March 1995 1

Language Barriers Crumble

Help Desk Corner

NASA Thesaurus Terms

RECON Training Dates

participating in the beta test of

the RECONplus system should

contact Gail Hodge at the NASA

Center for AeroSpace Information at (301) 621-0112 or

<ghodge@sti.nasa.gov>.

STI

March 1995 Issue

Continued on page 3

The RECON Replacement Project

recently passed another significant

milestone on its way to a new

system for its users. On January 17,

1995, the project team completed

the acceptance test for BASISplus,

the commercial-off-the-shelf software procured as the basic infrastructure for the new system.

As a result of the planned test,

BASISplus has been formally accepted as the database management

text retrieval system on which the

new system, RECON plus, will be

developed.

The acceptance test phase began

earlier this year with the development of an acceptance test plan

that included three types of testing—testing for mandatory and

secondary requirements using

search scripts, stress testing the system with up to 40 simultaneous

search sessions, and an evaluation

of the ease with which the system

can be installed and maintained.

The final RECONplus system environment was duplicated as much

as possible. The IBM RS 6000/990

UNIX server used in the acceptance

test will be used in the actual system. A BASISplus database was

built to preliminary specifications.

The acceptance test database included approximately 40,000

bibliographic records for technical

reports and 4,000 for contracts.

A team of RECON searchers

trained to use the BASISplus search

commands tested BASISplus for

the mandatory and secondary requirements developed with the

BULLETIN

A publication for users of the NASA scientific and technical information program

RECON Replacement Project Passes Milestone

Surfers Crowd NASA’s

Cyber Beaches

NASA is making its unclassified,

unlimited publications available

on the Internet using the World

Wide Web (WWW). Over

400,000 abstracts and 600 fulltext reports are available to

researchers worldwide. More than

31,000 copies of NASA-authored

publications have been delivered

over the Internet since this new

distribution service started in June

1994.

The National Aeronautics and

Space Act of 1958 charges NASA

to “provide for the widest practicable and appropriate

dissemination of information

concerning...its activities and the

In This Issue

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Scientific and Technical 


Information Office


input from the NASA user community prior to the procurement.

The testing was supported by test

scripts prepared in advance by the

searchers to test each requirement.

Stress testing was performed by executing multiple search sessions

automatically. Each search session

included a series of 25 actual RECON stored searches that were

rewritten into the BASISplus command language.

BASISplus is a database management/text retrieval system that

provides standard Boolean search

functionality, thesaurus and authority file capabilities, search scripting

and various sorting and output options. The development staff at

NASA CASI will build multi-platform interfaces to the database

using BASIS OpenAPI, an application programmer interface.

With the acceptance test behind

them, the RECONplus development staff is modifying the

preliminary database design used

during the testing. Testing and

modifications will continue

throughout the remainder of the

development phase. Extensive internal testing is planned prior to the

release of the system for external

testing in the spring of 1995. The

NASA user community will be involved in the system interface

testing and final acceptance testing

of the RECONplus system.

Additional updates will be provided

to STI Bulletin readers as this important project progresses.

Registered users interested in
March 1995 2

Non-technical Services

• International meeting agendas

and briefings memos and correspondence

• Slide presentations

• Articles from international

newspapers

Prices are determined by the type

of document, language, number of

words, and delivery type (urgent,

rush, standard, or economy) requested. After an initial evaluation

of a document and a free search

for existing translations, the program staff will advise you of your

options regarding cost and delivery time.

For a free document evaluation

and estimate, documents may be

mailed or faxed to NASA CASI.

Fax to (301) 621-0134; mail to

Foreign Literature Translation

Service, 800 Elkridge Landing

Road, Linthicum Heights, MD

21090-2934. For an up-to-date

cost schedule or for answers to

your questions regarding our

translation services, call (301)

621-0127 or (301) 621-0129.

Note: Classified documents are

not handled.

The NASA Access Help

Desk provides hotline help

with search techniques, telecommunications problems,

document requests, and other

queries. Here is a typical Help

Desk question and answer.

How can I order NASA Tech

Briefs?

The NASA Tech Briefs journal is

limited to engineers in U.S.

industry and other technology

transfer agents. Information on a

free subscription to this publication is available by contacting the

NASA CASI Technology Transfer

Office, 800 Elkridge Landing

Road, Linthicum Heights, MD

21090-2934, (301) 621-0245.

How can I access NASA news

releases?

NASA news releases can be found

on the Internet by using the ftp

command to reach <ftp.pao.

hq.nasa.gov> (sign in as anonymous). If you want releases to be

sent automatically to your e-mail

address, send a message to

<domo@hq.nasa.gov> and in the

text part type the following: subscribe press-release. If you need

any further assistance, please contact us at the NASA Access Help

Desk.

