NEWS AND NOTES
Letter to the Editor Dear Sir: The citation index to the errata notices of the following journals has been updated through 1972: J. Chem. Phys. Vols. 1-57, 1933-72 (8 pages) J. Org. Chem. Vols. 1-37, 1936-72 ( 5 pages) Znorg. Chem. Vols. 1-11, 1962-72 (1page) In addition, citation indexes have been prepared for the following journals: J. Amer. Chem. SOC.Vols. 72-89, 1950-67 (10 pages) J.Phys. Chem. Vols. 54-76, 1950-72 (3 pages) Anal. Biochem. Vols. 1-50, 1960-72 (1page) J. Colloid Interface Sci. Vols. 1-41, 1946-72 (1page) J. Mol. Biol. Vols. 1-72, 1959-72 (1 page) The indexes are designed to facilitate the annotation of appropriate articles and can be used also for quick reference. Since the index generally will be of interest to libraries only, it may be ordered on a standard ALA-ILL form by specifying photocopy. DANA L. ROTH Millikan Library California Institute of Technology Pasadena, Calif. 91109
A ”Tongue-in-cheek” Glossary*
Algorithm: a series of steps usually giving the same answer (see minor bug) Authority list: terms which normally do not include the one sought Benchmark: time required for a computer run on data accumulated during a 3-day shutdown Boolean logic: and/or/not (used in enough combinations, this logic will either dump the file or give no hits) Broad spectrum of data: a t least two separate readings Chaining: a file searching technique designed for maximum efficiency in retrieving no answers Citation indexes: a useful mechanism for wide exposure of a paper (“wise” authors ensure inclusion of their papers by citing an authoritative article, whether relevant or not) Cluster analysis: best applied when data fall into only two obviously different categories Conceptual design: most safely stated as “a solution to the problem will be sought” Controlled vocabulary: clever approach to excluding search terms not thought of by the vocabulary designers (see authority list) Current awareness: accomplished by weekly sessions with postdocs working on the project Data base: synonymous with “everything but the kitchen sink” Deep indexing: more than one index term per article Easily modified program: any computer program which requires only one-half man-year of effort to change Easily updated file: a file which can be updated quicker by computer than by manual methods From the files of Seldon W. Tenant, ACS Books and Journals Division, R&D Dept., 1155 Sixteenth St., Washington, D. C . 20036
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Essentially error free: a qualitative term used to describe a file or product with a low percentage error-e.g., an alphabetical list with only 3.9% error; all of the D entries occurring between F and G Evolutionary system changes: a means of keeping users, programmers, analysts, and data processing staff alert Extensive survey: any survey based on a t least one response to a mailed questionnaire File maintenance: a process used to ensure that a file reflects data no more than two generations old (see easily updated file) Flow chart: a graphic representation useful in obscuring the critical, small steps that will cause the system to break down when implemented Improved access: a term best used to describe the difference between partial access and no access Information explosion: most frequently used and accepted alibi for not solving a problem in the information field Information management system: transfer of information to a computer base Inverted file: buzz words synonymous with “scrambled” file Literature search: best accomplished by copying recently published state-of-the-art articles with extensive bibliograp hies Management information system: see information management system Mechanized storage & retrieval system: an information system requiring a mechanical device-.g., a sorting needle used with edge-notched cards, an electrical switch to turn on a light bulb in library stacks, etc. Methodology: buzz word, normally used with “the- - - - -is too technical to explain in detail” Minor bug: any computer program malfunction that shuts down a given operation Modular and table-drive computer program: a program which requires only 75% reprogramming to adapt it (as opposed to complete reprogramming) Preliminary analysis: synonymous with “we have a problem” (see conceptual design) Present state-of-the-art: alibi, normally used with “it would be ( a ) impossible or (b) too expensive, considering the- - - - - - ” (see information explosion) Random sample: the first three or four people questioned Relevance & precision: terms most often mentioned to inject new life into dying discussions about information retrieval Roles and links: see revelance and precision Screen: synonymous with “filter,” a searching device used to obtain a residue of completely unrelated facts Search profile: normally used with “improperly constructed’’ to explain (a) no search hits or (b) dumping of the file Significant words: considered by a searcher to be the description of words in his search profile (which see) Simple hierarchy: description of an unstructured file Statistically valid: buzz words, meaning “the data collected prove my point” System test: initial operation of a system with the same data used in debugging the programs Thesaurus: see authority list and controlled vocabulary Tree structure: a more sophisticated way to accomplish the same result as chaining (which see) Tutorial: the most advantageous platform for use of buzz words User acceptance: difficult to determine; therefore, wise to ignore User feedback: synonymous with “what do they know, anyhow? ”
NEWS AND NOTES Study Institute on Computers/Chernistry* An Advanced Study Institute sponsored by NATO and the CNA (Chemical Notation Association) was held on June 4-15, 1973, in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. The subject was Computer Representation and Manipulation of Chemical Information. The AS1 was attended by over 70 participants and 12 lecturers. More than twothirds of the scientists came from NATO countries in Europe, with the remainder being mostly from the United States. The over-all goal of the AS1 was to present and discuss the latest research dealing with a broad range of problems and methodologies encountered in the representation and manipulation of various types of chemical information. The organizing committee consisted of: W. T. Wipke (Princeton), E. Hyde (ICI), R. J. Feldmann (NIH), S. R. Heller (NIH). C. L. Citroen (NOCI), was the local arrangements chairman. In addition to the formal lectures, there were numerous contributed papers