Transcript Document

Library research for chemical
engineering graduate students
‘How to be an outstanding graduate student’
Seminar Series
Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry Department &
Engineering & Computer Science Library
November 2010
Session outline
The lit review
Major search tools
Finding review articles, using citation
searching
Alerting services
The patent literature
Literature review
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convey to reader knowledge and ideas established on a topic
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what their strengths and weaknesses are
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identify areas of controversy in the literature
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formulate questions that need further research
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be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question
you are developing
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synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
Summarized from The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It Written by Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review
work hierarchically
use short general sources at first
work your way towards primary references
if needed: start with encyclopedia articles, books
then move to
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review articles
primary articles
theses
perhaps: other materials such as patent literature
chem eng research guide
Major databases
Scifinder Scholar
aka Chemical Abstracts
Scopus
Web of Science
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aka Science Citation Index
Find articles, work with citation tracking
Any science topic – multidisciplinary
Compendex
aka Engineering Index
Scholars Portal Search
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Interdisciplinary: sciences, social sciences, humanities
Very large: includes many major engineering databases
Dissertations & Theses Full Text
SciFinder
Scholar
is actually a collection
of databases:
CA Plus
journals,
tech reports, patents
Medline
biomedical
citations
CASReact
multi-step reactions
database
Structure
includes
biosequences
Registry
regulated
chemicals
CHEMCat
commercial
suppliers
& commercially
available
chemicals
SciFinder:
Uses ‘natural’ language searching
I am looking for the effect of aspirin on blood clotting
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separate key concepts with prepositions
prepositions are translated into the boolean NEAR
aspirin on blood clotting is better than
aspirin blood clotting
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if only a space separates words, the system will consider the
words to be part of a phrase
Use nouns
aspirin on blood clot is better than
aspirin on blood clotting
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use nouns (rather than adjectives) for key concepts as much as
possible
helps with automatic truncation and finding synonyms
Synonyms
aspirin (salicylic acid, acetylsalicylic acid) on blood clot
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separate synonyms with commas
 parentheses are translated into the Boolean OR
Put molecular formula into a Logical
Order
e.g., Hill Order
To search multicomponent
What is Hill Order?
-Carbon first
-Hydrogen second
-all remaining elements
in alphabetical order
C2 H3 F3 O
(2,2,2-trifluoro-ethanol)
substances, separate each
component with a period
If SciFinder cannot interpret the formula, you will get a
message asking you to add capitalization and/or spaces
searching authors in scifinder
type a surname and initial
select all possible forms
of a name
Scifinder access
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available as web version and client-server
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web version works off and on campus
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register individually from a computer with a valid U of T IP address via the
Scifinder Scholar registration page
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must use a utoronto.ca email address to register
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log on from any PC but connect via the UofT Library site
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Access between 11 am and 6pm may be difficult since only 6 seats are
available concurrently
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try again in 5 minutes or use Scifinder in the evening instead
Scholars Portal Search
large interdisciplinary collection
with many databases useful in
chem eng:
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Environmental Sciences & Pollution
Management
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Medline
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Biotechnology & Bioengineering Abstracts
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Compendex
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Web of Science
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METADEX (materials science)
Advantages
-search many platforms
at once
-simple identification of
refereed articles
Scholars Portal Search
- break down question into concepts
- use keywords plus synonyms & related terms
- wildcards to broaden your search
Concept #1 groundwater
ground water
subsurface
water
Concept #2 remediation
bioremediat*
amelioration
Concept #3 mercury
heavy metal*
Use boolean ‘and’ rather
than multiple boxes
Use truncation symbol *
to improve search
results
Test your knowledge quiz
Choose all that apply…
1. Which of the following are considered primary
publications?
 Blue - An article in Journal of the American
Chemical Society on the novel use of a chemical
 Orange - The patent on the drug later
tradenamed Lipitor
 Pink - A UofT's graduate student's doctoral
dissertation
 Green – None of the above
2. Which of the following would be a good
database to find patents?
