The Internet and World Wide Web

The key to the rapid development of the Internet was the evolution and expansion of networks - collections of computers which can communicate with each other. They operate at various scales such as local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) and these can be connected to the Internet, which is a complex network of networks (Fig. 45.1). The Internet is loosely organized no one group runs it or owns it. Instead, many private organizations, universities and government departments pay for and run discrete parts of it. Private organizations include commercial online service providers such as America Online and CompuServe . 

You can gain access to the Internet either through a LAN at your place of work or from home via a modem connected to a dial-in service provider over the telephone line. You do not need to understand the technology of the network to use it - most of it is invisible to the user. However, if you do wish to understand more, sources such as Gralla (1996) and Winship and McNab (2000) are recommended. What you do need to know are the options available to you in terms of using its facilities and their relative merits or disadvantages. You also need to understand a little about the nature of Internet addresses. 

Most material on the Internet has not been subject to peer review, vetting or editing, information obtained from the WWW or posted on newsgroups may be inaccurate, biased or spoof do not assume that everything you read is true or even iegal. 

Using e-mah, you are able to send messages to anyone who is connected to the Internet, directly or indirectly. You can attach text files, data files, pictures, video clips, sounds and executable files to your messages. The messages themselves are usually only very simple in format but sufficient for most purposes formatted material can be attached as a file if necessary. The uses that can be made of the system vary from personal and business related to the submission of work to a tutor in an educational system. Note, however, that the system is not secure (confidential) and the transmission of 

There are various facilities available for use on the Internet depending on your own system and method of accessing the system. The best way to learn how to use them is simply to try them out. 

L sometimes used as a file extension (.faq) for downloadable files. 

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Applicable software has been summarized elsewhere (86), including brief descriptions of each software package, information about developers and vendors, and resources on the Internet and World Wide Web. Ref. 1 presents more recent descriptions of some relevant programs. A variety of free software is available from individual developers, but availability depends on... 

Hakkinen PJ and Green DK (2002) Alternatives to animal testing Information resources via the Internet and World Wide Web. Toxicology 173 3-11. 

But not all technologies are created equal those that aid commerce in a smart way will become critical in meeting the increasing demand for more flexibility and responsiveness in a networked commercial environment. The drive toward interoperable and distributed computing extends the very advantage of the Internet and World Wide Web technologies. Broadband networking, smart cards. 

In the twenty-first century, an ever-growing number of men and women are flocking to the Internet and World Wide Web to make purchases of products and to engage services from different providers. One type of product line that now is offered in abundance on the Internet is that of vitamins and dietary, food, and nutritional supplements. At the present time there are literally thousands of different website venues that cater to people who are interested in purchasing and utilizing vitamins and other nutritional supplements. 

Against the background of the factors and issues discussed in the preceding paragraphs, this section will consider the evolution of data protection law in the UK and in the European context and then will move on to a discussion of specific problems in applying the existing regime to the Internet and World-Wide Web. 

In the United States, surveillance laws against interception were not fuUy defined until they were reformed in the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, adopted prior to the widespread introduction of the Internet and World Wide Web. Courts have referred to such laws as convoluted, confusing and uncertain. In the decision of Konop v Hawaiian Airlines,handed down by the United States Court of Appeal 9th Circuit in 2002, the court noted inter alia that the Act defines electronic communication as a transfer of signals, and that unlike the definition of wire communication, the definition of electronic communication does... 

Most of our structural information comes from x-ray crystallographic analysis of protein crystals and from the use of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in solution. Each of these techniques has advantages and limitations which makes them suitable for a complementary range of problems. The first protein structure determined at a sufficient resolution to trace the path of the polypeptide chain was that of myoglobin in 1960. Since that time many thousands of structures corresponding to hundreds of different proteins have been determined. The coordinates of the atoms in many protein and nucleic acid structures are available from the Protein Data Bank, which may be accessed via the Internet or World Wide Web (http //www.pdb.bnl.gov). 

The Internet includes World Wide Web (WWW), file transfer protocol (FTP), Telnet, and Gopher sites. These sites can contain almost any kind of information, including databases. Each site has its own electronic address, called a uniform resource locator (URL). Some sites arc accessible by anyone, but others are accessible only by subscription through various providers. 

The Internet is a remarkable tool for many users and can be extremely helpful, depending on the types of information desired. But it can also come up short in finding the specific information needed because, even with the exponential growth of recent years, not everyone, or every company, is on the Internet or World Wide Web yet. In many cases, even with a presence on the Web or Internet, not every company or association has posted, or even plans to post, all of the data and information at their disposal. However, most of... 

