Research Topic – text

searches and much more

Dr.Thomas Haubenreich

Agenda

• 1. The Essentials

• 2. Content Matters

• 3. The 7 Most Frequently Asked Questions

• 4. Help and further information

2

1.1 The Essentials ...

• SciFinder is a scientific database, which will

give you reproducible and reliable results.

• SciFinder is secure! All searches will stay

absolutely confidential.

• SciFinder searches CAplus, Medline and

Registry, the „Gold Standard“ in chemical

information. 3

1.2 Important to know!

• No scientist would conduct an experiment in the lab without learning about the substances, conditions and possible reactions upfront!

• But many students (and scientists, too) don‘t care where they are searching...

• Scientific Information Retrieval is not asking an oracle!

4

1.3 A powerful combination

• SciFinder is the unique combination of two of

the biggest scientific bibliographic databases

with with the worlds largest substance

database: CAS Registry

• This setup delivers superior results, if you are

searching chemical topics, in comparison to

full text searches or searching pure

bibliographic databases.

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2.1. Content matters

6

CASREACT®

• 54 M single and

multi-step reactions

• Extracted from

patents and journal

articles

• Updated weekly

(~30K weekly)

• Reactions back to

1840

• Reaction

conditions starting

in 2003

CHEMCATS®

• 66 M comm.

available

chemicals

• >900 suppliers

• >1000 chemical

catalogs

• Updated when

new or revised

catalogs are

available

• Contact/ordering

information

including quantity

and pricing (when

available)

CHEMLIST®

• >290K

inventoried /

regulated

substances

• >100 inventories

& regulated lists

from 1979 to

present

• Updated weekly

(~50 additions)

• Contains

regulatory

requirements for

substances

• REACH !

CAplusSM

• >39 M

bibliographic

records

• >10,000 journals

covered

• Patents from 62

patent offices

• Updated daily

(~3K daily)

• Links to almost

300 publishers and

3 patent offices

• Literature back to

early 1800s

• Cited articles from

1997 onward

CAS

REGISTRYSM

• 65 M small

molecules

• >63M sequences

• Updated daily

(>12K daily)

• Substances

reported

comprehensively in

literature 1957-

• Includes

nomenclature,

spectra, and

properties

(experimental and

predicted)

2.2. Content – Medline and MARPAT

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• >18M bibliographic

records

• 4,800 biomedical

journals

• Updated 4 times per

week

• 1949 -1966 from

OLDMEDLINE database

MEDLINE®

• >920 K searchable

Markush Structures

• >340K patents covered

since 1961

• Updated daily with 60-

75 patents including

Markush Structures

• INPI data included

from 1961-87

MARPAT®

Medline can give

you additional

references,

especially in the

biomedical

sciences.

NEW!

With MEDLINE

citations!

MARPAT

searches in SF

since August

2010

3. Frequently asked questions

• In this part we will adress very basic questions, it is however fundamental to really understand the answers!

• The heading contains the question.

• The first text is a brief answer.

• The answer is shown in an example on the next slide(s).

• A more in-depth explanation follows on the last slide(s).

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3. Frequently asked questions

• For most of the next slides we use the Topic

Search:

• „determination of dioxin in food“

• When appropriate, we will modify this phrase

for better (or other) search results.

9

3.1. „Do I search the „full text“?“

• No, with SciFinder Research Topic you always

search in CAplus and Medline, the two

bibliographic databases - with enhancements

from CAS Registry.

• Your concepts are searched in the following

fields:

– Title

– Abstract

– Index Terms

– Supplementary Terms

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3.1. Where SciFinder concepts are found:

11

Title

Concepts

are more

than just

text strings:

a chemical

name

retrieves the

CAS RN!

Various

synonyms

and

abrevations

found in the

abstract!

3.1. Where SciFinder concepts are found:

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Found in

supplementary

terms

3.1. „Do I search the „full text“?“ – Explanation I

• There are several good reasons not to search the full

text:

– All entries in CAplus are in English! It‘s the most important benefit

that CAS translates all titles and abstracts since 1907. Or do you

speek Malayan?

