Other Commercial Databases

In addition to resources maintained by official agencies, other databases exist that are commercial ventures addressing medical professionals. Here are some examples that may interest you  

The figure that accompanies each article is frequently supplied by an expert external to NCBI, in which case the source of the figure is cited. The result is an interactive tutorial that tells a biological story. 

After a brief introduction that sets the work described into a broader context, the report focuses on how a molecular understanding can provide explanations of observed biology and lead to therapies for diseases. Each vignette is accompanied by a figure and hypertext links that lead to a series of pages that interactively show how NCBI tools and resources are used in the research process. 

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Other commercial databases are available that address areas of interest to medical planners, such as travel medicine. 

Producers who serve as vendors for their own databases are more numerous than vendors that offer services from databases produced by other organizations. More than 650 producer/vendors plus some 270 traditional commercial database vendors are Hsted in CRDB(l). Only those vendors that offer search services or distribute CD-ROMs for databases other than their own come under this vendor classification (1). Vendors that offer services solely from databases they themselves produce are Hsted as database producers. 

The most critically reviewed solubility data are those in the IUPAC Solubility Data series (1984, 1985, 1989a, 1989b). Other sources include the Handbooks by Howard et al. (1989, 1990,1991,1993), Mackay et al. (1997), and Verschueren (1996) and the papers and texts by Horvath (1973,1975,1982) and Yalkowsky and Bannerjee (1992). Commercial databases are also available from a variety of sources, e.g., the AQUASOL database of Yalkowsky and Dannenfelser (1991). 

Common approaches for the tailoring of nonmetallic (ceramic) materials properties involve topochemical methods (those where the crystal structure remains largely unaffected) and the preparation of phases in which one or more sublattices are alloyed. In principle, such materials are within the realm of CALPHAD. On the other hand, as has already been stated, extrapolation does not really aid the discovery of new or novel phases, with unique crystal structures. Furthermore, assessed thermochemical data for the vast majority of ceramic systems, particularly transition metal compounds, are presently not available in commercial databases for use with phase diagram software. This does not necessarily preclude the use of the CALPHAD method on these systems However, it does require the user to carry out their own thermodynamic assessments of the (n — 1 )th-order subsystems and to import that data into a database for extrapolation to nth-order systems, which is not a trivial task. 

Other searchable sources of FDA recall data are DIOGENES FDA Regulatory Updates (1984 forward) and F-D-C Reports (1988 forward). Because both of these commercial databases create separate online records for each recall notice, results from searches that involve coordination of multiple factors (e.g., company name + recall class of severity) are more precise than those retrieved using the FDA Web site s search engine. 

Some of the databases (Table 4) are beginning to incorporate searchable fields containing other physical characteristics, such as C-NMR chemical shifts and mass spectral fragment ions. Some of these are simulated data that are less accurate for the more unusual compounds. The most readily obtained physical data is normally a UV spectrum, and several of the commercial databases are searchable by this characteristic. Each new characteristic that agrees with the literature value adds a level of confidence to the identification of an unknown compound as a literature compound. The level of confidence required depends on the questions being asked. 

One of the best sources of data on the national pharmaceutical industry is usually the national industry association. National associations of pharmaceutical manufacturers publish in their annual reports numerous facts and figures which are intended to promote the industry, but which can be valuable in assessing its situation. Commercial databases such as Datastream or those compiled by the IMS contain company-specific financial and commercial data. Annual reports from individual companies are also useful. Other industry specific information available in publications such as the Panorama of EU Industry published by the Eurostat, the statistical office of the European communities, and reports issued by the European and International Federations of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations. However, with all of these aforementioned data sources, there is really no way to verify its validity. 

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