_____   __________________  ____  ____
              /  _/ | / /_  __/ ____/ __ \/ __ \/ __ \
              / //  |/ / / / / __/ / /_/ / / / / /_/ /
            _/ // /|  / / / / /___/ _, _/ /_/ / ____/
           /___/_/ |_/ /_/ /_____/_/ |_|\____/_/

               _   __                  __     __  __
              / | / /__ _      _______/ /__  / /_/ /____  _____
             /  |/ / _ \ | /| / / ___/ / _ \/ __/ __/ _ \/ ___/
            / /|  /  __/ |/ |/ (__  ) /  __/ /_/ /_/  __/ /
           /_/ |_/\___/|__/|__/____/_/\___/\__/\__/\___/_/
*************************************************************************
Number 14     ***         INTEROP NEWSLETTER      ***      August 2002
*************************************************************************

In This Issue:
--------------
I.    Preparations for Next CEOS meeting in Alexandria, VA.
      (See information at http://www.westoverconferences.com/ceos/)

II.   Results of the Local Database Agent (LDA) Functionality Test at
      UNEP/GRID-Budapest
      - by Viktor Pusztai and Attila Szucs
        UNEP/GRID-Budapest

III.  Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management: 6th Meeting, Shanghai,
      China
      - by Stephanie Leicester, IDN Task

IV.   New Global Change Conference Caledar
      - by Kathleen Moreland, IDN Task

V.    The Role of the International Directory Network (IDN) in the
      Geographic Information on Sustainable Development (GISD) Activity
      - by Tyler Stevens, IDN Task

VI.   Minutes from CEOS meeting in Frascati

VII.  Tentative Agenda for the CEOS/IDN Meeting

*************************************************************************
I.   Preparations for Next CEOS meeting in Alexandria, VA
     -Lola Olsen, IDN

     Preparations are being made by the International Directory
     Network (IDN) participants for the next CEOS meetings in
     Alexandria, VA.

     The IDN session is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, September 12th.
     We are anticipating your participation.

**************************************************************************
II. Results of the Local Database Agent (LDA) Functionality Test at
    UNEP/GRID-Budapest
    -by Viktor Pusztai and Attila Szucs
     UNEP/GRID-Budapest

The LDA test and data synchronization between the hydrogen.sesda.com
server and griddata.ktm.hu server has passed successfully.  When
changes are made in the MD8 source code, GRID-Budapest runs the
Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) to update the code and when
necessary, we reinitalized the database for the LDA.

During the latest change, we set the LDA synchronization server and
used the Jakarta Ant package instead of using gmake.  Jakarta Ant is
similar to gmake but is more convenient to use.  We created a
build.xml script instead of using gmake to compile the Java codes with
Jakarta Ant.  The GCMD staff has already built it into the new source
code with the Ant package.

The Jakarta Tomcat port originally was set on 8080, but this created
another problem with our firewall, so we have installed Apache Tomcat
and are using port 80.

The new DocBuilder tool recently built into the GUIOps client has
also been tested and has proven to be effective.  We created an
Oracle 9i installation on RedHat Linux to determine how the original
code of MD8 was working behind this version of Oracle server.  Several
bugs were reported by Oracle, which were also evident during the
Oracle 9.0.1 Server installation.

In addition, a small change had to be made to the
"create_dif_V8_tablespaces.sql.template" file.  Because tablespace,
"md8_tmp_space_01", is used as a temporary tablespace, the "TEMPORARY"
modifier had to be added to the "CREATE TABLESPACE md8_tmp_space_01" SQL
statement (just before the ONLINE modifier).

We downloaded the latest release of MD8 and installed the
InstallShield's code.  The md8db database creation was made the same
way as it is described in the INSTALL instructions.  No errors
occurred during the database creation.  The MD8 server installation
now runs without any problems.  However, we haven't made the LDA
functionality test with this Oracle version.

