Japanese Chemical Literature

The importance of abstracting Japanese scientific articles, otherwise wholly or partially inaccessible because of the linguistic barrier, was recognized early by the German Chemisches Zentralblatt, the American Chemical Abstracts the Journal of the Chemical Society London) (abstracts 1871-1925), and the British Chemical Abstracts. Since its first appearance in 1907, Chemical Abstracts has given increasing attention to Japanese chemical literature. This is described by the editor, E. J. Crane, in two articles 8, 9) from which the following statistics are taken. 

Abstracts of Japanese articles published in Chemical Abstracts were 0.3% of the total in 1909, and 9.1% in 1951 (first half of the year) however, the Japanese chemical literature was not covered completely before 1918. In comparison, American articles were 20.1% in 1909 and 36.6% in 1951 German articles made up a large part of the total in 1909 (45.0%), while they represent only 7.9% in 1951 9). 

For a number of years World War II prevented the growth of the coverage of Japanese chemical literature. After the war. Crane re-established connections with Japanese literature 5) and by 1948 Chemical Abstracts had again received abstracts of approximately 5000 articles that had appeared in Japan since 1941 6). 

In other parts of the world, reference journals were also founded In 1927, the first issue of the journal Nippon Kagaku Soran was published in Japanese. This journal has abstracted the Imown chemical literature in Japan since 1877. The Japan Information Center of Science and Technology (JICST), which was founded 1957, took over the reference journal in 1958 for financial reasons and continued publishing it with the new title Domestic Chemistry Series of JICST Current Awareness. The rest of the world did not take very much notice of Japanese publications, now and then an article was cited in Chemisches Zen-tralblatt or Chemical Abstracts although this Japanese reference journal was essential for Japanese chemists. The number of publications, which were cited in Chemical Abstracts increased steadily (34 abstracts in 1907 109,800 in 1991), the systematic access to the Japanese chemical literature was organized after the Second World War Since 1977, the Japan Association for International Chemical Information (JAICI), a department of JICST, has cooperated with Chemical Abstracts Service and since 1980, all CA abstracts of Japanese publications have been written by JAICI. 

The primary sources for acquiring the FIA references have been the CHEMABS base of the ESA-IRS (European Space Agency-Information Retrieval Service) Current Awareness Service, and the Physical Chemical, and Earth Sciences section of Current Contents published by the Institute for Scientific Information, Inc. These sources have been supplemented by our own scrutiny of available periodicals of the analytical chemical literature, by the FIA bibliography listed in the recently launched Japanese Journal of Flow Injection Analysis, and by reprints supplied kindly to us by authors themselves. 

Phthalocyanines were chosen for these experiments because they are electronic semiconductors and because they are quite stable materials — an important consideration in fabricating any practical gas-detecting device. A considerable body of literature exists describing the physical and chemical properties of the phthalocyanines. A review of the work prior to 1965 is contained in the chapter by A. B. P. Lever in Volume 7 of Advances in Inorganic Chemistry and Radiochemistry (2). Electrical properties of phthalocyanines have been receiving increased attention in recent years. The photoconductivity of metal-free phthalocyanine has been studied in detail (3,4). Electrical properties of lead phthalocyanine have been studied extensively, especially by Japanese workers (5, ,7,8i). They have also studied the alteration of the conductivity of this material upon exposure to oxygen ( ,10.). The effects of a series of adsorbed gases (0, , CO, and NO) on the conductivity of iron phthalo-... 

Kowalski (7), commenting on the early period of work in this area, stated as follows At Exxon Chemical we measured the level worldwide interest in reactive extrusion via a patent and literature survey for the period 1966-1983. We found a total of more than 600 different patents granted to 150 companies—many Japanese. In comparison only 57 papers were found in the open literature, mostly by extruder vendors... only three papers were from the above 150 companies ... 

The use of brominated poly(TMSP) as a chemical intermediate has recently been described in the patent literature. Tanaka, H. Morita, M. Japanese Patent 61 105 544, 1986. 

More information on the use of Stevia in different covmtries can be found in the List of Food Additives excluding chemical s)mthetics (Japanese Ministery of Health and Welfare). The consumption of Stevia leaves in 1989 is given for different countries Japan (2000 tons/year), Brazil (600 tons/year), China (400 tons/year). South Korea (300-400 tons/year), Thailand (100 tons/year), Taiwan (Formosa) (small quantities), Paraguay (150 tons/year) and Argentina (60 tons/year). Even in Belgium, England and The Netherlands several tons of dried leaves have been consumed. In 1989 the (known) world production was estimated at 4100 tons/year. No problems have been published in scientific literature... 

Little can be said about Japanese patents as a source of information for the chemist searching the literature however, Japanese patents are being abstracted by Chemical Abstracts. Information about them may also be had from Tokyo Koho, the official patent report appearing irregularly in Japanese, published by Hatsumei Kyokai, The Patent Office, Tokyo (3). 

A few other entry-level jobs entail no laboratory work. They track an orbit remote from the pharmaceutical industry nucleus, but make indispensable contributions to this and other chemical industries and to the community of researchers. For example, the Chemical Abstracts Service employs organic chemists to summarize the world s scientific literature. Academic qualifications span the range from bachelor s to doctor s degrees strong candidates know languages like Japanese, Russian, or German. 

Because of the widespread industrial interest these catalysts have engendered, the majority of the literature to be cited is in the form of patents or published patent applications." When a published patent application has been subsequently issued as a U.S. Patent, the U.S. Patent number will be cited. When an equivalent application appears to a published PCT International Application in Japanese, the English-language version will be cited. Japanese laid-open applications (Kokai) will be addressed to the extent that the abstract gives a clear picture of the unique aspect of the invention. Chemical Ah stracts accession numbers will be provided for all cited patent literature. 

The subject of the chemical synthesis of formose sugars, including the historical background, the results of kinetic studies and a rdsumd of biological tests, have been summarized by Mizuno and Weiss.Some chemical aspects of the formose reaction have also been surveyed in Japanese papers." The review " covers the literature up to 1971, which roughly coincides with the period covered in the previous report in this series. In the subsequent years, efforts have been continued to evaluate the influence of various factors affecting the yield and composition of the formose sugars. 

Because of the large number of papers published in the period under review (1977 and 1978 calendar years), and the limited time and space available, many references herein are very brief. West European, Japanese, and North American literature has been covered fairly thoroughly, but those references to the East European and Russian literature appearing here do so mainly by virtue of a citation in Chemical Abstracts. For earlier years, the reader is referred to the chapters on Synthetic Macromolecules in the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance volumes published annually in this Specialist Periodical Reports series, beginning in 1972. 

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