 Blue - PubMed
 Orange - Compendex
 Pink - Business Source Premier
 Green - SciFinder Scholar
3. If you performed a search by substance
identifier for the drug Plendil in SciFinder
Scholar, what types of information would
likely be available?
 Blue - CAS Registry Number, alternate
names and molecular formula
 Orange - Commercial availability info
 Pink - An experimental melting point
 Green – None of the above
4. SciFinder Scholar approaches keyword searching very
differently than most other indexing databases. What are
some of the key distinctions between SFS and other
scientific indexes?
 Blue - Multi-term queries in SFS are supposed to be
expressed in natural language phrases
 Orange - SFS searches "research topic" terms in the
document title, abstract and subject headings
 Pink - SFS has no way to allow entry of synonyms for
search terms, while other databases let you string
synonyms together using the Boolean operator OR
 Green - None of the above
5. Which of the following entries is the most
efficient way to search for hydrolysis or
alcoholysis of lactams in SciFinder?
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Blue - Alcoholysis OR hydrolysis of lactams
Orange - Lactams AND (hydrolysis or
alcoholysis)
Pink - Lactams (hydrolysis, alcoholysis)
Green - Hydrolysis (alcoholysis) of lactams
6. Web of Science has been described as "not the
first place to go for any search, but the second
place to go for almost every search". Which of
the following are logical reasons to support that?
 Blue - Its chronological coverage is very shallow
 Orange - It has detailed subject indexing
 Pink - It covers only the top journals in each field
 Green - Its citation indexing features make it
powerful for building a search from one or more
good references
Gaining context, comprehensiveness:
some strategies
Use journal databases, but limit to review articles
 experts identify significant literature, authors
 reveal gaps in existing body of research
 identify controversies quickly
Finding review articles using
Web of Science – use the Advanced Search
comprehensive review:
-many aspects of topic covered,
Including applications
-huge reference list
-article divided into mini-chapters
for easy use
Finding review articles using
Compendex
Finding review articles: some other
strategies
look for titles such as…
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Advances in chemical engineering
Reviews in chemical engineering
Annual reviews of industrial engineering chemistry
Progress in colloid & interface science
Gaining context, comprehensiveness:
some strategies
1. Use citation databases
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identify significant authors, significant papers by the number of
times they have been cited
Get the most out of
significant papers
explore their:
Cited lists
related articles
reference lists
Using citation databases
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Ancestors
 aka footnote tracing
 Use reference lists from review articles
Problem: author bias magnified
therefore, use in addition to other general search
methods
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Descendents
 Take most relevant articles
 Follow them forward in time
Scopus – times cited
Web of Science – times cited
Be aware of other possible problems with
citation searching
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Famous papers widely accepted therefore may not be
cited as much
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Important papers not written in English not cited in
English literature
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High cites may not measure QUALITY of a study, but
may measure INFLUENCE
Reaxys
Can be used to find references to
reactions or properties of chemical
compounds
 Can search by name or drawing of
structure
 Search reactions, substances &
properties, text authors & citations
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Practice exercise: article databases
Gaining context, comprehensiveness:
some strategies
3. Use thesis/dissertation databases
 who has been doing what?
 get a fairly complete picture quickly
Dissertations & Theses Fulltext
international coverage
-search by school, advisor, author, or by keyword
Staying current:
alerting services
mail alerts are sent after every database update
Sent if the update contains any new records that match your saved
query
Save as Alert is found on the Search History
page.
Login or create a
password.
Citation alert
Web of Science has a
similar citation alert.
patents
A patent is
“a right, granted by government, to
exclude others from making, using, or
selling your invention in Canada.”
Applicable for a pre-determined amount of time
Source: Canadian Intellectual Property Office retrieved November 23, 2010 from http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernetinternetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr00001.html
What makes something patentable?
NOVEL
-not yet available or disclosed to the public
INVENTIVE
-is not readily apparent to a person skilled in the technical field on
basis of generally available information
-reproducible
USEFUL
-must work!