***************************************************************************
III. Joint Committee on Antarctic Data Management: 6th Meeting,
     Shanghai, China
     -by Stephanie Leicester, IDN Task Team

This year, Stephanie Leicester of the GCMD attended the 6th Joint
Committee on Antarctic Data Management (JCADM) Meeting in Shanghai, China
on July 14-19.  Every two years, JCADM holds its annual meeting in
conjunction with the annual meetings of the Scientific Committee on
Antarctic Research (SCAR) and Council of Managers of National Antarctic
Programs (COMNAP) for the purpose of addressing data management policy
matters.  JCADM is the only committee under the auspices of both SCAR and
COMNAP.

In addition to discussing scientific research in Antarctica, this year's
SCAR meeting involved the proposed reorganization of SCAR into three
Standing Science Groups (SSGs): Life Sciences SSG, Geosciences SSG, and
Physical Sciences SSG.  Henceforth, scientific working groups of similar
disciplines will be added together under one of the above SSGs.  This
reorganization also resulted in the formal dissolution of JCADM and the
formation of a new committee on Antarctic data management.  This new
committee is also composed of national Antarctic data center managers and,
again, may be jointly governed by SCAR and COMNAP.

In addition to Ms. Leicester, the following JCADM members attended the
meeting:
- Mark Thorley, British Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC);
- Lee Belbin, Australian Antarctic Data Center (AADC);
- Taco de Bruin, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research;
- Maaike Vacauwenberghe, Belgian Federal Office for Scientific, Technical
and Cultural Affairs;
- Dr. Manfred Reinke, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine
Research;
- Dr. Dean Peterson, New Zealand Antarctic Institute;
- Greg Sharfen, U.S. Antarctic Data Coordination;
- Jiangang ZHU, Director, Polar Information Center; and
- Xiaoliang LING ("Granty"), Polar Information Center.

During the JCADM meeting, members provided status reports of their
respective National Antarctic Data Centers.  Ms. Leicester reported to
JCADM on the status of the Antarctic Master Directory  (AMD) with respect
to content and usage statistics.  Over the past year, content and use of
the AMD have grown significantly, by nearly 79% and 200%, respectively.
Three new officers were elected to lead the new data management committee:
the Chief Officer is now Dean Peterson (New Zealand) and Co-Chief Officers
are Taco de Bruin (The Netherlands) and Lee Belbin (Australia).  In an
effort to foster the relationship between data management and science,
each officer will represent the committee on one of SCAR's SSGs.
Attendees collaborated to prepare and later to present a status report on
the AMD for both the Standing Committee on Antarctic Data Management
(STADM) and the SCAR Executive Committee.  STADM was established by SCAR
to oversee the development of the AMD.  Both STADM and the SCAR Executive
reported to that they are pleased with the development of the AMD.

************************************************************************
IV. New Global Change Conference Calendar
    -by Kathleen Moreland, IDN Task Team

NASA's Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) is pleased to announce a
new Global Change Calendar located at
http://gcmd.nasa.gov/Resources/calendar/conf/calendar.html that can be
used and populated by IDN representatives.  The calendar holds a
comprehensive listing of conferences, meetings, symposia and workshops
related to global change or Earth science data.

The calendar allows the user to view events in the following manner:
all by date, all alphabetically, and past events.  It also allows the
user to perform customized searches of existing conferences by
conference subject or by date.  The new calendar is written in Jython.
A new JavaScript monthly reference calendar has been incorporated to
allow users to select an event date.  The calendar also automates the
process of inserting new and updating/deleting conference calendar
entries.  There is also built-in error handling, which prohibits the
user from submitting a conference entry unless all the required fields
are completed.  The only required fields are the conference title,
conference dates, the Earth science topic to which it is related (pick
list provided for user), the location of the conference, and the
conference contact information.  Providers are encouraged to add all
pertinent conference information to the online conference calendar
submission form.  The Global Change Calendar also links to other Earth
science calendars and events.

The GCMD staff encourages those hosting conferences or those who have
information on new conferences to submit them for inclusion in the
Global Change calendar.  It is a valuable tool to advertise the latest
Earth science conferences to the science community.  Its value in
planning future meetings has already been demonstrated.

