data, distributed geographically  atNOAA data centers, accessible to users in a more timely and  complete way. 
***Education*
The Department of Education (ED) has developed the Internet-based  AskERIC (Educational ResourcesInformation Center) that provides  (1) a question and answer service; (2) a Virtual Library of teacher resources such as lesson plans, print and video materials (from CNN,  the Discovery Channel, and PBS,for example), and research  information; and (3) the National Parent Information Network,  developedin conjunction with the National Urban League and others,  that contains material to help parentssupport child development.  FY  1995 and FY 1996 efforts address expanding the Virtual Library to include multimedia and hypermedia, completing the digital ERIC  bibliographic database, andavailability of full text of documents  indexed in the ERIC bibliographic database in FY 1995. AskERIC's e- mail address is: 
[email protected]
In FY 1995 and FY 1996 ED's Office of Educational Research and  Improvement (OERI) is building a coreset of searchable databases  containing current R&D activity, promising and exemplary programs, educational statistics, and departmental information accessible via  INet, its InstitutionalCommunications Network.  OERI is exploring  and testing enhancements to Mosaic useful to K-12education and  users with disabilities. 
***Health Care Data*
NLM's computer-based Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval  System (MEDLARS) was established toachieve rapid access to the  Library's vast store of biomedical and health-related information.  Through world-wide communications networks, MEDLARS search  services are available on line toindividuals and institutions.  It is  searched more than eighteen thousand times a day. 
In order to make searching easier and provide a user-friendly way to  use MEDLARS, NLM developedGrateful Med, a PC- and Macintosh- compatible software package.  The availability of Grateful Med, which can take advantage of the rapid communications afforded by  the Internet, has resulted in anupsurge of usage by health  professionals. 
The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is creating  automated systems for storingand analyzing knowledge about  molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetics.  NCBI conducts  researchin advanced methods of computer-based information  processing for analyzing the structure and functionof biologically  important molecules.  It facilitates the use of and coordinates  databases andsoftware by biotechnology researchers and medical  personnel worldwide through Internet access. 
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) provides free CancerFax and  CancerNet (Internet e-mail)information including PDQ (Physician  Data Query) statements on cancer screening, prevention,treatment,  and supportive care (in English and in Spanish); cancer fact sheets;  and cancerliterature.  NCI is developing Internet-accessible  multimedia digital libraries. 
**Electronic Commerce**
NIST and ARPA collaborate in this National Challenge to make  business transactions more efficient andcost effective.  These  transactions include electronic bidding, ordering and payments, and  exchangeof digital product specifications and design data.  The  National Performance Review recommendedharnessing these  technologies for the benefit of the Federal government and U.S.  taxpayers.********************