- has a useful function
Source: Canadian intellectual Property Office. Retrieved November 23, 2010 from http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr01402.html
What can be patented?
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Art, processes, machines, manufactures or
composition of matter
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any new and useful improvement to the above
Source: Canadian intellectual Property Office. Retrieved November 23, 2010 from http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr01402.html
Why use them?
Rich content
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70% of information contained in patents not available elsewhere
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when a catalogue or an article describes a product in a few lines,
the corresponding patent often consists of 20 pages
Source: Introduction to esp@cenet. Retrieved February 21, 2005 from http://ep.espacenet.com
Why use them?
Very up-to-date
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companies generally file patent applications at the earliest
possible stage
normally published 18 months after their first filing date
Patents across borders
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Patents do not cross national boundaries
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harmonization of international patent laws is progressing rapidly
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but at the moment each country grants its own patents based on its
own standards
USPTO
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United States Patent & Trademark Office
http://www.uspto.gov
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most US patents from 1790-present
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for keyword or author searches of older patents, better to
go to esp@cenet
USPTO: types of patents
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Utility
what most people think of as an invention; for example, a machine or process
e.g., 5594818
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Design
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granted on the appearance of something
e.g., D277050
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Plant
invention or discovery and asexually reproduction of any distinct and new variety of
plant
e.g., PP13845
Source: Wherry, Timothy Lee. Patent Searching for Librarians and Inventors. Chicago: American Library Association, 1995. p. 12
USPTO:
patents vs applications
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patent number:
given after patent is
accepted and granted by
the USPTO
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application number:
file number the USPTO
gives to a submitted
application
claims
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the ‘effective’ part of a
patent
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precise description of the
invention
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list all essential features
Owner vs inventor
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Assignee (US) or
Owner (Canada)
 the person or
company to whom
the patentee has
given rights to the
invention
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Inventor (US and
Canada)
 person who is
named as the
inventor of a
patent
patent searching: ‘about-ness’
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Patents are……..
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legally binding descriptions
technical disclosures
Therefore…
Best to look for concepts vs mere word
match
A spade is a spade is … not always a spade?
in patent language:
substantially planar
earth moving implement
with
coaxial leveraging means!
Searching USPTO: one method
keyword search
1.
locate one good patent
2.
look at US class/subclass listing to find more patents on
same subject
Searching USPTO: another method
use the
Index to the U.S. Patent
Classification System
Canadian Patents:
Canadian Intellectual Property Office
http://brevets-patents.ic.gc.ca/opiccipo/cpd/eng/introduction.html
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a Canadian patent is effective only in Canada
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contains patent documents from 1869 to the present
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some idiosyncrasies with searching - check database for more
information
Finding patents in Scifinder Scholar
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search by subject keyword, then limit to patents
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patent concordance
 lists patent number by issuing country and corresponding patent
number in other countries
European and worldwide patents:
esp@cnet
http://ep.espacenet.com
patent information worldwide; divided into various databases
European Patent Office database
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most recent 24 months of applications from the European
Patent Office
European and worldwide patents:
esp@cnet
Worldwide Patents database
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Older patents
full collection of the EPO plus patent information from
approximately 50 countries including Japan
Japanese Patents database
Many national patent offices have individual web patent databases
Test your knowledge quiz – part 2
7. Which of the following can NOT be
patented:
 Blue - Chemical compounds
 Orange - Machines
 Pink - A law of nature
 Green - Alloys
8. Which of the following is NOT required for
patentability?
 Blue - Novelty
 Orange – Aesthetically pleasing
 Pink - Usefulness
 Green – Inventive
9. What is the term for a patent in Canada?
 Blue – 15 years from the date of approval
 Orange – life of the inventor plus 50 years
 Pink – 20 years from the date of filing
 Green – 18 years from the date of filing
[email protected]
416-978-6578
http://engineering.library.utoronto.ca
Reference Desk
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