Dialog Pharma/Biotech News Issue 4
January 2006
A community-of-interest newsletter for Dialog customers
In This Issue

New Nursing Database, EMCare, Launched on DataStar

Medical Coverage Added to World Textiles

Introducing AlertsManager for DataStar

Thesaurus Mapping Extended to Additional DataStar Pharmaceutical Files

U.S. R&D Funding for FY 200

Regulating Advertising on Drugs in the United Kingdom

Changes to Pharm-line

New DataStar Reporting Tool

MEDLINE® Reloaded on DataStar

Search Techniques

Call for Contributors



Highlight

New DataStar Reporting Tool

The just-released DataStar reporting tool, ReportAid, is designed to save you time transforming search results into publishable information dossiers, and it is available at no extra cost to DataStarWeb customers. This tool lets you post documents in a repository and later assemble those documents in a report that you can output in multiple formats (PDF, RTF and XML).

Using ReportAid, you can rearrange documents and fields, automatically create a table of contents, add text to a front page, include images, and define the report layout. See the Quick Reference Card for more information on using ReportAid.


Announcements

MEDLINE® Reloaded on DataStar

MEDLINE® (MEDL, MEZZ) on DataStar has been reloaded. The file resumed updating in mid-December2005, and the full 2006 reload is now available. This is the earliest the reload of MEDLINE has been completed on DataStar.

MEDLINE is reloaded every year because the National Library of Medicine (NLM) re-indexes relevant documents from the whole database with changed medical terms. For 2006, 993 new Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) were added, 188 headings were replaced with more up-to-date terminology and 50 headings were deleted.

Additional information can be found on the NLM Web site.


Search Techniques

Using RANK to Spot Trends and Cycles of Research

The RANK command can be used to quickly spot cycles in research. When a significant paper or article is published, several more papers often follow it. A “hot” topic is often reviewed, criticized, supported, refuted and often revived in the later literature.

Here's how it works. Complete a search on your topic to find a set of results that gives a reasonable number of hits that are on target. Your set size will vary with your topic, but you should try to limit your hits to less than 500. Once satisfied with your result set, use the RANK command to RANK the Publication Year.

?rank py

On DataStarWeb, click RANK on Advanced Search Results page, then select "Publication Year" from the drop-down list.

The rank output will show the year of publication and the number of hits for that year.

Use this strategy to:

Spot research cycles

Find life cycle of jargon words and phrases

Find out if interest in a topic is waning

Search names to spot rising and falling popularity



Dear Colleague

Bonnie SnowHappy New Year! At Dialog we are looking forward to an exciting year for scitech researchers. The addition of a new nursing database and the completion of the MEDLINE® reload on DataStar get the year off to a fast start. The new DataStar AlertsManager tool streamlines how professionals in your organization keep up-to-date on the latest developments in their fields of interest, while at the same time providing greater control in managing access and costs.

Also, in response to reader feedback, Dialog is adding a new title to its growing collection of e-newsletters: Biomed/Life Sciences News. Sign up now to receive the first issue of the new e-newsletter, scheduled for March.

Bonnie Snow, Director
Pharmaceutical Markets


New Nursing Database, EMCare, Launched on DataStar

NursingEMCare (EMCA), a new bibliographic database produced by Elsevier and covering the topics of nursing and allied health, has been added to DataStar. EMCare provides cover-to-cover indexing of more than 2,700 international sources, providing timely access to information about scientific advancements that lead to more cost-effective and higher quality healthcare. The file also supports the practice of evidence-based treatment in a wide variety of settings.

The file is updated weekly and features a 10-year backfile (1995 to date). Nearly 250,000 new records will be added each year. The nearly 2 million records are indexed with EMTREE, Elsevier's Life Science Thesaurus which has been expanded with close to 1,500 nursing terms in addition to existing allied health terms.


Medical Coverage Added to World Textiles

world textiles medical coverageWorld Textiles™ (File 67), produced by Elsevier, has been significantly enhanced with new coverage on the use of textiles in the medical environment. The added records relate to subjects such as protective materials, dressings, medical equipment, medical clothing, textiles finishing and washing, etc. This enhancement is currently exclusive to Dialog. World Textiles is the leading bibliographic information source on textiles, technology and applications as reported in technical, scientific, economic and commercial journals, and statistical publications. In addition, World Textiles includes unique coverage of the related patents and patent applications from the USPTO, European and British patent offices.


Introducing AlertsManager for DataStar

Alerts ManagerPublish, track and manage access to DataStar Alerts with the just-released AlertsManager tool. The information manager ("Alerts Publisher") in your organization can more effectively control your Alerts spend and distribution, while end users can easily subscribe to available Alerts with the click of a button—and they don't need their own DataStar account to do it!

Product features include:

  • The ability to publish or post Alerts so end users can subscriber on their own without assistance
  • Subscriber e-mail addresses are added or removed automatically to or from the Alert
  • Copyright royalities (ERA*) are automatically applied based on the number of subscribers to each Alert; Alerts in databases that do not offer redistribution rights cannot be published
  • Alert Publishers are notified of Alerts that have expired
  • Alert Publishers can check on who has subscribed to which Alert, and find out how many Alerts each end user is receiving
  • Subscribers do not need to be users of DataStar services; subscribers register with their e-mail and access rights are triggered by the e-mail address and its domain

To become a publisher, the client must first register online and create an account with AlertsManager at http://alertsmanager.dialog.com. AlertsManager is a fee-based service.


*Learn more about the Electronic Redistribution and Archiving (ERA) service on DataStar.


Thesaurus Mapping Extended to Additional DataStar Pharmaceutical Files

MappingThesaurus mapping has been added to more DataStar databases in the pharmaceutical area, bringing the total number of databases with this feature to 34. Additional databases for which thesaurus mapping is now available are Adis R&D Insight (ADRD), EMBASE® Alert (EMBA), IMS R&D Focus Drug Updates (IPUR), Incidence and Prevalence Database (IAPV), and Pharmaprojects (PHAR). See the Quick Reference Card for more information on using Thesaurus mapping in DataStarWeb.


U.S. R&D Funding for FY 2006

calendarHave you seen details on funding and trends on R&D U.S. government spending for FY 2006? According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, "Triple A-S" (AAAS), an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world, FY 2006 is a disappointing year for R&D expenditures in the U.S.

The publication provides a wrap-up analysis of R&D in the President's budget for FY 2006 as approved by Congress, including major funding trends and details on the final FY 2006 budgets of the major R&D funding agencies. Read a summary of the report to see where the monies are being spent and the outlook for future spending.


Regulating Advertising on Drugs in the United Kingdom

drugsThe Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have recently published new guidelines related to pharmaceutical advertising in the U.K. These appear online in the Pharmaceutical Code of Practice, 2006 Edition.


Changes to Pharm-line

Alerts ManagerPharm-line (LINE) began updating from January 2006. Produced by the U.K. National Medicines Information Centres, it covers pharmacy practice and the clinical use of drugs. It is a good complement to International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (IPAB), which has a U.S. perspective on similar issues. Records go back to 1978, with approximately 11,000 records added every year from over 100 key journals in the field.


Call for Contributors

Participate in knowledge sharing with your colleagues interested in pharmaceutical-related topics. Share your story suggestions with us at support.dialog.com/enewsletters/contribute/.

Dialog
www.dialog.com