Chemical Information System (The CIS)

THE CIS NEWS	April 2006

This issue of The CIS News is coming to you from the CIS E-mail address -- cissupport@nisc.com. Comments, questions, concerns, etc., should be directed to that address.

[Format problems? If the format of this newsletter goes doesn't suit your E-mail reader, try taking a look at the HTML version of the newsletter in The CIS News archive. You can reach it through http://www.nisc.com/cis/.]

UPDATES

This newsletter actually covers 1 1/2 updates, since there was an unannounced update (i.e., no newsletter) in January. That update covered only two databases, and we preferred to complete some of the updates discussed below before preparing a formal newsletter. The updates discussed below touch upon AQUIRE, SANSS, CERCLIS, RTECSŽ, MEDLINE, and TSCAINV (TSCA Inventory).

AQUIRE:

The number of records in this database increased from around 228,000 to around 232,000 in April. To find only those records added or updated since the last update, enter ">20030312" in the Add/Alter Date box toward the bottom of the search screen. The latest Add/Alter Date now in the system is from October 4, 2005. The number of sources cited in the database increased from 15,124 to 15,398; the number of chemicals covered increased from 7,356 to 7,383; the number of species covered increased from 4,205 to 4,256.

SANSS:

The April update of the SANSS database -- the central chemical-oriented database in CIS -- increased the number of records from roughly 678,000 to more than 681,000. A small number of additional chemical names and formulas were included in the update, but its main focus was additional references to other sources of information. Eight "collections" -- or sets of references to other sources of information, both inside and outside CIS -- were added or updated in the course of this update; these are broken down into Internet, Print, and CIS categories: Additional Internet References: References to the Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) of the National Cancer Institute (National Institutes of Health) were added to SANSS in the course of this update. The DTP program concentrates on testing of substances for use in treatment of cancer, AIDS, AIDS-associated malignancies, and opportunistic infections. SANSS now includes links to DTP data for more than 124,000 substances. The data available through the DTP search screen include basic chemical information (formula, nomenclature, structural depiction), some additional useful structural data (2-D and 3-D structural coordinates and SMILES strings), and a wide variety of biological screening data developed through the DTP program. The other two new Internet collections are more modest: Links to some 250 documents from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (Toxicological Profiles, ToxFAQs, and Public Health Statements) and links to some 190 solvent profiles from the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS). The latter are maintained in the SOLV-DB (R) database and presented courtesy of Gage Products Co. Additional Print References: Three print collections were also expanded in the course of this update: additional references were added to the Aldrich Catalog of 2003-2004, The Merck Index (10th edition), and the Condensed Chemical Dictionary (12th edition). SANSS already included tens of thousands of references to other editions of these works, but we are back-filling some references to older editions of some print materials. This is based on a survey referenced in this newsletter some time ago indicating that these older editions are sometimes the ONLY editions of these still-useful print resources held in undergraduate chemistry libraries. Additional references to these works (and other print resources) will appear in future updates of SANSS. Updated References to CIS Databases: References to three CIS databases were also updated in the course of this SANSS update. The references in SANSS to the AQUIRE, RTECSŽ, and TSCAINV (TSCA Inventory) databases were brought in line with the latest updates of those databases in the system.

CERCLIS (Superfund Sites):

The number of sites/records in the CERCLIS database increased in April from 46,230 to 46,361.

RTECSŽ:

This database underwent its regular quarterly update in the unannounced update in January. It now contains records for more than 162,000 chemical substances.

TSCAINV:

The TSCAINV database of chemicals listed on the public portion of EPA's TSCA Inventory -- the list of chemicals approved for use in industry and commerce in the US -- was updated in April. This update includes the65,508 records drawn from the "first issue, 2006" of the database.

UPCOMING POSSIBILITIES

In addition to regular updates, there are several things pending that we'd like to accomplish in the next few months. As usual, we can't get to everything we'd like to do. So we'll mention some of these possibilities here in hopes that you might comment on which of these changes would make the most difference to you. Any pro or con comments you have would help us greatly in figuring out where to devote our resources. SANSS Displays: The listings of sources of information in SANSS records are spreading, and we'd like to reduce the amount of real estate they take up on the screen. We hope to do this by eliminating some of the repetitive headings while retaining all the detailed information. Merger of DATALOG, ENVIROFATE, and ISHOW: We have been looking into the possibility of merging these three databases into one entity we'll call PROPERTIES. This will eliminate some duplication, make it simpler to retrieve various types of physical/chemical properties data, and simplify updating. TSCATS Update: TSCATS has not been updated in several years -- the result of funding limitations at EPA -- but some new TSCATS data are now available. However, they're going to require some substantial work before they can be incorporated into the online TSCATS we currently display. An update WILL appear, but expressions of interest on your part could accelerate that. SANSS Class Field: We're considering adding a CLASS field to the SANSS database. This would include a variety of terms covering structural features, uses, chemical categories, etc. A given CLASS entry might identify a substance as an INDOLE or a SUGAR or a DYE or FUNGICIDE or CHLORINATED BENZENE or SOLID or LIQUID, and so forth. This would allow users to identify substances in these various categories with a single input. It would also permit users to employ Boolean logic in retrieving subsets of records -- say, PESTICIDES that are LIQUIDS, or OXIDANTS that are SOLIDS, etc. Any comments you have on these possibilities would be welcome. If there's something else you'd like to suggest, we'd be glad to hear that, too.

UPCOMING POSSIBILITIES

Today's Web-enabled, "user-friendly" databases are a vast improvement over the things we used to work on in the Paleolithic era of online databases -- say, around 1975 or 1985. Anyone who's been around a few years will remember the bare, unhelpful prompts offered by pre-Internet databases -- the black screen with nothing on it except, perhaps, a question mark. (For you youngsters, the question mark was a taunt thrown up on the screen by a vindictive programmer: It dared the searcher to run up enormous unanticipated charges by responding to the question mark with the wrong keyboard entry.) A few dinosaurs among our readers will remember modems, and the delights of a lightning-fast 1200 BPS connection (which beat 300 BPS connections all hollow). For our part, we remember the elaborate user manuals that used to be necessary to do anything at all in these old-style systems, and the endless files of HELP messages that used to be available -- some of which might actually have been helpful. But one thing that's been lost over recent years of "improvement" is contact between the creators of online databases and their users. Our user support staff still fields calls regularly from the users of our databases, but modern, user-friendly systems have greatly reduced the bafflement among users that old-style systems used to engender. We'd guess that we only get 5% of the volume of calls that the old-style systems generated. That cuts us off from a very useful source of information -- the occasional comments we get from users about what we're doing right and wrong. So don't hesitate to get in touch when you have a question, complaint, or even a compliment; whether by phone or by e-mail (cisssupport@nisc.com), it's very helpful to us to hear from you, and we genuinely enjoy it.

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