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Museum and University Data, Program and Information Exchange

A GUIDE TO COMMERCIAL TIME-SHARING COMPUTING

Time-Sharing Enterprises, Inc., 3401 Market Street, Phila¬
delphia PA 19104, has just published a "Time-Sharing Phone
Book," which lists all the known commercial contractors offering
time-sharing services in the United States. The list is impres¬
sive, but even more so is the present coverage and availability
of time-sharing. The only state in the union with no facilities
is Alaska. The introduction states, "Today, there is not a tele¬
phone in the continental United States which cannot access at
least seven time-sharing companies without a toll charge...This
book lists 55 companies which may be reached from New York City
without long distance charges...18 are listed for Jackson, Mis¬
sissippi ... 11 for Casper, Wyoming... and 35 for the San Francis¬
co Bay Area." There are now 1000 local data dial-up points in
the U.S. Several companies have covered the contiguous states
with IN-WATS servicing, so that anyone anywhere can access the
computer. A brief list of those installations which are avail¬
able from anywhere in the nation follows below. Please look
the list over, and if you are a subscriber to any one of them,
write to MUDPIE with details about the kind of service, storage,
etc., you have. It seems possible that several of us with mutu¬
al interests in the potential of sharing programs, data and in¬
formation could get a network off the ground simply by immediate¬
ly contracting with a mutually acceptable contractor. Let us
at least see if there is sufficient interest to respond to this
potential at this time.

If you are not currently contracting for time sharing ser¬
vices and would like information about phone numbers in your
area, the book is available for $10.00 at the address given above.
If any of you simply want preliminary information about what
is possible in your area, I would be glad to check it out in
my copy and give you a starting point, at least.--JAP.

Services are offered throughout the contiguous United States

by:

Computer Complex, Inc., 6400 Southwest Freeway, Suite 150,
Houston, TX 77036.

Concap Computing Systems, 303 Hegenberger Road, Oakland,

CA 94621.

General Electric Company, Computer Service Division, 7735
Old Georgetown Rd., Bethesda, MD 20014.

Megasystems, Inc., 460 12th Ave,, New York, N Y 10018.

SCI—TEK, Inc., 1707 Gilpin Ave., Wilmington, DE 19800.
Tymshare, Inc., 525 University Ave., Palo Alto, CA 9430L^.{‘ , ’

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ICSEB-BOULDER 1973

You will find a postcard enclosed with this MUDPIE , which is
the preliminary announcement of the First International Congress
of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology, to be held in Boulder,
Colorado August 4-11, 1973. I hope any of you interested will

return the postcard so further information can be sent to you.

You will note that the ninth symposium listed is called
"Computer Revolution in Systematics" (I refuse to spell it 'corn-

put or ' ) . I have agreed to serve as organizer for this symposiurn,
and I would like to enlist the cooperation of MUDPIE readers
in the construction of the program. I have allready indicated
to the steering committee that the symposium will not repeat
not be concerned with numerical taxonomy. If the numerical tax¬
onomists are interested in the organization of a session on the
program, it will have to fall into a separately organized period.

I am convinced that the next two years will see a continued de¬
velopment and acceleration of the use of the computer by systema-
tists in general, so the Congress provides an excellent opportu¬
nity for presentation of a broad spectrum of demonstrated utility
to a large group of systematists receptive to computer potential.

There has been no schedule announced as yet concerning the
submission of a program and speakers for the symposium, so there
is still plenty of time for planning and organization. I am
thinking at present of topics such as the following: potential¬
ities of an inter-museum and university taxonomic network; devel¬
opment of taxonomic matrices for storage of descriptive data;
program packages for the output of information such as keys,
descriptions, and so on from matrices; storage and retrieval
of catalogue data, bibliographic information, synonymies and
phylogenies; mutual access to data banks; automation of standard
museum procedures such as loans, exchanges, and other record-keep¬
ing chores. I am wide open for suggestions on other topics of
similar nature, or for suggestions of names of qualified symposi¬
um participants. The objectives of the symposium are so close to
the purposes of MUDPIE that I was tempted to call this the second
MUDPIE conference, but I am afraid the steering committee of
ICSEB might objectJ--James A. Peters.

DATA PROCESSING IN NATURAL HISTORY

A bibliography of seven mimeographed pages under the above
title is available from the Natural History Division, Provincial
Museum and Archives of Alberta, 12845 102nd Avenue, Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada, as "reference list no. 75." It appeared in May,
1970. The material is classified under the following major head¬
ings: Principles; Problems; Bibliography; Biology and Ecology;
Botany, Herbaria, Botanical Gardens; Geology; Museums; Paleontol¬
ogy; Taxonomy; and Zoology.—JAP.

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SURVEY OF COMPUTER PROGRAM CATALOGS-I

"COMPUTER PROGRAMS IN OCEANOGRAPHY"

(Editor's note—This is the first of a series of notes concerning
catalogs of computer programs which are available currently. If
you are aware of or are responsible for a catalog that should be
mentioned in this series, I would appreciate further information.
Special thanks are due to Daniel Cohen, of the Systematics Labor¬
atory, NOAA , who has made several such catalogs available to me.

