Click on this link to see the present and past newsletters in color http://itri2.org/ITRInews/

Duane Shelton, Editor:  rds@itri2.org
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In This Issue of ITRInews

Featured Sites in International S&T:  
Digital Libraries Around the World

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Decreasing Interest in Study in the U.S. After years of rapid growth, the number of international students attending universities in the U.S. in 2002/03 showed only a slight increase over the prior year, up less than 1%, bringing the total to 586,323, according to Open Doors 2003, the annual report on international education just published by the Institute of International Education (IIE). 

IIE also released findings from a recent online survey of international education professionals regarding what they are seeing on campus this fall (2003), to complement the more comprehensive Open Doors census for 2002-03. The findings of the online survey would indicate that new security procedures and economic factors do seem to be having some impact on foreign student enrollments, with 46% of respondents reporting some declines in their total international student enrollments. Most respondents (59%) attribute these declines to new visa applications processes, while an additional 21% cite financial difficulties as the primary cause.    http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/

Since the U.S. depends on foreign graduate students to do much of its research, the decreasing interest in study in the U.S. could have serious consequences for the U.S. position in S&T.  The NSF Science and Engineering Indicators 2002 report showed the startling finding that the number of PhDs in science and engineering awarded by U.S. universities to foreigners has actually declined in recent years.  See Physical Science PhD Production Tanks in http://itri2.org/ITRInews/N42.html

OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2003  This annual report has just been posted.  The web-edition of the 2003 STI Scoreboard  provides access to indicators that show the movement of OECD countries towards a knowledge-based economy. The Scoreboard presents indicators on:  Some sample findings:

• Trade in high-technology goods, such as aircraft, computers, pharmaceuticals and scientific instruments, is up.  It accounted for over 25% of total trade in 2000 and 2001, up from less than 20% in the early 1990s. 
•  In 2001, OECD countries allocated about USD 645 billion (current purchasing power parity) to R&D. The United States accounted for approximately 44% of the OECD total, the European Union for 28% and Japan for 17%.   Sweden, Finland, Japan and Iceland were the only OECD countries in which the R&D-to-GDP ratio exceeded 3%. In 2002, the R&D intensity of the United States remained stable at 2.8% of GDP.
• R&D expenditure has risen faster in the U.S (5.4% a year) than in the EU (3.7%) and Japan (2.8%). In 2001, the R&D intensity of the EU reached 1.9% of GDP, its highest level since 1991, still well below the Lisbon target of 3% in 2010. 
• Most of the rise in R&D expenditure is due to higher business investment, not government. During the second half of the 1990s, the share of business funding of R&D increased significantly in the United States, moderately in Japan and only slightly in the European Union.
• Direct government support for health R&D accounts for over 0.2% of GDP in the United States, substantially above the levels for the European Union and Japan.
• OECD data on patent families (a set of patents filed in various countries to protect a single invention) list more than 40 000 patent families in 1998 in the OECD area, a 32% increase from 1991. The United States accounted for 36%, followed by the European Union (33%) and Japan (25%).

http://www1.oecd.org/publications/e-book/92-2003-04-1-7294/  

U.S. Trade Deficit Sets New Records.  In the statistical race the U.S. Government deficit and the U.S. international trade deficit are neck-and-neck, both are forecast to come in at about $1/2 trillion in 2003.  The leading contributor to the U.S. trade deficit is China, whose surplus with the U.S was $11.7 billion in August, 2003 alone.  The European Union and Japan are not far behind. http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/ustrade.html

Not coincidentally, over the first six months of 2003, Japan and China together purchased more than $96 billion in new U.S. Government securites.  Japan now owns more than $440 billion, more than 10% of all outstanding securities.  China, the world's second largest buyer, has about $122 billion.  China's share has spiked recently as a result of China's trade surplus with the U.S, and the investment of U.S. firms in China.  A WashingtonPost article points out that our huge debt to these countries raises several threats to the U.S. freedom of action. For example the U.S. will think twice about defending Taiwan now that China can wreck the U.S.economy, merely by cutting back on the amounts that it lends the U.S. Government.  Peter S. Goodman, U.S. Debt to Asia Swelling;  Japan, China Lead Buyers of Treasurys, Washington Post, September 13, 2003; Page E1.   http://www.washingtonpost.com , then search for title in archives.

PCAST Warned of Shift of Jobs and Competitiveness Abroad.  Robert Herbold, Executive VP of Microsoft, reported for his subcommittee at the September meeting of the President's Council of Advisors on S&T.  He spoke of a massive exodus of technology jobs to places like India, where salaries are 10% of those in the U.S..  He added that 39% of Chinese students are studying engineering, while only 5% of U.S. students do.  From the AIP FYI#132.  http://www.aip.org/enews/fyi/2003/132.html

State Department S&T Fellows Program Started Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has approved the establishment of a three-year pilot program to initiate the Jefferson Science Fellows Program at the U.S. Department of State. Developed by the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary, Dr. George Atkinson, the program will augment recent efforts to strengthen S&T capacity at the Department.  Fifteen fellows will participate with one-year terms over the three year program http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/25040.htm  

WTEC Workshops in December WTEC has just sent two delegations to Europe to assess R&D there.  The workshops are free but registration is required.  