and the proceedings which include all the lectures and a description of the technical demonstrations will be published late in 1973 by John Wiley and Co. The real highlight and fascination a t the AS1 was the computer demonstrations put on mainly by scientists from the United States and United Kingdom. Over 40 hours were devoted to being connected directly with DEC and IBM computers in the United States, indirectly to the United States through the GE (General Electric) computer network, and to a ICL computer in a nearby city in Holland. In addition, computers from DEC (Digital Equipment Corp.) were available a t the AS1 for some demonstrations of computer graphics, The link-up to the computers were performed by using teletypewriter and graphics computer terminals from Texas Instruments, Tektronix and DEC. There were a dozen formal lectures and over twice as many contributed papers. Only a few of the presentations will be highlighted here. The use of computers for the synthesis of organic molecules was presented by W. T. Wipke (Princeton). The system uses a light pen and CRT (cathode ray tube) for the input of chemical structures. The program provides for including three-dimensional stereochemical information, and the various possible synthetic pathways are displayed in the CRT. The scientist then chooses the pathway most appealing to him. A much more theoretical approach to organic synthesis was presented by I. K. Ugi (Technische Univ. Munchen). This approach uses BE (Bond and Electron) matrices for the starting and end products of a reaction. Thus, reactions are generated theoretically, rather than by using a library or a derived set of empirical rules. Examples of programs from the NIH-DCRT Chemical Information System including Interactive data and structure searching was presented by R. J. Feldmann and S. R. Heller (NIH). They have been developing a prototype of a Chemical Information System for scientists a t the NIH. Feldmann presented and demonstrated an interactive, and virtually instantaneous structure search of a file of over 25,000 compounds. The structure questions are input either via a CRT or by using a regular teletypewriter. Heller demonstrated and discussed a mass spectral search system, in use by over 200 scientists in the U. S.The wide use and value of the system has led to its being transferred from NIH to the world-wide GE timesharing network so that it may be used by scientists in Japan, USA, Canada, and most countries in Western Europe. The system was demonstrated locally from the node on the network in The Hague, The Netherlands. * A s reported by Stephen R. Heller. Heuristics Laboratory. Division of Computer Research and Technology, Bldg. 12A. Rm. 3063. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.
Other approaches to the interpretation of mass spectra were presented by P. C. Jurs (Penn State), who described some pattern recognition techniques, and D. H. Smith (Stanford), who described the DENDRAL Project and some of the methods used in the generation of the various cyclic isomers from a given molecular formula. In addition, the use of DENDRAL for the interpretation of mass spectra was discussed. M. Lynch (Sheffield) gave a broad and wide ranging lecture on the structure of chemical data bases along with ways and methods of representations used in retrieval. The use of a large scale structure handling and search system in the industrial laboratories was presented by E. Hyde (ICI) and E. Meyer (BASF). Hyde described the CROSSBOW system which uses both WLN and connection tables, while Meyer described the IDC system of topological searching. J. E . Dubois (Faculte des Sciences de Paris) described the DARC system and presented a workshop session on the code chemical structures for the system. F. Valls (Roussel-Uclaf) presented a comprehensive picture and review of the very promising area of reaction indexing. The various contributed papers generally added to the breadth and depth of the topics presented by the lecturers and led to lively discussions in the evening sessions. NSF
Research Grant to "Map" Science
The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) has been awarded a research grant by the National Science Foundation to study ways of monitoring the level and nature of activity in scientific specialties for the purpose of gaining early insights into changes that will affect scientific trends. Such insights would be useful in planning science policy a t the national level and R & D policy at the corporate level. The grant was made by the Science Policy Research Program in the National Science Foundation Social Sciences Division. The IS1 study will attempt to extend work done on citation networks to the point of developing predictive models that will provide, early warnings of significant changes in the direction of science. Underlying the study is the hypothesis that the growth and decay of scientific specialties is signalled by the appearance and disappearance of groups of related, highlycited articles. Using this hypothesis as a starting point, the study will use groups of highly-cited papers to define specialties and track their growth, decay, and scope on a year-by-year basis, from 1965 through 1971. The yearly status of the scientific specialties will be depicted graphically to provide, in composite, a "map" of the structure of science for the year. The data for this part of the study will be generated by computer from the IS1 Science Citation Index, which defines the citation links between scientific papers in all disciplines. The groups of papers will be identified not by the number of times the individual papers have been cited, but by the number of times pairs of papers have been cited by the same source. From an analysis of the year-by-year changes in each specialty, the study team will develop spatial and probability models to try to predict the growth and decay of specialties, change of direction within the specialties, and changes in the relationship of the specialty to related areas of applied research. The models will be tested by comparing their outputs with citation data for the test years. The study will be directed by Henry Small, IS1 Research Associate, as principal investigator. He will be assisted by four outside consultants: Belver Griffith of DrexJournal of Chemical Documentation,Vol. 13. No. 4, 1973
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NEWS AND NOTES el University, Derek J. de Solla Price of Yale University, Frank Carmone of Drexel University, and Joseph Kruskal of Bell Laboratories.
