Scientific search services

If the editor decides to send the manuscript for peer review, customarily two to four individuals with appropriate expertise—training or research experience—are asked to review the manuscript. The editor may identify reviewers in a number of ways. Many editors ask authors to recommend reviewers some do not. Author-recommended reviewers may or may not be used. Most editors will not send manuscripts to specific reviewers if an author so requests. Other potential reviewers may be authors cited in the manuscript, acknowledged experts in the field, or other active researchers in the field. Editors often use scientific search services (such as SciFinder or SciFinder Scholar for chemists) to identify qualified potential reviewers. Reviewers may or may not be known personally to the editor. Most journals maintain records on thousands of reviewers, including their expertise, manuscripts they have reviewed, performance, and so on. 

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... 

If a scientific library does not provide an online patent and literature service, the patent office library may be approached directly. Patent attorneys may also offer a patent search service. Furthermore, contacts with companies which are interested in the field may be established in order to use their patent information network. 

SIS (2013) BenchTop/PBM mass spectrometry library search system, scientific instrument services, http //www.sisweh.com/sofiware/ms/ nist.htm (accessed 10 May 2014). 

STN Easy a new Web-based service, this provides point-and-click WWW access to selected databases on STN. Anyone can use it to find and display information about science and technology. It offers two levels of searching basic (no experience in scientific searching required) and advanced (see STN Easy WWW Access to STN Databases). 

The lUPAC rules are not the only nomenclature system in use today Chemical Abstracts Service sur veys all the worlds leading scientific journals that publish papers relating to chemistry and publishes brief abstracts of those papers The publication Chemical Abstracts and its indexes are absolutely es sential to the practice of chemistry For many years Chemical Abstracts nomenclature was very similar to lUPAC nomenclature but the tremendous explosion of chemical knowledge has required Chemical Abstracts to modify Its nomenclature so that its indexes are better adapted to computerized searching This means that whenever feasible a compound has a sin gle Chemical Abstracts name Unfortunately this Chemical Abstracts name may be different from any of the several lUPAC names In general it is easier to make the mental connection between a chemical structure and its lUPAC name than its Chemical Abstracts name... 

CS4JSI/SND. The Canadian Scientific Numeric Database Service (CAN/ SND) is provided by the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (ClSTl), a division of the National Research Council of Canada. It contains 140,000 ir spectra of 96,000 compounds. Entries consist of peak locations and some intensities. This system is searchable on-line using the SPIR (Search Program for Infrared Spectra) (85). Table 9 summarizes the available databases in the area of spectra. 

The Department of Health is reported to be searching for diethylhexyl phthalate-free products for the National Health Service following international concern over possible health effects from exposure to the plasticiser. The EU Scientific Committee on Medicinal Products Medical Devices has made no recommendation that hospitals should take any precautionary measures to reduce exposures of groups of patients considered to be at risk although Health Canada and the FDA have issued precautionary assessments. 

The Institute of Scientific Information (ISI, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) operates a computer-based weekly service called ASCA (Automatic Subject Citation Alert). Articles from prime scientific journals may be located through cited item terms as well as through title terms. Clusters of articles with common references will usually be about the same subject, so a reference used as a profile term will locate articles citing that reference, as articles are published. A similar principle is employed in the Science Citation Index for retrospective searching, where all items having a common reference are brought together beneath the item they cite. 

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