BioGopher at the Australian National University

[David G Green]

             The Australian National University

                   BIOINFORMATION FACILITY

                 ----------------------------
                 Network Information Services
                 ----------------------------

ANU's Bioinformatics Facility provides information on Internet
under a number of themes. At present the major themes include:

        * biodiversity
        * bioinformatics & biocomputing
        * biomathematics & biostatistics
        * complex systems
        * general interest
        * landscape ecology and the environment
        * molecular biology
        * neurosciences
        * viruses (NOT computer viruses)
        * weather & global monitoring

Further details of each of these services are given below,

The network services currently provided include:

        * FTP archive
        * Bio-Gopher server
        * Mailing lists and news



You can access these services as follows ...

FTP ARCHIVE

Use ftp to connect to our server life.anu.edu.au
Use the login name anonymous and your email address as the password
The archives are all in the directory  /pub  and its subdirectories.
If you wish to submit files to the archive see the file /pub/policy.txt
for details.


GOPHER SERVER

Besides access to most files in the FTP archive the gopher service
provides the following information under each of the above themes:

    * On-line searching of major international databases
    * Direct links to relevant electronic newsgroups
    * Answers to frequently asked questions
    * Bibliographies
    * Thematic links to other sites


To access the server point your gopher software at this address:

Name=BioInformatics gopher at ANU
Host=life.anu.edu.au
Type=1
Port=70
Path=


MAIL SERVICES

Currently these include the following (more lists are planned):

International Organization for Plant Information
     Mailing address:   iopi at life.anu.edu.au
     Moderator:         Dr Catherine Zellweger (zellweger at cjb.unige.ch)

International Union of Biological Societies
     Mailing address:   iopi at life.anu.edu.au
     Moderator:         Dr Ian Noble (noble at rsbs.anu.edu.au)

Complex systems
     Mailing address:   iopi at life.anu.edu.au
     Moderator:         Dr David Green (David.Green at anu.edu.au)


To subscribe to any of these mailing lists, send an email message to

        listserv at life.anu.edu.au

Include the following line in your message ...

        subscribe  (service>  <give your name here>

e.g.    subscribe iopi     Fred Nurk
        subscribe complex  Joe BLoggs

SUMMARY OF THE MAIN THEMES

Complex systems,

Topics inlude: artificial life, cellular automata, chaos, criticality,
fractals, non-linear dynamics, neural networks, self-organizing systems,
and more.

Services include:

* direct queries of major databases, especially in molecular biology
* direct links, organized thematically, to
        - other gopher servers
        - electronic news groups
        - available scientific journal contents

* bibliographies
* Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about major topics


About ANU's Bioinformatics Facility

The Australian National University's BioInformatics Facility is
a small group of researchers and programmers located within the
Research School of Biological Sciences. It is affiliated with ANU's
Centre for Molecular Structure and Function (CMSF), with the
Centre for Information Science Research (CISR), and with the
ANU Supercomputer Facility (ANUSF).


title   BIOINFORMATICS
path    /pub/bioinformatics

summary
Contains material about general issues in compiling, storing and using
biological information most effectively, especially issues relating to
distributed and public domain databases (PDD). These issues include:
  * development of biological data standards;
  * design and implementation of data exchange protocols;
  * uses of artificial intelligence in information systems.
......

title   BIOMATHEMATICS & BIOSTATISTICS
path    /pub/biomath

summary
Contains mathematical and statistical methods developed specifically
for use with biological data. ANUBIF maintains a repository for software
implementing assorted numerical tools, mostly developed at ANU.
......

title   BIODIVERSITY
path    /pub/biodiversity

summary
Information and databases concerning biodiversity. Includes
     * On-line searches of Australian Plant Name Index (via
       Australian National Botanic Gardens)
     * Documents from major biodiversity projects
......

title   COMPLEX SYSTEMS
path    /pub/complex_systems

summary
Concerns properties and behaviour of complex biological systems emerge
from non-linearity or interactions between components. Topics include:
artificial life, biocomplexity, cellular automata, chaos, criticality,
fractals, iterative function systems, learning systems, L-systems,
neural nets, non-linear dynamics, percolation, self-organization.

......

title   COMPUTATIONAL MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
path    /pub/molecular

summary
Contains software, mostly developed at ANU, for sequence analysis and
molecular modelling. The main areas of concern are database searching,
multiple sequence alignment, phylogenetic reconstruction, and simulated
evolution (at the molecular level) and structural prediction. Research
at ANU is applying parallel computing and artificial intelligence to
these and other issues in sequence analysis.
......

title   LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY
path    /pub/landscape_ecology

summary
ANUBF makes available a variety of simulation models based on the
cellular automaton (CA) paradigm. A CA model simulates a landscape
as an array of cells in which each cell represents an area on the
ground. Spatially extensive processes, such as seed dispersal or
fire spread, produce interactions between adjacent cells and can
lead to completely different behaviour from non-spatial models.
......

title   NETKIT
path    /pub/netkit

summary
This folder contains information and essential software for accessing
and using the facilities provided by ANUBIF. It includes introductory
documents about Internet plus copies of essential public domain software
for working on the network.

......

title   VIRUSES
path    /pub/viruses

summary
This folder will soon contain hold databases about viruses, which are
currently being compiled under the Virus Identification Data Exchange.
......

title   WEATHER
path    /pub/weather

summary
Information about current weather, climate change and global monitoring.
Includes the following current information from sources world-wide:
     * daily earthquake reports
     * daily weather satellite images for most parts of the world;
     * links to current weather reports
     * links to all other active weather gophers
     * thematic links to relevant news groups

% _______________________________________________________________________
% For further information contact:

name            Dr David Green

address         BioInformatics Facility
                Research School of Biological Sciences
                Australian National University
                GPO Box 475
                Canberra 2601 AUSTRALIA

email           david.green at anu.edu.au
phone           61-6-249-2490 or 61-6-249-5031
fax             61-6-249-4437

updated         2-3-1993