Computer — Personal Chemical Information Systems

A number of software and database vendors provide programs and database systems to implement representation, registration, and searching of chemical information in a corporate environment. Some of these vendors have smaller personal chemical database systems that support registration and searching on a personal computer. A handful of academic and public domain systems are also available. Finally, an increasing number of chemical information systems are being made available on... 

Figure 1 shows a schema for an ideal distributed chemical information system. Several authors in this book refer to the need for standard interfaces. Ultimately, the personal computer will provide the graphics interface not only to personal computer databases but also to company databases running on the company mainframe, and possibly also through the same network to public hosts, so that the chemist using a personal workstation will be able to create queries which can be addressed to local files, company files and public files. Soon, chemical databases will be available on Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) searchable by both substructure and text. These too fit into the scheme of Figure 1. Databases such as infra-red spectra libraries will have structure-searchable components either on the personal computer or on the laboratory instrument and will also be used through the same graphical interface.

A semiconductor microcircuit is a series of electrically intercoimected films that are laid down by chemical reactions. The successful growth and manipulation of these films depend heavily on proper design of the chemical reactors in which they are laid down, the choice of chemical reagents, separation and purification steps, and the design and operation of sophisticated control systems. Microelectronics based on microcircuits are commonly used in such consumer items as calculators, digital watches, personal computers, and microwave ovens and in information processing units that are used in communication, defense, space exploration, medicine, and education. 

Research articles of interest to biochemists may appear in many types of research journals. Research libraries do not have the funds necessary to subscribe to every journal, nor do scientists have the time to survey every current journal copy for articles of interest. Two publications that help scientists to keep up with published articles are Chemical Titles (published every 2 weeks by the American Chemical Society) and the weekly Current Contents available in hard copy and computer disks (published by the Institute of Science Information). The Life Science edition of Current Contents is the most useful for biochemists. The computer revolution has reached into the chemical and biochemical literature, and most college and university libraries now subscribe to computer bibliographic search services. One such service is STN International, the scientific and technical information network. This on-line system allows direct access to some of the world s largest scientific databases. The STN databases of most value to life scientists include BIOSIS Pre-views/RN (produced by Bio Sciences Information Service covers original research reports, reviews, and U.S. patents in biology and biomedicine), CA (produced by Chemical Abstracts service covers research reports in all areas of chemistry), MEDLINE, and MEDLARS (produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and Index Medicus, respectively cover all areas of biomedicine). These networks provide on-line service and their databases can be accessed from personal computers in the office, laboratory, or library. Some... 

More recently, the explosion in volume of chemical publications, and the large increase in amounts of data which result, have led to the development of computer-based systems for processing, correlating, and retrieving the information. Many services of this type are available to the chemist, and they include various personalized services devoted to making rapid but useful literature surveys. Many obstacles remain to be overcome before systems will become available which will not produce a large amount of irrelevant information in addition to required items. One approach to the... 

Federal Disposal System a real-time, online computer database managed by the GSA (since 1992) for recording, tracking and controlling the nationwide inventory of excess and surplus personal property inventory (e.g., equipment, commodities, including chemicals) of the Federal government. For additional information on using FEDS, access http //pub.fss.gsa.gov/propertv/. 

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