Do we need a Unique Scientist ID for publications in biomedicine?

BACKGROUND: The PubMed database contains nearly 15 million references from more than 4,800 biomedical journals. In general, authors of scientific articles are addressed by their last name and forename initial. DISCUSSION: In general, names can be too common and not unique enough to be search criteria. Today, Ph.D. students, other researchers and women publish scientific work. A person may not only have one name but several names and publish under each name. A Unique Scientist ID could help to address people in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. As a starting point, perhaps PubMed could generate and manage such a scientist ID. SUMMARY: A Unique Scientist ID would improve knowledge management in science. Unfortunately in some of the publications, and then within the online databases, only one letter abbreviates the author's forename. A common name with only one initial could retrieve pertinent citations, but include many false drops (retrieval matching searched criteria but indisputably irrelevant)

PMD2HD – A web tool aligning a PubMed search results page with the local German Cancer Research Centre library collection

BACKGROUND: Web-based searching is the accepted contemporary mode of retrieving relevant literature, and retrieving as many full text articles as possible is a typical prerequisite for research success. In most cases only a proportion of references will be directly accessible as digital reprints through displayed links. A large number of references, however, have to be verified in library catalogues and, depending on their availability, are accessible as print holdings or by interlibrary loan request. METHODS: The problem of verifying local print holdings from an initial retrieval set of citations can be solved using Z39.50, an ANSI protocol for interactively querying library information systems. Numerous systems include Z39.50 interfaces and therefore can process Z39.50 interactive requests. However, the programmed query interaction command structure is non-intuitive and inaccessible to the average biomedical researcher. For the typical user, it is necessary to implement the protocol within a tool that hides and handles Z39.50 syntax, presenting a comfortable user interface. RESULTS: PMD2HD is a web tool implementing Z39.50 to provide an appropriately functional and usable interface to integrate into the typical workflow that follows an initial PubMed literature search, providing users with an immediate asset to assist in the most tedious step in literature retrieval, checking for subscription holdings against a local online catalogue. CONCLUSION: PMD2HD can facilitate literature access considerably with respect to the time and cost of manual comparisons of search results with local catalogue holdings. The example presented in this article is related to the library system and collections of the German Cancer Research Centre. However, the PMD2HD software architecture and use of common Z39.50 protocol commands allow for transfer to a broad range of scientific libraries using Z39.50-compatible library information systems

Übersichtsplan der PC-Belegung auf der Webseite einer Bibliothek

Wer sich eine einfache Übersicht über belegte und freie PC-Arbeitsplätze in einer Bibliothek verschaffen möchte, kann dies mit wenigen Programmzeilen für seine Bibliothek umsetzen und einen solchen Belegungsplan dynamisch auf einer Webseite darstellen. Ein solcher Belegungsplan, im Eingangsbereich einer Bibliothek dargestellt, hilft den hereinkommenden Benutzerinnen und Benutzern, einen freien PC-Arbeitsplatz zu finden. Ein Erfahrungsbericht

GlyProt: in silico glycosylation of proteins

GlyProt () is a web-based tool that enables meaningful N-glycan conformations to be attached to all the spatially accessible potential N-glycosylation sites of a known three-dimensional (3D) protein structure. The probabilities of physicochemical properties such as mass, accessible surface and radius of gyration are calculated. The purpose of this service is to provide rapid access to reliable 3D models of glycoproteins, which can subsequently be refined by using more elaborate simulations and validated by comparing the generated models with experimental data

AISMIG—an interactive server-side molecule image generator

Using a web browser without additional software and generating interactive high quality and high resolution images of bio-molecules is no longer a problem. Interactive visualization of 3D molecule structures by Internet browsers normally is not possible without additional software and the disadvantage of browser-based structure images (e.g. by a Java applet) is their low resolution. Scientists who want to generate 3D molecular images with high quality and high resolution (e.g. for publications or to render a molecule for a poster) therefore require separately installed software that is often not easy to use. The alternative concept is an interactive server-side rendering application that can be interfaced with any web browser. Thus it combines the advantage of the web application with the high-end rendering of a raytracer. This article addresses users who want to generate high quality images from molecular structures and do not have software installed locally for structure visualization. Often people do not have a structure viewer, such as RasMol or Chime (or even Java) installed locally but want to visualize a molecule structure interactively. AISMIG (An Interactive Server-side Molecule Image Generator) is a web service that provides a visualization of molecule structures in such cases. AISMIG-URL:

Zehn Jahre RFID-Einsatz in der Bibliothek der Medizinischen Fakultät Mannheim

Die Bibliothek der Medizinischen Fakultät Mannheim der Universität Heidelberg blickt auf zehn Jahre Erfahrung mit RFID zurück. Im Jahr 2006 gehörte sie zu den Pionieren der Geschichte von RFID in Bibliotheken und war die erste deutsche Bibliothek, die RFID-Komponenten gekoppelt an das Bibliothekssystem SISIS-SunRise einsetzte

Semantische Metadaten für den Webauftritt einer Bibliothek

The semantic web has been developing for the last 10 years and with its Resource Description Framework (RDF) and vocabularies it seems to be usable today. Unfortunately RDF is a quite complex technique that comes with loads of standards and high IT know-how and is at least not designed for simple use in libraries or for normal web site operators. In contrast to this large-scale and complex solution the great and leading companies for search engine sites like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo und Yandex formed an alliance and defined ‘structured data’ to describe semantic infomation for web pages. Basing on the structured data definition ‘Library’ (), the Library of the Medical Faculty Mannheim defines some of its basic data as machine-readable structured data on its web site. Furthermore, the website’s starting page contains semantic metadata in Open Graph format (that Facebook crawls and analyses) and Dublin Core format

Semantische Metadaten für den Webauftritt einer Bibliothek

The semantic web has been developing for the last 10 years and with its Resource Description Framework (RDF) and vocabularies it seems to be usable today. Unfortunately RDF is a quite complex technique that comes with loads of standards and high IT know-how and is at least not designed for simple use in libraries or for normal web site operators. In contrast to this large-scale and complex solution the great and leading companies for search engine sites like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo und Yandex formed an alliance and defined ‘structured data’ to describe semantic infomation for web pages. Basing on the structured data definition ‘Library’ (), the Library of the Medical Faculty Mannheim defines some of its basic data as machine-readable structured data on its web site. Furthermore, the website’s starting page contains semantic metadata in Open Graph format (that Facebook crawls and analyses) and Dublin Core format