One potential area of anomaly may be the way in which data protection laws are applied to on-line services such as those provided via the Internet or World-Wide Web. Some of the challenges for data protection legislation raised by the increased use of online services have been discussed in Section 12.3. Can the provisions of the 1995 directive, which may perhaps be regarded as the current state of the art as far as data protection legislation is concerned, meet these challenges The difficult issues are not so much the cases where the data subject is aware that data has been collected and used or even where this information is made available on the Internet since this is, arguably, the type of activity for which data protection law was designed. Rather the problems, as explained in Section 12.3, are more likely to arise as a consequence of the traceability of operations on-line in situations where the potential data subject may not be aware that... 

The PDB has introduced substantial enhancements to data deposition and management and user access in the past four years. The PDB Browser, first introduced on PC and UNIX systems, and later via the Internet s World Wide Web, lets researchers search and retrieve information from the PDB faster and far more flexibly than the older printed indices. This browser is being upgraded and enhanced constantly to meet the increasing needs of its user community worldwide. Further, PDB s new AutoDep facility lets researchers deposit their data quickly and accurately over the Internet directly to the PDB, where it is then processed by the PDB staff. 

The three basic Internet appHcations of remote login, electronic mad, and file transfer are also budding blocks of more sophisticated appHcations that offer increased functionaUty and ease of network use. Tools such as Gopher, Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), and World Wide Web (WWW) go beyond the three basic Internet functions to make information on the network easier to locate and use. Detaded descriptions of these tools are avadable (10). This trend toward more powerful, user-friendly networked information resource access systems should continue as Internet grows and matures. 

Rzepa, H.S., Murray-Rust, R, Whitaker, B.J. The application of chemical multipurpose Internet mail extensions (Chemical MIME) Internet standards to electronic mail and World-Wide Web information exchange, J. Chem. Inf. Comp. Sci. 1998,38, 976-82. D01 10.1021/ci9803233. 

The World Wide Web has transformed the way in which we obtain and analyze published information on proteins. What only a few years ago would take days or weeks and require the use of expensive computer workstations can now be achieved in a few minutes or hours using personal computers, both PCs and Macintosh, connected to the internet. The Web contains hundreds of sites of Interest to molecular biologists, many of which are listed in Pedro s BioMolecular Research Tools (http // www.fmi.ch/biology/research tools.html). Many sites provide free access to databases that make it very easy to obtain information on structurally related proteins, the amino acid sequences of homologous proteins, relevant literature references, medical information and metabolic pathways. This development has opened up new opportunities for even non-specialists to view and manipulate a structure of interest or to carry out amino-acid sequence comparisons, and one can now rapidly obtain an overview of a particular area of molecular biology. We shall here describe some Web sites that are of interest from a structural point of view. Updated links to these sites can be found in the Introduction to Protein Structure Web site (http // WWW.ProteinStructure.com/). 

These faetors are attributed to bateh and semi-bateh proeesses rather than eontinuous proeesses. However, the use of eontinuous proeesses on fine ehemieal manufaeturing sites is limited. It is often preferable to use the semi-bateh mode as opposed to bateh proeesses. The Appendix lists hazards of pertinent ehemieal reaetions for toxie and reaetive hazards ehemieals. Information eoneerning the safety of various ehemieals (e.g., ammonia and others) ean be readily obtained from the World Wide Web. Table 12-1 shows how to aeeess a material safety data sheet at the Vermont Safety Information (VIRI) site on the Internet. 

Greater co-operation among producers could be developed. The World Wide Web has provided a model of sharing information based on very clear technical principles and formats, but with no formal bureaucracy or external control. Researchers using the Web can move easily among computers of many research institutions that are linked to the Internet. Perhaps the National Measurement Institutions that produce RM could make their instruments and laboratories just as open and available to researchers who are characterizing a new material (Rasberry 1998). 

The phenomenal growth of the World Wide Web and Internet has revolutionized the delivery of text and image-based information. All signs point to the idea that this will be the definitive technology for the foreseeable future. The rate of change in computer capabilities will pull us all forward. Some of us may not be in the position to drive such changes but merely will be able to follow. One sees acronyms such as CADDY, PDF, HRML, and XML, but what exactly do they mean How would an electronic submission function What would it look like What are the basic pieces, or building blocks, of an electronic submission ... 

There are quite a few Web pages on the World Wide Web that address topics related to SAS. Many are organized in SAS Web rings, so that when you find one you can link to the others. Most of these Web pages are hosted by third-party SAS consultants and solution providers, but they can provide some good SAS tips and tricks. Simply do an Internet search on SAS to find these Web sites. 

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