How to use the Publication Database (PDB)

The PDB is password protected, so enter ioalib as the username, and the ioalib password for access.

Search between dates

The personnel database can be queried for a list of authors who are/were members of the IoA between two specified dates.

Personnel

Can select whther you want all IoA personnel between the required dates, or separate results by visitors. The default is to take all IoA personnel.

Name of output file

The query results are then simultaneously written to both the browser, and an output text file at /home/ioalib/persdb with the output filename specified (nothing is written to an output file if no name is specified). Note, that the author names in the text file are written as surname followed by the first intial only, as ADS queries are then found to be more complete, e.g.

   McMahon, R.G.   becomes   McMahon, R

The output text file can then be visibly checked, and any alterations made as required. If you believe that a visitors name is missing from this database please email reception with the relevant name and period of stay at the IoA, so that the database may be correctly updated for future queries.

Note: there appears to be an upper limit on the number of names accepted for an ADS query (which may arise from a security restriction on the length of an URL). So enter approximately 150 authors at a time (typically this will generate two ADS queries).

Here is an example of sub-dividing an authors list that is greater than 150 authors. Say, that the file is called authors.lis, then the number of authors that it contains is given by:

   cat authors.lis | wc -l

If the file say contains 295 authors, then to sub-divide authors.lis into two separate files with say 150 authors in one and the remainder in the other:

   head -150 authors.lis > parta.lis

   tail -145 authors.lis > partb.lis

Then use wc to check, e.g.

   cat parta.lis > wc -l

Then query ADS either for refereed or non-refereed journals. The PDB can process either seperately. Just ensure that you've noted which type of ADS query you intiated by perhaps using different output file-types e.g. .ref or .nonref.

Select a large number for the number of items to be returned, e.g. 500, so that all the returned items are in one file. Once the items have been retrieved from your query, it is advisable not to perform any selective editing at this point, and instead select Return generic tagged abstracts and then then Retrieve all references.

Note: the format up the generic tagged abstracts is explicitly used when updating the PDB with these results, and so data retrieved from ADS queries must be in this format.

The returned results in generic tagged format can then be saved to a text file, which will then be used to update the PDB. It is then recommended to view/edit these text files and perhaps remove obvious errors, or entire non-IoA publications. Of course the editing stage can be done via the PDB, but this may save time later.

Note: (a) none of the ADS updates have a grant code designation as this must be completed locally.
(b) The PDB assumes that the ADS text files used to update the PDB are located in /home/ioalib/persdb.

Name of ADS input file

Enter the name of the generic tagged ADS text file.

Name of IoA authors input file

Enter the name of the IoA authors file.

References are

Select the relevant option depending on whether the ADS query was made on referred or non-referred journals.

Note: (a) The majority of the references in the ADS file have %F i.e. an affiliation specified, which contains an IoA address. The script will write to the publications database those references which either have no affiliation specified, or those which have an IoA address in the affilitaion. Those references that are rejected are written to an output file (using the ADS input file name you specified with an extension .badrefs) which can then be double checked.

(b)The outpage shows: the number the number of publications read from ADS file; the number of references added to the publication database; and the number that were rejected due to non-IoA affilation. To check how many references were in the original ADS file use wc e.g.

   grep %T parta.lis | wc -l

Note: (c) Some references, e.g. books, come back with no month set i.e. %D = 00/1999 where month is set to value 00. We will reset any such month values to 01 (Jan) as the default value.

Search between dates

Enter search dates.

Author surname(s)

Searches can be made for more than one author at a time, but they must be seperated with with a logic statement AND, OR or NOT e.g.

   Abraham AND Ellis NOT Ellison

Word(s) in title

Searches can be made for more than one word in the title. Again they must be seperated with with a logic statement AND, OR or NOT.

Select references from

This is based on the original ADS query of referred or non-referred journals.

Grant code

Select the grant code under which the paper may have been published. Leave blank if not know.

Reference status

Multiple references inserted from ADS will entered will default status of unchecked. Once a reference has been verified then it should modified to a status of checked. The option all references allows retreival of both checked and unchecked references from the PDB.

Results sorted by

Query results may be sorted by author or year.

Include title

The publication title may be displayed or not.

Authors

(a) IoA author names must be entered enclosed between the html bold characters: e.g.

   <b> Ellis, R. S. </b>

(b) Names with foreign characters can be entered: e.g.

   Colín, P.    type    Col&iacute;n, P.

(c) Multiple authors are seperated with commas, with surname followed by intials: e.g.

   Abraham, R. G., Ellis, R. S., Fabian, A. C., Tanvir, N. R.

Title

Special characters can be used if required: e.g.

   Radio galaxies at redshift > 2

could be entered as:

   Radio galaxies at redshift &gt; 2

Journal/Book details

Enter details of the publication.

Grant Code

Select the grant code under which the paper may have been published. Leave blank if not know. Multiple grants may be selected. Publications may be selected on the basis of `including' a specific grant code while `excluding' others.

Year of Publication

Select year.

Month of Publication

Select month.

Refereed/Nonrefereed

Article published in a referred or non-referred journal.

Reference status

Enter as checked if details are correct.

Style1

An old style in which the title is presented first, followed by authors etc.

Style2

A more modern style in which authors is presented first, and the option of including a title is presented.

Html

If the html format is adequate then press the print option to get a hardcopy.

Latex

Save the file as a html source document i.e. click on File, then save as and then specify output filename, and ensure that Format for Saved Document is Source. The file is saved to disk with the output name you have specified e.g. ref.html. Then run a html2latex converter to generate the latex file e.g. type on the command line:

   html2latex   ref.html

which will generate a file called ref.tex, which may be latex'ed in the usual way to generate a postscript file.

Word

Save the file as a html source document (see above), then inport directly into Word. Then first save the document as a word file before using it again as part of another document (to avoid compatibilty problems).