NASA Contract with AIAA
The NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office has contracted with AIAA to continue to furnish the worldwide published literature input to the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System and to publish International Aerospace Abstracts (IAA). The new contract retains the data base a t its present level of approximately 35,000 accessions per year. “A”-series microfiche will be prepared, distributed, and sold as previously. Coverage of non-U. S. sources of published information will continue a t its present comprehensive level. IAA will continue to be published semimonthly, and cumulated indexes will be published semiannually and annually.
Index t o SDI Services
An Index to Computer-produced Standard Interest Profiles i n Chemistry, Applied Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Metallurgy P S Hunter, M.Sc., A.R.I.C., M.I. Inf. Sci. The School of Librarianship, Polytechnic of North London, 207-225 Essex Road, London N1 3PN. September 1973. El. ISBN 0 900639 07 5. This index contains over 250 current awareness publications covering narrow subject areas (for example gas chromatography, epoxy polymers, heat transfer, extrusion) taken from 17 sources. There is an introduction to standard interest profiles and 25 background references. In many cases, the journal articles, reports, etc. contained in the profiles are selected from the data bases of major abstracting and indexing services--e.g., the Chemical Abstracts Service). The index does not include profiles relating to biochemistry and drugs etc., or to nuclear chemistry.
New Compendex Technical Guide Thermodynamic Data
NBS Tech. Note 270-7, Selected Values of Chemical Thermodynamic Properties, Tables for t h e Lanthanide (Rare Earth) Elements (Elements 62 through 76 i n the Standard Order of Arrangement) by R. H. Schum, D. D. Wagman, S. Bailey, W. H. Evans, and V. B. Parker’ ($1, SD Catalog No. C13.46:270-7), is the seventh in a series of notes containing tables of numerical values prepared as a revision of NBS Circ. 500, Selected Values of Chemical Thermodynamic Properties. This note contains tables of values for the standard heats and Gibbs (free) energies of formation, entropies and enthalpies a t 298.15 K. and heats of formation a t 0 K. for compounds of the rare earth elements (the lanthanides, lutetium through lanthanum). In addition there is an appendix which contains a list of all the corrections and misprints that have been detected in previous parts of this series. Because of the urgent need for data, additional revised tables of Circ. 500 will be published in the Tech. Note 270 series as they are completed. After revision, all tables will be combined with a description of the evaluation process and a listing of the data sources into a publication that will be part of the NSRDS series of critically evaluated compilations.
Engineering Index, Inc. announced publication of a new Technical Guide for the acquisition and use of its COMPENDEX (COMPuterized ENgineering InDEX) tape service. Contained in this latest 24-page brochure is a detailed treatment of the following subjects: Tape Contents Data Elements Input Formats Available Tape Specifications Additional Features Support Publications Information Centers Acquisition And Use Fees Leasing Rates Licensing Rates Tape Reels Contracts Evaluation Package Procedure to Obtain Further Information Illustrated also are: sample COMPENDEX records in the IBM Text Pac Format and ANSI (USASII 239.2) Format; T E X T PAC Tape Layout; ANSI Format; Structure of Variable Fields in ANSI Format; COMPENDEX Listing of Special Characters; and a PreSearch Example. This Technical Guide is available, without charge, upon request from Ei’s Marketing and Business Services Division, 345 E. 47th St., New York, N. Y.
Electronic Properties Information Center (EPIC)
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On June 1, 1973, the Thermophysical Properties Research Center (TPRC) was assigned by the Department of Defense the responsibility of operating the Electronic Properties Information Center (EPIC), formerly operated by the Hughes Aircraft Co., Culver City, Calif. TPRC will now add basic electrical, electronic, electro-optical, and magnetic properties to its coverage of the thermophysical properties. The new EPIC will initially concentrate its efforts on materials of primary interest to the electronic industry. These include semiconductors, insulators, metals, superconductors, ferromagnetics, ferroelectrics, ferrites, electroluminescents, thermionic emitters, and laser materials. The EPIC collection holds 49,000 references to the open and report literature. Questions concerning the new EPIC should be addressed to Y. S..Touloukian, Director, TPRC, 2595 Yeager Road, West Lafayette, Ind. 47906. 230 Journal of Chemical Documentation, Vol. 13, No. 4,1973
Adverse Drug Reactions
Clin-Alert, a $25-per-year subscription service for health care professionals, provides current information on adverse drug reactions, drug interactions, and related therapeutic hazards digested from medical literature published throughout the world. Up-dating is accomplished by the monitoring of about 150 leading medical journals. Each bulletin contains about a dozen summaries. Clin-Alert Science Editors, Inc., P.O. Box 7185, Louisville, Ky. 40207, provides quarterly cumulative indexes and a 10-year (1962-1971) Cumulative Index.
