WorldWideScience – Easy Access to Text, Multimedia, and Data!by Lorrie Johnson 27 Mar, 2013 in Products and Content
For many years, scientific information was provided primarily in text-based formats, such as journal articles, conference proceedings, and technical reports. Increasingly, however, scientists are communicating through multimedia formats (images, videos), and via direct access to their scientific data sets. Information users face some unique challenges in finding scientific information, particularly when it can take several forms. Imagine that a climatologist has created data sets detailing precipitation measurements for the North Slope of Alaska. The climatologist might present these findings first at a meteorological conference, and the presentation might be taped and made available as a video of the conference. Later, the climatologist publishes one or more technical reports, referring to the original data sets. How does a user find all this relevant information? WorldWideScience offers a solution to finding scientific information, regardless of format. Simply by entering the search terms in a single search box, users can search over 90 databases from around the world. Furthermore, the search results are segmented into text-based information (the “Papers” tab), images and videos (“Multimedia” tab), and data sets (“Data” tab). It’s easy to view results in each tab, and users can quickly access relevant text, videos, and data sets. A variety of English and non-English databases are searched, and WorldWideScience even provides multilingual translations capabilities for 10 languages. As scientific communication becomes progressively more diverse and global in nature, WorldWideScience enables users to identify and locate scientific and technical information in many formats, all with one straightforward search. Related Topics: climatologist, databases, foreign, multilingual, multimedia, scientific, WorldWideScience.org (WWS) Read more... |
WorldWideScience and databy Lorrie Johnson 05 Nov, 2012 in Products and Content
WorldWideScience.org now offers the capability to search scientific data collections. Six new data sources have been added to WWS.org, representing a significant milestone in improving access to scientific data from around the world. Users seeking scientific datasets can conduct a real-time, one-stop search and immediately gain access not only to the metadata but to the actual scientific data itself. WorldWideScience.org’s unique federated searching capability meets many of the challenges users face in the discovery of scientific and numeric data. Unless users are very familiar with a particular data center or know that specific datasets exist, it is very difficult to identify and locate scientific data. WWS.org provides access to over 80 of the world’s most authoritative scientific information and data sources, all nationally sponsored or sanctioned. Users can simultaneously search across many databases/collections in text, multimedia, and data formats, and receive consolidated, relevance-ranked results. In most cases, links direct the user to the full text document; or in the case of scientific data sources, the user can often link directly to datasets. As access to scientific data becomes increasingly important, WWS.org offers the ability to easily identify, search, and access this information – contributing to the spread of scientific knowledge and advancements worldwide. Related Topics: data, databases, multimedia, relevance ranked, scientific, WorldWideScience.org (WWS) Read more... |
Travel through DOE databases; find emerging nanotechnology devicesby Kathy Chambers 16 Jul, 2012 in Technology
In the world of nanomanufacturing, new materials, devices, components and products are emerging at a breathtaking rate. Next-generation nanocoatings are being developed to enhance wear resistance of industrial materials. An infrared retina that includes adaptive sensors has been patented. Self-cleaning skin-like prosthetic polymer surfaces have been developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL is also well on its way to creating nano catalysts for diesel engine emission remediation. The sonification of x-ray scattering data is explored at Brookhaven National Laboratory. A high frequency nanotube oscillator has been patented by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. And the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is developing tools to measure biomass at the nanometer scale. Take a trip through OSTI’s databases to see the multitude of discoveries happening at the nanoscale. Find the research resultsin the DOE databases and read more at the OSTI Science Showcase. Related Topics: Brookhaven, databases, nano, ORNL Read more... |
Making Scientific Databases Work Together—For You (psst . . . that's "search interoperability")by Dr. Walt Warnick 13 Feb, 2012 in Technology
Sometimes something complex can work so seamlessly that it’s easy to miss. We think that’s the case with our solution in achieving search interoperability. As you may know, “search interoperability” is just a fancy way of saying that lots of scientific databases scattered far and wide can be made to work together so that your job as a seeker of science information is easy. You can go to one search box, say Science.gov, type in your search term, and get results from over a hundred important repositories and a couple of thousand scientific websites – with one click. And you know that this is a good thing, because as a practical matter, you cannot be expected to conjure in advance which database might hold the information you seek. Nor can you be expected to search dozens of sources one-by-one. That would be an onerous task. Also, as an experienced seeker of quality science information, you are well aware that commercial search engines (read, Google, Bing, etc.) sometimes cannot mine the deep web for you, thus missing R&D results residing there (see Federated Search - The Wave of the Future?). So achieving search interoperability with OSTI’s federated search tools, such as Science.gov, WorldWideScience.org, and the E-print Network, has been an important development, though by no means easily accomplished. There are myriad obstacles that can block information exchanges between systems. (To learn more about the broad topic of interoperability and obstacles to exchanging information, see the Wikipedia article on interoperability.) Specific to our world of scientific and technical information, the challenge of interoperability basically stems from the simple fact... Related Topics: databases, E-Print Network (EPN), federation, interoperability, science, Science.gov, WorldWideScience.org (WWS) Read more... |
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