Proyecto Juarez Lincoln Marti
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Anexos al Boletin Mensual:
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Primer Tema:
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The Wolfram Function site

This is the ultimate site of Mathematical Functions. Featuring over 87,000
functions, from the most elementary, to Beta ,Gamma and Zeta functions,
and the beautiful range of hYpergeometric and number theory functions,
and over 10,000 visualizations, you will find everything you need, from
this huge collection of formulas and graphics covering the entire range of
mathematical functions. Really a very well organized, beautifully
comprehensive site. Found at:

http://functions.wolfram.com/

Segundo Tema:
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Education Statistics Quarterly-Vol. 5 Issue 4 - Just Released

The Quarterly offers an accessible, convenient overview of all NCES
products released in a given quarter. Each issue includes: short
publications (those less than 15 pages in length) in their entirety,
executive summaries of longer publications, descriptive paragraphs of
other NCES products, as well as notices about training and funding
opportunities. In addition, each issue includes a featured publication
with invited commentary pieces, a note on a current topic from a staff
member, and a message from NCES. This issue contains a complete annual
index of NCES publications.
To download, view and print the report as a pdf file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2004610

Cuarto Tema:
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Hello everyone:
I am proud to annonce the Fall issue of our Section Newsletter.
Thanks to co-Editors Joan Garfield and Jackie Dietz for all their help on this, as well as to all the contributors.
If anyone wishes to write articles or submit items for the calendar, please let me know.
Our next issue should appear in the Spring.
The Newsletter can be accessed by clicking on the link below (or by typing in the address if necessary):

http://www.amstat.org/sections/educ/newsletter/index.html.

Regards to all,
Brian Jersky
Editor, Statistical Education Newsletter

Quinto Tema:
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ARTIST Web Page

Reshource for teaching introductory courses in statistics. The ARTIST
project (Assessment Resource Tools for Improving Statistical Thinking) was
funded by the National Science Foundation. Our goal is to help teachers
assess Statistical literacy, Statistical reasoning, and Statistical
thinking in first courses of statistics.

Currently we provide the following resources at the ARTIST Website:

1. Assessment Builder: a collection of about 1,100 items, in a variety
of item formats, according to statistical topic and type of learning
outcome assessed. This database can be used to generate files in RTF format
that can be downloaded and then edited in a word processor by statistics
instructors.

2. Information, guidelines, and examples of alternative assessments
(such as project, article critiques, and writing assignments).

3. Implementation issues: questions and answers on practical issues
related to designing, administering, and evaluating assessments.

4. Copies of articles or direct links to articles on assessment in
statistics.

5. References and links for other related assessment resources.

6. Copies of conference papers and presentation on the ARTIST project,
and handouts from ARTIST minicourses.

7. Information on upcoming ARTIST events.

8. Ways to participate as a class tester for ARTIST materials.

Please visit the ARTIST Website at http://www.gen.umn.edu/artist/

Joan Garfield, Bob delMas, Beth Chance and Ann Ooms

Sexto Tema:
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SCAPEIO e Informest:

http://eio.usc.es/pub/sgapeio/boletin/editorial18.html

http://eio.usc.es/pub/sgapeio/traballosweb.html

http://www.agapema.com/activ/gamma/indicegamma3.pdf

Septimo Tema:
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The New York Times -- November 11, 2004

Microsoft Unveils Its Internet Search Engine, Quietly
By JOHN MARKOFF

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10 - Microsoft rolled out its long-planned response
to Google and Yahoo in the Internet search industry on Wednesday, but
with an uncharacteristically soft-sell approach.

The debut, taking the form of a test site, was a stark contrast to
another high-profile introduction the company made nine years ago. That
was when Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, all but declared war on
Netscape Communications and its Web browser by announcing his company's
own browser, Internet Explorer, and proclaiming, "We are hard core about
the Internet.''

On Wednesday, as Microsoft prepared to switch on its search engine at
midnight Eastern time (beta.search.msn.com), the company made none of
its top executives available for comment.

The highest-ranking official who was willing to discuss the rollout was
Adam Sohn, director of sales and marketing for the MSN Web portal. He
said Microsoft's intention was not to compete with Google, currently the
Internet's dominant search engine, but instead to "delight" its own
customers.