– The Index Terms are intellectually assigned by CAS staff and may

be much more significant than words used in the authors abstract

or the full text.

– CAS indexes all important substances mentioned in the full text.

Regardless how they are represented originally (!). The CAS RN is

indexed, but you find the reference with the chemical name. No

way to have this functionality in a full text search!

– In patent applications you often find sophisticated wording and

meaningless titles. CAplus may reveil hidden information.

13

3.1. „Do I search the „full text“?“ – Explanation II

• Do I still need the full text? – yes, certainly!

– Searching value added databases is more precise than

searching full text but for for complete retrieval a full text

search might give additional results

– Especially for interpretation and legal aspects, patent

applications must be analyzed in full text. SciFinder

links directly to the patent offices.

– If you perform a MARKUSH search it is necessary to

explore the full text of the patent application.

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3.2. „I simply enter my search terms in a row, is

that ok?“

• You will get results, but the „Smarts“ of SciFinder

Research Topic will work much better if you use

prepositions between your „concepts“.

• SciFinder determines the beginning and the end of a

„concept“ by prepositions. If a concept consists of

more than 1 word it will not be identified if you don‘t

use the prepositions.

• You will get a different set of choices, if you don‘t enter

the prepositions between your search terms.

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3.2. Set of answers with the question

„determination dioxin food“

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Only 1 set of answers is found which contains all search

terms closely associated to each other (378).

As there were no prepositions, SciFinder interpreted each of

the 3 words as 1 concept – which is ok here!

3.2. Set of answers with the „correct“ question

„determination of dioxin in food“

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With prepositions used, you

get a much broader choice of

options, including the only one

retrieved without prepositions.

3.2. Use prepositions!

• The use of prepositions like: with, for, of, in ...

is strongly recommended and will give you the

full choice of answer sets.

• This is especially important, if your search

term consists of more than only 1 word:

– Examples: ceramic films, titanium oxide

– Correct search question: ceramic films with titanium

oxide

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3.3. „I don‘t want the „smarts“ of SciFinder – can

I put my search term in quotation marks?

• No, quotation marks are ignored by SciFinder!

• But yes, you can get exactly your search term,

if that search term is the only concept of your

search

• Choose the answer set „as entered“ to get

exactly the answers you want.

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3.3. Choices for the search question: dioxin

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3.3. No smarts – might be a loss!

• As shown, you can get exactly what you

entered, but only for one concept!

• Consider carefully, what you might loose, if

you choose „as entered“

– Try as an example: fire retardant

– Remark: you will loose a lot of relevant answers if you

don‘t choose the concept with smarts as the most

common term is „flame retardant“!

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3.3. SciFinder Smarts in a nutshell

• What does SciFinder do with your search terms?

– First SciFinder checks, whether a concept is a chemical name (or

other chemical name), if yes, the CAS RN is searched as a synonym. Extremly important and powerful feature!

– Then the concept is compared with the SciFinder Synonym Dictionary: all synonyms found there are added to the search. Please consider that the dictionary is no thessaurus, which would retrieve concepts of a lower hierarchy.

– SciFinder checks for singular/plural, british/american spelling and CAS abbrevations.

– Last but not least, a search term is automatically „stemmed“, so that additional hits with the word stem are retrieved.

– Finally SciFinder highlights all parts of your serch terms. If you search PDE 4, all number „4“ and all „PDE“ in a document are highlighted, but there must be at least one hit for PDE 4

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3.4. „Can I truncate my search terms with

wildcards (?,*...)?“

• Quick and clear answer: No!

• Why? SciFinder tries it best to stem a word

after the program compares the search term

with the dictionary.

• A user truncation could disturb this

mechanism and produce poorer results.

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3.5. „Can I use Boolean Operators?“

• Yes, you can use „and“, „or“ and „not“ in your search question.

• If you decide to use „and“ the answer sets retrieved start with the one where all concepts are present. The set where these concepts are close to each other is neglected!

• If you use „or“ the concept after this operator is seen to be a synonym of the one before the operator.

• The operator „not“ works, but should be used with caution! Always think about the possibility, that this search term might be present in a document somewhere, not necessarily connected with your other terms. You might loose an important document!