--JAP)

The National Oceanographic Data Center issues a listing of
computer programs of interest to oceanographers, compi1ing the
list from information contributed by individuals or institutions.
Each entry is composed of an abstract summarizing what the program
can do; the language in which it is written ; the computer on which
it runs; and the address of the individual from whom the program
can be obtained. The material was compiled by C. Dinger, of NODC.
It is arranged under subject headings, with the major headings
as follows: Biological Oceanography; Chemical Oceanography; Data
Reduction; Editing and Special Input/Output; Geoscience; Graphical
Display; Applied Mathematics; Navigation and Charting; Physical
Oceanography; and Retrieval of Ocean Data. An index by agency
or institution furnishing the abstract, an index by programming
language, and an index by computer make and model are also in¬
cluded. Many of the programs are on file at NODC, and information
can be obtained from the Director, National Oceanographic Data
Center, Washington DC 20390 . Presumably copies of the catalog
can also be purchased from the Director, although nothing indicates
where one should send the $1.35 they charge per copy. The catalog
is Publication C—5 (second revision), issued in 1970. --James A.
Peters.

AVAILABLE PROGRAMS

WILCOX—Runs the Wilcoxon two-sample test (also known as the Mann-

Whitney U-test), when one observation has been made on each
element in two random samples. Results include the sum of
the ranks in both samples, the number of observations in
each sample, the test statistic "S." , and the number of ties
between observations in different samples. Program also
lists all observations in ranked order, if desired. In
BASIC language, written by and available from James A.
Peters, Division of Reptiles, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington DC 20560, as paper tape for time-shared comput¬

ers .

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TRANSLATION S OF COMPUTER USE PAPERS IN RUSSIAN

The following series of papers on computer use in geological
studies has been translated from "Institut Neftekhimicheskoi i
Gazovoi Promyshlemnosti; Trudy," no. 62 , where ail appear under
the general title "Overall Interpretation of Complex Geological
and Geophysical Data by Means of Computers." The translations
are available from the National Translations Center, John Crerar
Library, 35 West 33rd St, Chicago IL 60616 , although you probably

cannot afford them!--JAP.

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Part I. Use of learning programs in solving geological problems.
S. V. Guberman, pp. 3-14.

Part II. General approach to the problem of pattern recognition.

V. Loginov & Y. I. Khurgin, pp. 15-20.

Part III. Application of the "Kora-3" program on the "Strela"
Computer. I. N. Nyuberg & M. I. Ovchinnikova, pp. 21-24.

Part IV. Application of a "generalized portrait" algorithm on
the "Ra1-2" electronic computer. I. M. Churinova & G. A.
Gorvits, pp. 25-30.

Part V. Evaluation of the effectiveness of geophysical prospect¬
ing in detecting productive strata. K. N. Milovidov, pp.
31-36.

Part VI. Analysis of the effectiveness of various recognition
programs in the solution of geological problems. S. A.
Guberman, M. L. Izvekova, & I. M. Churinova, pp. 37-41.

Part VIII. Differentiation of oil-bearing and water-bearing
strata in the carbonate deposits of Orenburgskaya Oblast
(Orenburg Province) by means of the "Kora—3" and "General¬
ized Portrait" programs. S. A. Guberman & 0. I. Ryabykh,
pp. 47-52.

ECOLOGICAL MODELING

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has just issued a 97 page
contribution to the analysis of ecosystems section of the IBP pro¬
ject on the Deciduous Forest Biome, entitled "A Preliminary Biblio¬
graphy of Mathematical Modeling in Ecology," compiled by R. V.
O'Neill, J. M. Hett, and N. F. Sollins. According to the intro¬
duction (p. 1), "The techniques of mathematical modeling are ex¬

pected to play a major role in the synthesis of data from the
Deciduous Forest Biome Project. This bibliography was produced
to assist the Biome analysts by making references to published
models available... It is hoped that much duplication of effort
can be avoided in this manner." (Now there's an old MUDPIE objec¬
tive, if I ever saw one.)

The citations given have been incorporated into the biblio¬
graphic retrieval system of the Biogeochemical Information Center
at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which will be developed as
a more extensive computerized bibliography. The volume, identi¬
fied as "ORNL-IBP-70-3, International Biological Program UC-48-

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Biology and Medicine," is available from the Clearing House,

U.S.Dept of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22151 , for $3.00 for a
printed copy or $.65 for microfiche. If interested, you might
try Oak Ridge first to see if there are a few distribution copies

left.—JAP.

RECENT LITERATURE

Foote, R. H. New directions for commitment. Journal of the
Washihgton Academy of Science, vol. 60, 1970: 136-140.

Harbaugh, J. W., & G. Bonham-Carter. Computer Simulation in

Geology. Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1970: xiv + 575.

Johnson, J. G. A quantitative approach to faunal province analysis.
American Journal of Science, vol. 270, 1971: 257-280.

Negrete, J., W. Giloi, & J. Encarnacao. The application of

computer graphics to automate medical interviews. Memoria
de la Conferencia Internacional sobre Sistemas, Redes
y Computadoras, IEEE, Mexico, 1971, vol. 3: 1047-1048.

August, 1971

Division of Reptiles and Amphibians
National Museum of Natural History
Washington, DC 20560

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