The NASA STI Foreign Literature

Translation Service is available to

all U.S. government or government contract personnel. Over 34

languages are offered, from commonly requested languages such as

Russian and Japanese, to the more

uncommon languages of Turkish

or Kazakh. Documents may be

translated from a foreign language

into English, or from English into

a foreign language. The translations staff regularly provides

translations of the following types

of materials, which are just a

sample of the types of work

provided:

Technical Services

• Technical manuals and

 briefings

• Articles from foreign journals

• Foreign patents

• International conference

proceedings

Language Barriers

Crumble

Recent increases in international

cooperation have brought an end

to the days in which scientists were

limited to the scientific and technical information published in their

home countries. The realization of

the gains to be made in the international sharing of research

advances and technical discoveries

has led to exchanges never before

thought possible. American aerospace engineers refer to Russian

authored texts; materials science researchers in New Jersey correspond

with their Japanese counterparts;

and propulsion experts examine the

research of French scientists. The

NASA STI Foreign Literature

Translation Service helps eliminate

the language barriers that can

hinder international cooperation

by providing quality translations.

NASA Access Help Desk Corner

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The STI Bulletin, published every other

month, informs NASA STI users about

the products, services, and news of the

NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office.

For additional information, contact

Roland Ridgeway

NASA Headquarters, Code JTT

Washington, DC 20546-0001,

e-mail <rridgeway@sti.nasa.gov>.
March 1995 3

technical nature of these documents, complete ASCII versions

are not possible.

More information is available from

the NTRS page, including the

Quick Start Guide, a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ),

and a feedback form to provide input to the developers of NTRS.

The FAQ sheet includes information on interpreting PostScript

documents on Macintosh and

Windows machines.

Surfers Crowd NASA’s Cyber

Beaches

Continued from page 1

• Selected Current Aerospace

Notices (SCAN) of the NASA

STI Office

• STELAR Project of the

Goddard Space Flight Center

Lewis Research Center, Ames Research Center, Goddard Space

Flight Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are expected to

join NTRS in early in 1995.

Work is also underway for

Marshall Space Flight Center and

Kennedy Space Center to be included at a later date. All NASA

centers and institutes are expected

to eventually offer publications via

NTRS. Contact Dick Tuey at

(202) 358-1395, <dtuey@hqops.

hq.nasa.gov> for contacts at various centers and the scheduled

production date.

Currently, access is not provided

for the entire spectrum of NASA

research activities, but work is underway to increase both subjectarea breadth and historical depth.

Since NTRS is open to researchers

worldwide, only documents labeled “unclassified, unlimited”

can be offered. NTRS never provides more than what is available

through traditional methods to researchers worldwide. The URL

for this service is <http:/tech

reports.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/

NTRS>. The e-mail address for

questions, suggestions, or comments is Michael L. Nelson, (804)

864-8511 <m.l.nelson@larc.nasa.

gov>. A Web browser, such as

Netscape or MacWeb, with

“forms” support is required to use

this service. While some documents are available in HTML,

most are presented as compressed

PostScript. Due to the highly

results thereof.” The search for innovative methods to distribute

NASA’s information led a team to

create the NASA Technical Report

Server (NTRS), which uses the

WWW and other Internet-based

information systems.

NTRS grew out of work originally

done at NASA Langley Research

Center and is now an inter-center

effort that provides uniform access

to various distributed publication

servers residing on the Internet.

NTRS is comprised of several

server sites, some constructed especially for inclusion in NTRS, and

others that are existing NASA publication services that NTRS reuses.

The server is largely constructed

with freely available software running on existing hardware.

The following organizations have

abstracts and some full-text reports

online:

• Numerical Aerodynamic

Simulation Division (NAS)

of Ames Research Center

• Dryden Flight Research Center

• Goddard Institute for Space

Studies (GISS)

• Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering

(ICASE)

• Langley Research Center

Additionally, the following

abstract-only services are available:

• Astrophysics Data System

(ADS) of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

• RECONselect Database of the

NASA STI Office

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You can contact the NASA Access

Help Desk at (301) 621-0390, fax

(301) 621-0134, e-mail at

<help@sti.nasa.gov>, or write NASA

Access Help Desk, NASA Center for

AeroSpace Information, 800 Elkridge

Landing Road, Linthicum Heights,

MD 21090-2934.

NASA Thesaurus Terms

Definitions Added To

Existing NASA Thesaurus

Terms

Avalanche Diodes

A solid state device that takes advantage of avalanche multiplication

of the photocurrent.

Backscattering

Scattering of radiation in a direction having a component opposite

its original direction of propagation.

Coherent Light

Light in which the phase relationship between points in a beam

remains constant throughout the

beam.
March 1995 4

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Code JTT

Washington, DC 20546-0001

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

Penalty for Private Use, $300

FIRST-CLASS PRESORT

POSTAGE & FEES PAID

NASA

Permit No. G-27

RECON Training Schedule

Monday, March 6, 1995

Monday, April 3, 1995

Monday, May 8, 1995

Monday, June 5, 1995

RECON users, keep this in mind: when BASISplus is up and

running, most users will need additional training.