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OSTIblog Articles in the Personal Perspectives Topic

Eleanor Frierson: A Tribute to the Grande Dame of Government Science Information Partnerships

by Walt Warnick 13 May, 2013 in Personal Perspectives
Eleanor Frierson

Eleanor Frierson, who passed away in April 2013, was the grande dame of partnerships to improve public access to federal and international science information.  For 10 years, she helped spearhead U.S. interagency efforts to make federal science information more accessible to Americans, playing an absolutely crucial leadership role on the Science.gov Alliance.  She took Science.gov  all the way from a nascent concept through to its maturation.  Ms. Frierson also made similar contributions to the international science portal, WorldWideScience.org.

Related Topics: Eleanor Frierson, interagency cooperation, intergovernmental cooperation, National Agriculture Library, partnerships, Science.gov, science.gov alliance, WorldWideScience.org (WWS)

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Commemorating DOE, a Science Agency

by Kate Bannan 30 Sep, 2011 in Personal Perspectives
U.S. Department of Energy

The energy crisis of the 1970s demonstrated the need for unified energy planning within the federal government.  The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Organization Act (Public Law 95-91) was signed into law, centralizing the responsibilities of the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission and other energy-related government programs into a single presidential cabinet-level department.

Related Topics: 1970s, anniversary, doe, federal, nuclear, osti, r&d, research, tools

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WorldWideScience Opens International Doors

by Walt Warnick 06 Jun, 2011 in Personal Perspectives

On May 25, 2011, I made an invited presentation in Geneva, Switzerland at the 14th session of the United Nations’ Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD).  I want to share with you the reception WorldWideScience.org received at this conference.

palace

Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland

CSTD and OSTI share similar goals.  CSTD supports universal access for all to scientific knowledge.  OSTI seeks to share DOE R&D results with as many people as possible and we partner with other organizations to create integrated products designed to attract users.

Related Topics: CSTD, Geneva, WWS

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Impact of Basic Research and Knowledge Diffusion on Innovation

by Peter Lincoln 09 May, 2011 in Personal Perspectives
DOE-funded research led to the development of the Fast Fourier transform (1965)

In June 2009, OSTIBLOG published a piece submitted by a friend of OSTI on “Impact of Basic Research on Innovation”.  Subsequently, a number of readers remarked that the blog had not made a key point particularly relevant to OSTI: to have an impact on innovation, basic research results must be shared. 

Related Topics: DARPA, innovation, MP3. VLSI

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Sharing Data Leads to Progress

by Nena Moss 19 Aug, 2010 in Personal Perspectives

My mother died in March 2010 after a 15-year battle with Alzheimer’s, so I pay particular attention to news about this dreadful disease. A recent New York Times article caught my eye: “Sharing of Data Leads to Progress on Alzheimer's.”

How did sharing data lead to progress on Alzheimer’s?  A collaborative effort, the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, was formed to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain. The key was to share all the data, making every finding public immediately – “available to anyone with a computer anywhere in the world.”
 

Related Topics: ADNI, Alzheimer's, biomarkers, collaboration, corollary, data, disease, initiative, mission, neuroimaging, osti, research, sharing

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Cataloging Concepts by Learning Level

by David Wojick 05 Mar, 2010 in Personal Perspectives

OSTI has fielded the beta version of a new science education portal: http://www.scienceeducation.gov or simply SE.gov. Like Science.gov, the SE.gov portal aggregates content from across the Federal government, in this case educational content. But it also has a new, unique feature, in that it sorts content by learning level. My SBIR team is proud to have developed the basis for this feature. It is all a matter of cataloging scientific concepts by learning level.

Related Topics: science-education

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OSTI Lights Candles

by Walt Warnick 25 Sep, 2009 in Personal Perspectives

Despite DOE's frequent leadership in science and technology (think "human genome" or winning 46 of the "R&D 100" awards in 2009), it's widely acknowledged within DOE that the public isn't particularly aware of DOE's role.  Not that we in DOE are shamelessly craving a little credit, but in a representative government, an inf

Related Topics: doe, osti, r&d-results

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Aspirations for Connecting Researchers in New Media

by Mike Jennings 07 Jul, 2009 in Personal Perspectives

For several years I've been responsible for organizing OSTI staff to capitalize the benefits of web and mobile web innovations.  An important endeavor of mine aspires to help OSTI become a leader in connecting scientists in the second generation of the WorldWideWeb - Web 2.0.

Related Topics: doe-research, federated-search, new-media, web-2.0

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Impact of Basic Research on Innovation

by Kristin Bingham 01 Jun, 2009 in Personal Perspectives

 The development of MP3 technologies illustrates the unexpected benefits of basic research. In 1965, a hand-sized storage and playback device that would hold 15,000 recorded songs was the stuff of science fiction. Even simple hand-held calculators were rare and expensive at that time.

Related Topics: dod, doe, nih, nist, nsf, research

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The Importance of Cross-fertilization of Ideas

by Sol Lederman 19 May, 2009 in Personal Perspectives

Sol image

Being someone who really loves mathematics I enjoy reading about the lives of mathematicians, about how they think, and about how they solve problems. And, as an OSTI consultant I recognize the value of having access to the ideas of others when performing research.

As I read stories of the brilliant
mathematicians, especially ones like Gauss, Fermat, and Pythagoras who lived

Related Topics: federated, search

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