BiologyBrowser, another Thomson BIOSIS free resource Saturday, 4 February 2006 10:22 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, biology, database features.add a comment
Besides ION, Index to Organism Names (see my post about ION’s new interface and location) biology researchers, students and the like can link directly to another Thomson BIOSIS (part of Thomson Scientific) free resource, BiologyBrowser, from the ISI Web of Knowledge platform. (Click on the following thumbnail to see a screenshot of the ISI Web of Knowledge where you’ll find the links to ION and BiologyBrowser).
BiologyBrowser is a gateway to organism resources and links. You may search by organism, subject, or geography. You may also browse these categories. You may also find featured Website, latest biology news, upcoming key life science conferences around the world on the main page. To keep you up to date on new and highlighted Web resources, you can sign up to receive the monthly newsletter via email.
ION, free biology resource from Thomson Scientific, new interface and location! Thursday, 2 February 2006 12:21 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, biology, database features, databases.add a comment
ION, short for Index to Organism Names, is now freely available at http://www.organismnames.com/ (I must say, I’m very impressed with the new interface, while I was writing this post, digesting the search features and the Latin names 
late last night, I didn’t expect it to be there this morning). It’s also linked from the Web of Knowledge platform.
The interface is very clean and neatly organized. And I really like the browse feature (was not there in the old interface), I’m sure you’ll appreciate that if you’re like me, not very good at those organisms’ scientific (Latin) names.
It is so far the most comprehensive organism names database, it uses name data from the resources of BIOSIS and other collaborating organizations.
You will need to enter scientific (Latin) name, search by complete name or single epithet (element), truncation (*) is allowed. search tips are available if you click on help.
“ION contains all the animal, plant, and virus names data found within the Thomson BIOSIS literature databases – Zoological RecordTM, BIOSIS Previews® and Biological Abstracts®. Bacteria names will be added soon.” — from the ION main page.
ION accesses a database of over 1.4 million animal names, at all taxonomic ranks, reported from the scientific literature since 1978, plus some 400,000 names of other non-animal organisms provided by collaborating organizations (with a total of 1,736,877 names as of moments ago that I checked).
The Index to Organism Names is offered as an aid to the general bioscience community and gives basic nomenclatural and hierarchy information, plus ZR reference for animal names; and links to other organizations’ data for non-animal names. It can be used to identify the taxonomic group to which an organism belongs and to link to further information from ZR or other collaborating organization.
Caution 1: Since we don’t have the subscription to any of the Thomson BIOSIS products (Zoological Record, BIOSIS Previews, Biological Abstracts), you can’t really click on the links in the results to search the organism in those databases. You can’t click on the Zoological Record link in the Original Description Reference, either.
(However, as a reminder, we do have a subscription to the CSA’s Zoological Record Plus.)
Caution 2: Users should be aware that the ION system will not deliver a list of valid organism names (see Species 2000 for an international project with this intention); for animal groups ION offers a view of how names have been utilised in the scientific literature and what changes in their application have been formally proposed; for other organism groups it provides links and/or direct access to other servers where nomenclatural data can be found.
As a side note, you may find these related links on the ION Website quite useful:
New and Changed Names Reported in Zoological Record
Guide to the Animal Kingdom for Students and Educators
Nomenclatural Glossary for Zoology
Search arXiv preprints together with Web of Science (for math/computer science) Monday, 30 January 2006 4:06 pm
Posted by Dongmei in database features, databases, open access.1 comment so far
I’ve blogged about CrossSearch for biology, CrossSearch for physics/astronomy in Web of Knowledge today in my other two posts.
For mathematics, and/or computer science, you can search the ePrint archives arXiv Mathematics, and/or arXiv Computer Science, together with Web of Science, of course, the results are listed separately for different collections/databases.
Mathmaticians are another category of researchers that use preprints often.
Just a fyi, if you’ve never used arXiv.org e-Print archive, here’s some facts about it: as of today, it provides open access to 354,161 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Quantitative Biology. It’s owned, operated and funded by Cornell University, also partially funded by NSF.
Here’s how to get to it, after you click on Web of Science on our databases page, choose “CrossSearch” from the pulldown menu on the top of the Web of Knowledge platform, click on “go”, check the external collection(s)/databases you’d like to search.
Click on this to see a screenshot of the CrossSearch main screen.
CrossSearch NASA Astrophysics Data System, arXiv Physics, with Web of Science (for physics/astronomy) Monday, 30 January 2006 3:48 pm
Posted by Dongmei in database features, databases, open access.add a comment
Have you used the CrossSearch feature in ISI’s Web of Knowledge platform? It’s a great feature that you should explore if you haven’t. It lets you crosssearch Web of Science with other external collections/databases.
For physics and/or astronomy, you can search NASA Astrophysics Data System, together with Web of Science, of course, the results are listed separately for different collections/databases. For those folks that use preprints frequently, you can also add arXiv Physics to the list of databases that you wish to search.
I’ve worked with physicists/astronomers (in big research university settings) before, they use arXiv preprints (and postprints) on a regular basis. Just a fyi, if you’ve never used arXiv.org e-Print archive, here’s some facts about it: as of today, it provides open access to 354,161 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Quantitative Biology. It’s owned, operated and funded by Cornell University, also partially funded by NSF.
Here’s how to get to it, after you click on Web of Science on our databases page, choose “CrossSearch” from the pulldown menu on the top of the Web of Knowledge platform, click on “go”, check the external collection(s)/databases you’d like to search.
Click on this to see a screenshot of the CrossSearch main screen.
CrossSearch Agricola, PubMed, and preprints with Web of Science (for biology) Monday, 30 January 2006 2:20 pm
Posted by Dongmei in database features, databases, open access.1 comment so far
Have you used the CrossSearch feature in ISI’s Web of Knowledge platform? It’s a great feature that you should explore if you haven’t. It lets you crosssearch Web of Science with other external collections/databases.
For biology, you can search Agricola, PubMed, together with Web of Science, of course, the results are listed separately for different collections/databases. For those folks that use preprints frequently, you can also add arXiv Quantitative Biology to the list of databases that you wish to search. (If you’ve never used arXiv.org e-Print archive, here’s some facts about it: as of today, it provides open access to 354,161 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Quantitative Biology. It’s owned, operated and funded by Cornell University, also partially funded by NSF.)
Here’s how to get to it, after you click on Web of Science on our databases page, choose “CrossSearch” from the pulldown menu on the top of the Web of Knowledge platform, and click on “go”. Choose whatever external collection(s)/databases you’d like to search.
For your convenience, I’ve included a screenshot of the CrossSearch main screen (click on the thumbnail below to see the actual screenshot).
