An Internet Multicast Symposium Concerning the Microcirculation of the Islets of Langerhans

Abstract

The Internet Globally-linked Computer System was used to conduct an international scientific symposium. The symposium was held at the VAMC-Long Beach and consisted of prepared lectures that were multicast over the Internet. The basic unit of hardware used for the Internet Multicast was the Silicon Graphics Indy Unix Workstation, which was equipped with a color video camera. The multicast required four additional pieces of software from the file transfer protocol. The multicast backbone protocol allowed for simultaneous audio and video signals (the presenter, the slides, and the videotape images of islet microcirculation studies) to be transmitted over the computer network. The faculty included 12 experts in microcirculation, who gave 15-min lectures that included a question and answer period. All lectures were received at 14 computer stations in six countries. Eleven of the faculty gave their lectures at the VAMC-Long Beach, and one gave her lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, MA. The presenter from Boston was able to receive and answer questions from the faculty at the VAMC-Long Beach. An estimated $12,000 was saved in travel, hotel, and food costs and an estimated 180 travel hours were saved by viewers who did not have to travel to the symposium. We have demonstrated that a scientific symposium can be conducted using the Internet. We propose that many of our future meetings will be organized over the computer network. This format of multiimage projections allows us to effectively communicate in a personal way with a reduction in expensive and time-consuming travel.