Dictionaries

An abridged edition of Miall s Dictionary of Chemistry 5th Edition, edited by Professor D. W. A. Sharp, first published by Longman Group Ltd 1981 First published in Great Britain by Penguin Books 1983 Reprinted 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988... 

Fifth Edition of Miall s Dictionary of Chemistry copyright Longman Group Ltd, 1981 This adaptation copyright Penguin Books Ltd, 1983 All rights reserved... 

In this Dictionary 1 have aimed to provide an explanation of the terms used in the various branches of chemistry, together with brief accounts of important substances and chemical operations. The Dictionary is intended for use in schools, colleges and universities from the first study of chemistry up to about second year at university or college. We have necessarily had to be selective rather than comprehensive but most chemicals met with at this level should be included. 

The list of contributors is on page 6 and I am deeply indebted to them, for it is they who originally prepared MiaU s Dictionary of Chemistry from which this Dictionary has been compiled. Errors and omissions are my responsibility and 1 would appreciate receiving notice of them. 

This dictionary puts the pleasure back into word-seeking. Every time you look at a page you get a bonus - a panel telling you everything about a particular word or expression. It is, therefore, a dictionary to be read as well as used for its concise and up-to-date definitions. 

This invaluable French-English, English-French dictionary includes both the literary and dated vocabulary needed by students, and the up-to-date slang and specialized vocabulary (scientific, legal, sporting, etc) needed in everyday life. As a passport to the French language, it is second to none. 

The Penguin Dictionary of Computers Anthony Chandor and others... 

Specifications represent, as indicated in dictionaries, the definition of the characteristics that a construction, a material, a product, etc., must have. The specifications for industrial products, such as petroleum products, are thus lists of terms and conditions that the products must meet. There are many types of specifications for petroleum products ... 

An alternative and much more flexible approach is represented hy the STAR file format [L48, 149, which can be used for building self-describing data files. Additionally, special dictionaries can be constructed, which specify more precisely the contents of the eorresponding data files. The two most widely used such dictionaries (and file formats) arc the CIF (Crystallographic Information File) file format [150] - the International Union of Crystallography s standard for representation of small molecules - and mmCIF [151], which is intended as a replacement for the PDB format for the representation of macromolecular structures,... 

Residue name - one of the standard amino acids (lliree-letler abbreviations are used), nucleic acids (one- or two-lctter abbreviations), or the non-standard group designation as dc ncd in lire HHT dictionary 23-26 Residue sequence nuniber,... 

Data formats based on the STAR file with their own dictionaries can further restrict the syntax of files to conform to their definition. 

The set of possible data names can be restricted by a diction-aiy. which specifies which names can be used within a file to conform to the specified dictionary. Dictionaries can also be used to specify which data items will be processed by some software. In this case entries not defined by an appropriate dictionaiy will simply be ignored. Dictionaries arc defined in so-callcd dictionary definition language (DDL). Several commonly used dictionaries arc shown in Tabic 2-9. Two of them (GIF and mmCIF) arc discu.sscd below in greater detail. 

Table 2-9. Sample STAR-based dictionaries. Name Descripticrf...

Fowder GIF Fxtciids the core GIF dictionary by adding details of the powder difTraction... 

Modulated Supplement to the core Cl I- dictionary designed to permit the description of... 

MDB Dictionary defining data format and structure for 3D models of biological... 

The CIF format not only defines its dictionary of available data names, but restricts the STAR file syntax as well. For example, lines may not exceed 80 characters and data names can contain a maximum of 32 characters. Furthermore, the CIF dictionaiy specifies default units for numeric fields that represent numeric values with units. If the data item is not stored in the default units, then the units code is appended to the data name. Thus cell length a and cell length a pm represent the dimensions ofthe unit cell in Angstrom (the default units conforming to the SI Standard) and picomclcrs, respectively. 

The CIF file format was quickly and widely adopted by the scientific community for at least two reasons [165J it was, and still is, endorsed by the lUCr and submission of data to the journal Acta Ciystallographka, Section C in a form conforming to CI F assures faster processing and hence faster publication of accepted papers. The current CIF file dictionary defines about 1200 data names, but it is still unable to represent all the details of the crystallographic measurements of macromolecules. Thus, yet another STAR-based data format is needed. 

ChemSketch is a professional software package that is available free of charge from Advanced Chemistry Development Inc. (ACD). Besides the editor, it has several modules (ACD/Dictionary, ACD/Tautomers), extensions, and add-ins concerning the calculation of physicochemical properties, input of spectra and chromatograms, naming of molecules, and a viewer. 

Thus, the conversion of chemical names into structures consists of parsing the name into longest text fragments. These fragments are submitted to lexical analysis and the derived lexical units are compared with a collection of predefined units in a dictionary. 

HeUbron and Bunbury, Dictionary of Organic Compounds, Revised Edition, Four Volumes, 1953 (Eyre and Spottiswoode). 

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