i LITERATURE Research by Punch Card Machine correlation o f liter ature d a t a can help orient new research p r o g r a m s
1 3 6 ACS NATIONAL MEETING Chemical Literature
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High speed electronic equipment can be used to correlate data in the litera ture as a guide in orienting new re search programs. L. \V. Breed and Dr. F. Y. Morriss of Midwest Research In stitute, Kansas City, Mo., recorded on IBM cards data from the literature on inorganic and metallo-organic com pounds and used an IBM card sorter to determine correlations between proper ties and chemical structure. Purpose: to find patterns of chemical structure associated with wide liquid range, ther mally stable lubricants. Melting point, boiling point, and thermal stability were the properties gathered from the literature, Mr. Breed told the Division of Chemical Litera ture. No attempt was made to cover the literature completely. Instead, as representative and comprehensive a sampling as possible was taken of known inorganic and metallo-organic compounds. The finished deck of IBM cards represented about 22,250 com pounds. Structural codes were simplified and generalized because of lack of space on the IBM cards as well as the time factor. This limited the results because lack of a precise code tended to level off distri butions in the analysis, Mr. Breed says. Analysis of the cards gave these re lationships: Liquid range is nearly independent of the melting point; liquid range increases with formula weight u p to a temperature of 320° C , then other factors become important in determining the value of liquid range. A big advantage of this type of pro gram is that it can define relationships between properties and structures where relationships exist. And conclu sions can be validated by statistical tests for significance, Mr. Breed says. But there are some drawbacks.
One problem: Most d a t a in t h e lit erature are available in areas which have been exploited because of their accessibility or suspected utility in var ious applications. Any sampling will be weighted toward these areas. A more serious problem is the state of the chemical literature, Mr. Breed says. If original experimental results are used, the procedures and results of various investigators must be evaluated. Data from secondary sources, such as treatises, handbooks, and monographs^ are out of date. Tlie newest and most comprehensive treatises on metalloorganic compounds are 25 years old, and the situation is not m u c h better for inorganic compounds. The ideal way t o handle a correla tion problem of this type, Mr. Breed says, would be to use data derived from a single, comprehensive, reliable source.
Soviets Gain in WIT Machine translation is vital to the U.S.S.R. Its p e o p l e speak 2 0 0 languages
1 3 6 ACS NATIONAL MEETING History of Chemistry
Soviet scientists are making great strides with machine translation, reports Dr. Son y a G. Maelielsoan, chemical en gineer, of the Library of Congress. She says they are developing small-scale machines that will he p u t to work in many of their scientific in.uii.i_iles in the next year or two. But t h e Russians regard these machines as only a step ping stone to bigger things, she adds. Eventually, they expect to edit, ab stract, and index by m a c h i n e as they translate. Or. Machelson told the Division of the History of Chemistry that com munication is a real p r o b l e m to the U.S.S.R. The Soviets themselves in clude people of some 2.00 nationalities, and at least 50 of thern have a written language and their own literature. Under these conditions, she says, it is not easy to keep in touch—even on propaganda—with the millions who live long distances from the* Soviet centers.
