 |
      |
 |
 |
||
 |
|
 |
||
 |
|
 |
||
| For more information on these science news and feature story tips, please contact the public information officer at the end of each item at (703) 292-8070. Editor: Bill Noxon
Contents of this Tipsheet:
RURAL AREAS KEEPING PACE IN THE INFORMATION AGEMost rural areas of the United States are catching on with the national "information revolution," as the gaps between cyber "haves" and "haven't yets" are lessening, according to a new study funded by NSF. Advanced information technology and access to it have become more equally distributed across the nation in recent years, according to Pablo Spiller, an economist in the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. This paves the way for a more efficient nationwide network of banking, finance, insurance, real estate and other business services, he says. Spiller and several co-authors of the study analyzed the geographic distribution of a variety of new technologies. Among them were fiber optic deployment by local telephone companies and the number and processing capacities of large-scale computers, all of which rapidly grew in the period 1986 to 1992. The researchers found that "both big and small regions, rural and urban, those who were initially ahead or behind, became more alike over time," Spiller says. The report, The Evolution of Advanced Large Scale Information Infrastructure in the United States, has been published as Working Paper #5929 of the National Bureau of Economic Research. For copies, contact the NBER publications office at (617) 868-3900, or by e-mail to orders@nber.org [George Chartier]
POWER SYSTEMS RESEARCH SEEKS HIGH PERFORMANCERecent legislation to restructure the nation's electric energy systems industry also contained some high-performance challenges, which NSF is helping the industry to meet. NSF has established a new Power Systems Engineering Research Center in a cooperative venture with several universities and electric companies to improve the performance of the nation's electric power systems. The center is undertaking several projects in the analysis of power transmission roles, development of design and analysis tools and investigations into the reliability of large scale power delivery systems. Led by Cornell University, the center will also explore new roles for information, communication and measurement systems. NSF will invest about $1 million for the new center, with additional support from utilities, the Electric Power Research Institute and Cornell, plus the Universities of California (Berkeley), Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), Wisconsin (Madison) and Howard University in Washington, D.C.. [George Chartier]
NSF AND DOE JOIN FORCES FOR PLASMA RESEARCHThe National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) have agreed to jointly fund a program to explore fundamental processes in plasma science and engineering. "We need more fundamental knowledge of plasmas to address a wide range of applications, including semiconductor manufacturing, environmental remediation, materials synthesis and modification and exploration of advanced radiation sources," says Lawrence S. Goldberg, director of NSF's division of electrical and communications systems. "In recent years Japan and Europe have been investing much more heavily in plasma science and engineering than the United States." NSF and DOE will contribute about $6 million each over three years to broaden opportunities for research through university research grants, and to stimulate efforts in education. [George Chartier]
| ||||
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |