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Dialog "How Do I...?" - Engineering & Technology

Find Hot Areas of Research?

TOPIC: In the scientific and technical areas much important research comes from universities worldwide. Dissertation Abstracts Online (File 35) contains the subject, title and author to almost every American dissertation accepted at an accredited institution since 1861. In addition, from 1988 forward citations for dissertations from selected British universities and European dissertations are also included.

For this search we want to know what important areas of research are being conducted at the University of Toronto. We will use the RANK command on Dialog to perform a statistical analysis on the descriptor terms from the dissertations.

 

COMMAND SUMMARY

BEGIN 35
SELECT CS=(UNIV?(1W)TORONTO)
SELECT PY=2006:2008 AND S1

RANK DE
Follow the RANK menu


HOW TO...



1. BEGIN File 35, Dissertations Abstracts, to see the latest research.

2. SELECT the corporate source field (CS) to determine the hot areas of research at the University of Toronto.

Note that the proximity connectors (1W) is needed because this is a word-indexed field and (1W) takes the place of the stop word "of."

Parenthesis are also needed so that both terms are in the CS field.

3. Limit the search to the latest years of publication (PY=).


?b  35

File  35:Dissertation Abs Online 1861-2008/Nov
       (c) 2008 ProQuest Info&Learning

      Set  Items  Description
      ---  -----  -----------
?s  cs=(univ?(1w)toronto)
         2020426  CS=UNIV?
           29387  CS=TORONTO
      S1   29369  CS=(UNIV?(1W)TORONTO)

?s  py=2006:2008 and s1
	   86026  PY=2006 : PY=2008
	   29369  S1
      S2    1886  PY=2006:2008 AND S1


4. Almost any phrase-indexed field can be RANKed. Here, we RANK the Descriptor (DE) field to determine the line of concentration.

 

Notice that the two top research areas at the University of Toronto are engineering and computer science.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Enter the PAGE (P) command to view the next eight descriptors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Exit RANK. Confirm with YES (Y) to return to search mode

 

 

 


?rank de

Started processing RANK
Processing    500 of   1886 records
Processing   1000 of   1886 records
Processing   1500 of   1886 records
Completed Ranking 1886 records

DIALOG RANK Results
-------------------
RANK: S2/1-1886   Field: /DE  File(s): 35
(Rank fields found in 1845 records -- 211 unique terms) 
Page 1 of 27

RANK No.  Items  Term
--------  -----  ----
    1      110   ENGINEERING, ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL
    2       95   COMPUTER SCIENCE
    3       89   BIOLOGY, MOLECULAR
    4       75   LAW
    5       66   ENGINEERING, MECHANICAL
    6       65   BIOLOGY, CELL
    7       65   HEALTH SCIENCES, PUBLIC HEALTH
    8       47   BIOLOGY, NEUROSCIENCE
P =  next page      Pn = Jump to page n
P- = previous page  M =  More Options     Exit = Leave RANK

To view records from RANK, enter VIEW followed by RANK number,
format, and item(s) to display, e.g., VIEW 2/9/ALL.
Enter desired option(s) or enter RANK number(s) to save terms.

?p

DIALOG RANK Results
--------------------
RANK: S2/1-1886   Field: /DE  File(s): 35
(Rank fields found in 1845 records -- 211 unique terms) Page 2 of 27

RANK No.  Items  Term
--------  -----  ----
    9       46   ENGINEERING, BIOMEDICAL
   10       46   HEALTH SCIENCES, PHARMACOLOGY
   11       43   BIOPHYSICS, MEDICAL
   12       43   EDUCATION, CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
   13       41   HEALTH SCIENCES, HEALTH CARE MANAGEMENT
   14       41   PSYCHOLOGY, CLINICAL
   15       38   ENGINEERING, AEROSPACE
   16       36   EDUCATION, BILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL

P =  next page      Pn = Jump to page n
P- = previous page  M =  More Options     Exit = Leave RANK
To view records from RANK, enter VIEW followed by RANK number,
format, and item(s) to display, e.g., VIEW 2/9/ALL.
Enter desired option(s) or enter RANK number(s) to save terms.

?exit

RANK results will be erased; have you saved all the terms of interest?
(YES/NO)

?y

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Stock #: 54708; Last modified: 14 Sep 2011



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