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3.5. Search question with „and“

25

Attention: The

Research Topic

Candidate with

all search terms

CLOSELY

ASSOCIATED is

neglected!

3.5. The use of „not“ produces a complete

different set of answers

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You retrieve only

references about

the determination

of dioxin where

the concept food

is not present.

3.5. „Can I use Boolean Operators?“ Explanation

• If you separate your search terms with

prepositions - as strongly recommended - the

SciFinder Research Topic candidates are

already a representation of various Boolean

combinations!

– The last entryies for example are always the number of

hits for each concept. If you take them all, you have

applied the „or“ operator for all concepts.

– Especially useful is the set of „closely associated“

answer sets. In these sets the concepts must be present

in one sentence.

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3.6. „How can I add synonyms?“

• The best way to do that is to add synonyms for a

search term in brackets behind it.

– Example: determination of dioxin in food (chicken, poultry, egg)

– Please remember that the SciFinder Dictionary is no thessaurus: it

won‘t retrieve more specific terms („food“ doesn‘t automatically

retrieve all kind of food ... bread, milk etc.)

• You can – as shown above - add more than one

synonym in the brackets, seperate them with a comma.

• If your search term consists of more than just one

word, add the second word also in the synonyms.

– Example: heart disease (cardiovascular disease, coronary disease,

heart attack)

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3.6. Answer sets of a question with synonyms in

brackets

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All possible

combinations are

listed and you

can choose the

one you‘re

interested most!

3.6. ...continued with more answer sets

30

Always have a

look at the last

answer sets: here

you learn that

chicken and

poultry are seen

as synonyms by

SciFinder

already!

3.6. „How can I add synonyms?“

• A further question often is: „How many synonyms can

I enter into the bracket?“

• There is a simple answer: until SciFinder tells you that

you have too many concepts. In our example we

reached a maximum.

• Best practice: keep your initial search as simple as

possible, refine and analyze the results further!

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3.6. ...too many synonyms:

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3.7. „Can I search topics together with

substances?“

• For sure! There are at several ways to combine a

chemical substance with topic searches:

– As shown already, just enter a chemical name or a CAS RN in your

Research Topic together with the search term you‘re interested in.

Top hits will be the closely associated ones. This is the only

possibility to get this „closely associated“ relation between your

substance and a search term.

– If you have an explicit substance (but no easy chemical name) first

perform a structure search and then refine the references with your

search terms.

– This is also the best option for combining substructure or similarity

sets with search terms.

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3.7. Perform a substructure search on dioxins

with at least one chlorine

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Always have a

look at the last

answer sets: here

you learn that

chicken and

poultry are seen

as synonyms by

SciFinder

already!

3.7. Get the special references out of your

structure answer set

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Choose only the

references where

one of the

dioxines is

described in an

analytical study

3.7. Refine the answer set retrieved with a

Research Topic

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Now we refine

with more search

terms like food

(chicken, egg)

3.7. „Can I search topics together with

substances?“ - continued

• There are more options to either extract

substances from Research Topic answer sets

or view and refine substances included in

these sets:

– Use the Analyze by Substance option. This however

only shows you the CAS RN. Much better is the next

option.

– Up to 15000 references can be „Categorized“. Use one

the best features in SciFinder to find the most important

substances connected with your Research Topic!

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3.7. Research Topic and substances

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Use Categorize

for up to 15000

Topic Answers!

The most unique

tool in SciFinder

for precise

drilldowns!

3.7. Categorize shows you the most important

substances with common names

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Here is a list of

the substances

which were

described as an

analyte in the

more than 2000

answers and you

can select the

ones you‘re

interested in

most!

3.7. „Can I search topics together with

substances?“

• If anything is special to SciFinder, than it is the

unique power of a combined Topic/Substance

search.

• SciFinder® - Essential content. Proven results.

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4. Help and further information

• Try SciFinder on the Web!

• Connect to https://scifinder.cas.org

• Help is available in various media on:

• http://www.cas.org/support/scifi/index.html

• Ask your information professionals!

• Ask CAS:

• help@cas.org

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