9503785 Magill This U.S.-Argentina Cooperative Science Program award, which has been approved by Argentina, supports travel expenses for the P.I., Dr. R. Magill, Missouri Botanical Gardens (MBG), St. Louis, Missouri to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Magill will supervise the installation of an INTERNET connection between MBG and the Instituto Darwinion (ID), San Isidro, Argentina, and train personnel on INTERNET, TELNET and TROPICOS operations. Support is also included for the purchase of permanent computer equipment, some programming and computer time, and one year maintenance of a dedicated line, required to establish the connection. The ID is committed to supporting the dedicated line after the first year of operations. The Catalogue of the Vascular plants of Argentina is a collaborative research effort between MBG in the U.S. and the ID in Argentina. Its objective is to produce an updated, computerized inventory of the flora of Argentina as both a published document and as an electronic database. Most of the information for the catalog is captured at the ID, utilizing a personal computer version of TROPICOS, the software developed by MBG. Every six month, the data is sent to MBG, and merged with the TROPICOS database. This process is cumbersome and expensive, and will be eliminated by the direct INTERNET connection. The INTERNET link will provide project personnel at the ID with direct access to all the resources of the INTERNET, and in particular to the TROPICOS database. At the same time, MBG and the U.S. scientific community will benefit directly from the information on Argentine plants that will be added to the TROPICOS database and to MBG's Gopher and World Wide Web servers. The connection will also be available to scientists from a number of other institutions in Argentina, such as the Instituto Miguel Lillo, INTI and Instituto de Botanica del Noroeste, and will thus prove a link to these institutions. ***
