Speeding the Way to an NIH Grant
For decades, scientists waited a year to get a grant from the National Institutes of Health. In recent years, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of 18 NIH Institutes, built three systems, using Internet-based technology that will merge with NIH efforts to create electronic commerce. They've slashed the processing time to 4 or 5 months for certain grants. The grand vision is a mere 3 months from start to finish for 30,000 grant applications a year.

Online Center Helps Women Start and Build a Business
Women are starting new firms at twice the rate of other groups and own nearly 40 percent of all firms in the U.S. These 8 million firms employ 18.5 million -- one in every five U.S. workers -- and contribute $2.3 trillion to the economy. The Small Business Administration has an online center to help women start and build businesses. It's reaching women over the world.

National Institutes of Health Takes the Time Out of Timekeeping
The National Institutes of Health was one of the first federal agencies to heed Vice President Gore's call to reinvent labor-intensive timekeeping systems, including eliminating employee sign in sheets. Good systems trust employees, ask them to report time only when they take leave, and use information technology to reduce timekeeping tasks. First NIH implemented a timesaving system, using a National Science Foundation system as its model. Now it's moving to a Web-based system. Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it will adopt the NIH system as its official timekeeping system.

"Talking" Glossary Explains DNA, Gene Therapy
Do you know that DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid? OK, do you know how to pronounce it? If you need a vocabulary to keep up with recent advances in genetics, visit the National Human Genome Research Institute's new online glossary. Featuring nearly 200 terms, the glossary is easy to read and easy to use. It offers handy pronunciation guides, brief text definitions, and dozens of richly illustrated diagrams of selected terms. The glossary also "talks." It features in-depth audio clips -- spoken explanations -- provided by more than two-dozen researchers in the fields of genetics, molecular biology, and medicine.

Smart Cards Carry All
All of us who use ATM and credit cards know how smart a little plastic card with a magnetic stripe can be. But plastic cards are getting smarter. A smart card contains an integrated circuit chip with a microprocessor and memory. They are portable databases that government workers can use to work better and faster. The General Services Administration, in partnership with Navy, opened a Smart Card Technology Center in Washington, DC, in September 1998. The Center demonstrates one card storing everything from "cash" to fingerprints to medical and dental records.