He discounted the widely held notion that Microsoft, which fought a
bitter federal antitrust battle as a result of its actions against
Netscape, had similar aggressive designs on the market for Internet
search.

"I see zero parallel here," he said. "It's a different landscape."

Soft talk notwithstanding, Microsoft is carrying a big stick as it
takes on Google and the No. 2 search site, Yahoo.

Microsoft said its MSN search engine would index five billion Web
pages, which would make it the most extensive search database, depending
on who is counting - and when.

Until recently, Google had said that its database indexed four billion
pages. But on Wednesday, Google executives said that they were updating
that count, to eight billion pages.

Microsoft is also offering search features meant to leverage the
company's other online assets. One, called Direct Actions, enables a
user to type in the name of a musical artist, song or album and then be
linked immediately to Microsoft's MSN Music store. MSN Music
increasingly aims to compete with Apple Computer's popular iTunes music
download service.

But Internet search experts and industry analysts said that Microsoft
still had far to go to be viewed as a serious competitor to either
Google or Yahoo.

"Over all, I'm pleased it's out there," said Danny Sullivan, editor of
SearchEngineWatch.com, an industry news site. "But it's not going to be
a Google killer" anytime soon, he said.

With Microsoft, of course, soon is not always the point. Despite its
take-no-prisoners approach to Netscape, the company's time-honored
tradition - whether with spreadsheet software, word-processing software
or the Windows graphical interface - has been to introduce highly
imitative products and features, then gradually improve upon them.

The company has typically bided its time, using its dominance of the
desktop operating system to wage a war of attrition that eventually
allows it to control other categories of the computing market.

It is too early to say whether that pattern will hold true in the
search field.

"The real question is, Does this do anything to change the traffic
patterns for search?" said James H. Friedland, a financial analyst at SG
Cowen, an investment firm. "They haven't done anything to leverage their
monopoly position on the desktop."

That could happen later this year, however. Microsoft said Wednesday
that it would announce a new desktop search tool before the end of the
year.

If that ability were linked to the company's Web search engine in
future versions of the Windows operation system - something that
Microsoft would not discuss but that analysts expect - the move could
place new pressure on Google and Yahoo.

Many of the features that Microsoft has incorporated into its new test
service have been tried previously in the industry, with varying
results.

The company, for example, has given its search engine the ability to
understand natural-language queries, so that a user can phrase questions
like "What is the capital of Turkey?" and receive the most useful
answer, which is Ankara. More bare-bones keyword search techniques might
elicit a reference to the turkey that the White House plans to pardon at
Thanksgiving, Mr. Sohn of Microsoft said.

While another search service, Ask Jeeves, has long tried to answer
questions that are typed in colloquial English sentences, Google came to
prominence by analyzing the structure of the Web, rather than human
languages, to determine the relevance of information to a user's query.
(For the record, both Ask Jeeves and Google can ably provide relevant
answers to "What is the capital of Turkey?")

Microsoft is also playing me-too in the increasingly popular field of
local search with a feature called Near Me, which provides results
tailored to a Web surfer's geographic locale. Both Google and Yahoo
currently offer extensive local search capabilities.

In the long term, the importance of search in controlling access to the
Internet cannot be overstated, in the view of Brewster Kahle, the
founder of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization based in San
Francisco that maintains a complete copy of the contents of the World
Wide Web.

Fully 20 percent of all Web traffic now goes to 10 Web sites, and that
list is dominated by search engines, he said. "The level of mind space
that provides is enormous,'' Mr. Kahle said. "If you want to control the
world, it's essential that you be there."

But in another indication that Microsoft means to take a gradual
approach to the search market, the company said on Wednesday that it was
not severing an important business link to Yahoo, which currently
provides the search service on MSN. To the surprise of some analysts,
Microsoft plans to continue using Yahoo's Overture advertising-placement
service.

Overture displays text ads on MSN search-result pages and shares the
revenue with Microsoft. Mr. Sohn said that Microsoft had no current
plans to create its own competing advertising network.

But while dismissing talk of an Internet search war, Mr. Sohn
acknowledged that Microsoft hoped its new search abilities might entice
Web surfers who do not have what he termed a "religious" commitment to
Google.

"Search is in its infancy," he said. "There has been an explosion of
new entrants."