**************************************************************************
V.  The Role of the International Directory Network (IDN) in the Geographic
    Information on Sustainable Development (GISD) Activity
    - by Tyler Stevens, IDN Task Team

The GISD initiative promotes a US-led international collaboration whose
objective is to apply new Earth science data, advanced GIS-linked
technologies, and field-tested geographic knowledge to ongoing sustainable
development problems in target regions of Africa.  The International
Directory Network (IDN) has developed a data discovery portal in response
to the CEOS effort to support access to data for the GISD.  This portal
contains geographic metadata records, which relate directly to sustainable
development in Africa.

The Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) is hosting a comprehensive
web site with contributions from other international CEOS members
specifically for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).  The
Summit will be held August 26-September 4 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
More information may be found at http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/. The
IDN data discovery portal is being integrated into a demonstration of CEOS
capabilities.  The demonstration takes a systematic approach to the access
and use of data.  The IDN will be used to demonstrate the discovery of
useful data and the subsequent direct access to data through the
Related_URL field in the resulting metadata records.  One can view the
demo from CCRS's comprehensive portal at
http://wgiss.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/gisd/.

The CEOS IDN plans to provide increasingly simplified access to GIS data
in a plan to assist users in gathering and viewing geographic data. ESRI's
ArcGIS will be an option for users to view geospatial data sets. The
objective is to offer direct map service links from the IDN's metadata
records.  Users would then subsequently link to interactive web-based GIS
services from the summary or Related_URL fields.


VI.  CEOS Minutes

For a copy of the minutes from the CEOS/IDN meeting held in
Frascati, Italy , please go to
http://idn.ceos.org/IDN/Meetings/2002_05_Frascati/idn_minutes

**************************************************************************
VII.  Tentative Agenda fro the CEOS/IDN Meeting
      - Lola Olsen, IDN Task Lead

    Draft Agenda for CEOS IDN Task Team
    September 12, 2002 (Afternoon)

     A.  Review of Minutes From Frascati, Italy.

     B.  Status at the American Coordinating Node
         - Metrics for content and usage
         - Ongoing Activities
         - GISD Portal Status

     C.  IDN Node Reports

      Please include in these reports, sections on:

          1. Metrics
             i. Number of DIFs contributed
            ii. Usage Statistics
          2. Status of Software/System Installations
             i. Current/Proposed Hardware
            ii. Software Versions Running/Planned
          3. Content Synchronization / Update Frequency
          4. IDN Node Pages
          5. Advertising
	  6. Issues/Concerns

     D.  ZOPE Status
         - Rosy Cordova, IDN Task Team

     E.  Thesaurus Status
         - Dr. James French, University of Virginia
           Rosy Cordova and Cheryl Solomon, IDN Task Team

     F.  MD8 Local Database Agent (LDA) Functionality
         - Viktor Pusztai, Attila Szucs, Chris Gokey, and Dave Kendig
           UNEP-GRID/Budapest, IDN Task Team

     G.  Internet Map Server Services Offered Through the DIF
         - Tyler Stevens, IDN Task Team

     H.  New Conference Calendar
         - Kathleen Moreland, IDN Task Team

     I.  New XML DocBuilder Tool
         - Janine Pollack, IDN Task Team

     J.  Status of ISO 19115 as it relates to the IDN
         - Lorant Czaran
           U.N. Cartographic Section

     K.  The Semantic Web is SWEET
         - Gene Major, IDN Task Team

     L.  IDN's Oceanographic Collaborations
         - Monica Holland, IDN Task Team

     M.  New Portal for Model Output Dat Sets
         - Scott Ritz, IDN Task Team

     N.  MD9 (Early 2003)

         1.  Goals
         2.  Schedule

***************************************************************************
VIII. Issues - Discussion

      1.  Distributed Node Partner Listing

      2.  Free-Text Search Options

      3.  Please send other discussion items or notice that you
          wish to present something during the session (other than
          as a node report.)

For more information or questions about this agenda, please contact
Lola Olsen, (olsen@gcmd.nasa.gov ) IDN Task Team lead.

**********************************************************************