	Additive/subtractive manufacturing builds on the layered approach to building three-dimensional prototypes directly from computer CAD files.  It adds subtractive approaches, like laser ablation, to enable manufacture of finished parts.  The Additive/Subtractive Manufacturing delegation visited over 15 labs in the UK, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands during October18-25.  Their workshop will be at NSF in Arlington, VA on December 2.
This panel is led by Joe Beaman from the University of Texas at Austin.	For more information and on-line registration visit http://wtec.org/additive/
	Operations research has been applied mostly to problems in warfare and manufacturing, but the community has more recently started modeling the service industries to good effect.  Some of the greatest potentials savings from more efficient operations are in healthcare delivery systems, whose rising costs endanger budgets of governments and individuals.  The Operations Research Applied to Healthcare Systems Workshop will be at AHRQ in Rockville, MD on December 16.   This panel visited the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands during November 1-7.
This panel is led by Francois Sainfort of Georgia Tech	For more information and on-line registration visit http://wtec.org/OR/

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FEATURED SITES THIS MONTH 

Digital libraries are already an important source for research and are rapidly becoming more comprehensive.  WTEC conducted a study of digital libraries in Japan in 1999, under the leadership of Raj Reddy.  http://wtec.org/loyola/digilibs/toc.htm  

Digital Library Federation (DLF) is a consortium of libraries that are pioneering in the use of electronic-information technologies to extend their collections and services. Through its members, the DLF provides leadership for libraries broadly by identifying standards and "best practices" for digital collections and network access, coordinating leading-edge research-and-development in libraries' use of electronic-information technology, and helping start projects  that libraries need but cannot develop individually.  http://www.diglib.org/

D-Lib Magazine is a solely electronic publication with a primary focus on digital library research and development, including new technologies, applications, and contextual social and economic issues. The magazine is published eleven times a year. The full contents of the magazine, including all back issues, are available free of charge at the D-Lib web site.   D-Lib Magazine is produced by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), has been sponsored by DARPA on behalf of the Digital Libraries Initiative and is currently being funded by NSF . http://www.dlib.org/

Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit of all.   http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

CiteSeer is a scientific literature digital library from the NEC Research Institute that aims to improve the dissemination and feedback of scientific literature, and to provide improvements in functionality, usability, availability, cost, comprehensiveness, efficiency, and timeliness.  Rather than creating just another digital library, CiteSeer provides algorithms, techniques, and software that can be used in other digital libraries. CiteSeer indexes Postscript and PDF research articles on the Web.  Earth's largest free full-text index of scientific literature.   http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/

NSF/DARPA Digital Libraries I Initiative ran from 1992 to 1998.  The current Digital Libraries Initiative 2 (DLI2) program is being conducted by NSF, DARPA, and several other Federal agencies. http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/  DLI2 International projects are at http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/intl.html

California Digital Library Established in 1997 as a UC library, the CDL has become one the largest digital libraries in the world.
http://www.californiadigitallibrary.org/

Center for the Study of Digital Libraries (CSDL) was established in 1995 by Texas A&M University. A member of the global digital library research community, the Center provides a focal point for digital libraries research and technology for the State of Texas. Its mission is to foster pioneering research on the theory and application of digital libraries and to create flexible and efficient new technologies for their use.  http://csdl.tamu.edu/

The Internet Public Library is a public service organization and a learning/teaching environment at the University of Michigan School of Information.
http://www.ipl.org/div/about/

Digital Libraries Resources from the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. http://www.ifla.org/II/diglib.htm

Questa claims to be the world's largest online library.  It has over 45,000 books and 360,000 journal, magazine, and newspaper articles.   All books and articles are available in their entirety - search every page.  It costs about $10 / month.   http://www.questia.com/

Digital Library Network  The site contains programs and records of the series of workshops on Digital Libraries at University of Library and Information Science, Tsukuba Science City, Japan.  The Digital Library Network (DLnet) was proposed at the First Workshop on Digital Libraries in 1994, to provide a free-access forum on Digital Libraries. We welcome your comments and questions to DLnet.
http://www.dl.ulis.ac.jp/DLW_E/Welcome.html

Libdex indexes 16,000 libraries around the world.   http://www.libdex.com/

Carnegie-Mellon Universal Library Project  The mission is to create a Universal Library which will foster creativity and free access to all human knowledge. As a first step in realizing this mission, it is proposed to create the Universal Library with a free-to-read, searchable collection of one million books, primarily in the English language, available to everyone over the Internet. Within 10 years, it is our expectation that the collection will grow to 10 Million books. The result will be a unique resource accessible to anyone in the world 24x7, without regard to nationality or socioeconomic background.  
http://www.ul.cs.cmu.edu/html/index.html

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