This service provides access to about 410,000 engineering and astronautical
abstracts since 1975. Users can submit queries by author, keywords,
date range, words in the title, and words in the abstract text. The
resulting list is ranked by how closely the paper matched the query,
and from this list, one can obtain all of the information contained
in the ADS Instrumentation Abstracts database (including the bibliographic code,
title, authors, author affiliations, journal reference, publication date,
category, origin, keywords, and abstract text).
Included in this dataset are over 60,000 SPIE references.
This document contains the following:
About the Data
The Abstract Query Form
Filters
Changing the Settings
Settings Example
Results List Window
Table of Contents Query
Table of Contents Query
Results List Window
Available Items
Find Similar Abstracts
What's New Service
Give us Feedback!
More Information about ADS
If you have questions about the Abstract Service, please send an e-mail
message to ads@cfa.harvard.edu.
If you wish to acknowledge us in a publication, kindly use a
phrase such as the following: "This research has made use of
NASA's Astrophysics Data System Astrophysics Science Information
and Abstract Service" Thanks!
The abstracts database contains data from data provided by NASA's Scientific
and Technical Information group (STI). It should be noted that the abstract
presented from NASA is a rewritten version of the original author
abstract.
The data from STI includes papers from the following eighteen astronautical
and engineering categories:
12 Astronautics (General)
13 Astrodynamics
14 Ground Support Systems and Facilities (Space)
15 Launch Vehicles and Space Vehicles
16 Space Transportation
17 Space Communications, Spacecraft Communications, Command and Tracking
18 Spacecraft Design, Testing, and Performance
19 Spacecraft Instrumentation
20 Spacecraft Propulsion and Power
31 Engineering (General)
32 Communications Radar
33 Electronics and Electrical Engineering
34 Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer
35 Instruments and Photography
36 Lasers and Masers
37 Mechanical Engineering
38 Quality Assurance and Reliability
39 Structural Mechanics
The NASA database contains abstracts from hundreds of journals,
publications, colloquia, symposia, proceedings, and internal NASA
reports. Complete coverage can not be guaranteed for any of the
sources.
Click here to see a full list of journals and their bibcode stems.
Journal papers may be ordered from the Center for Aerospace Information (CASI).
The Abstract Query Form provides basic access into the ADS abstracts
database. To create a query, fill in any or all of the following
fields (ALL FIELDS ARE CASE-INSENSITIVE!).
- Authors
- Authors may be entered one per line, or on the same line
separated by semi-colons. Authors may be entered by last
name only, or by last name and first initial. Any of the
following will work:
smith, a.
smith, a
smith,a.
smith,a
If a full first name is entered, only the first initial
will be used by default. To search for middle initials of
authors, use the
Exact Author search capability.. The list of authors may be searched
by doing a
Lists Query.
Note that authors whose last names contain an umlaut may
be entered under both possible english spellings (e.g. Boehm and Bohm).
- Title
- This allows the user to search on words found in the
title of the paper. A checkbox for boolean logic allows
combinations the use of boolean logic
constructs.
- Abstract Text
- This allows the user to enter any combination of words
or sentences he or she chooses. The search will be
done on individual words (except for some of the most
common English words such as "the", "a", and "and").
This is extremely useful for entering the text of an
abstract from a previous query to find all the papers
most related to that paper. Note, all title words and
keywords are also indexed together with the abstract
text words. A checkbox for boolean logic allows
combinations the use of boolean logic
constructs.
When the query has been set up to your satisfaction, press Send
to send the query.
When the query has finished, a ranked list of
papers that fulfilled the query requirements is returned. To view
more information on a given paper, click on the bibliographic code.
Or select the checkbox for those papers of interest and use the
"Retrieve Selected Abstracts" button at the bottom of the page.
You can click on the bibliographic code with the middle button if you
would like to keep the list up while reading the rest of the information
for a given abstract (this will bring up the abstract in another Mosaic
window).
If you would like to see more than the first 50 references, change
the appropriate numbers on the query form.
The filters sections allows the user to further modify the search.
- Publication Date
- The "Publication Date" should be entered as two integers
in the form MM and YYYY (e.g. 12 and 1988). Dates go back
to 09/1974 and are current through approximately one
month ago. In some cases, there was no month available,
and the month is then entered in the database as 00.
If no date is entered, the program will default to the
full date range. If no "From" month is entered the
program will enter a default value of 00. If no "To"
month is entered the program will enter a default
value of 12.
- Entry Date
- The "Entry Date" allows the user to select data which has been entered in
the database since a given date. Entering "-31" in the "Day"
field will select all new entries in the past month.
- Minimum Score
- The "Minimum Score" allows the user to select data which has a score
greater than the entered minimum score. This is most useful
when used in conjunction with the entry date. See the
"What's New Service" described below.
- Select References From
- The default setting returns all abstracts which fit the query criteria.
To select only those journals which are refereed (i.e. omit abstracts
from things such as conference proceedings, BAAS, and IAUC), choose
the "Select from all refereed journals" option. Alternatively, users
may choose only from specific journals by choosing "Select journals:" and
entering the journal(s) bibstems (separated by a space). To use the
"selected journals" field, you must know the abbreviation for the journal,
which is listed in the journal abbreviations file.
- Select References With
- This allows users to select references which contain any information, or
only selected information, such as full article text, original
author abstracts, electronic versions, data tables, etc.
To change the logic within a field or between fields, you need to
Change the Settings.
The settings section allows the user to change default query conditions such
as the logic of the query. The following may be changed:
- Relative Weights
- This is the relative weighting
of the fields used in calculating the scores. If you want to
give more weight to the authors than the keywords, for example,
these numbers would be changed. It is also possible to make
one of these fields 0.0, in which case that item will not be
considered when the relative scores of each abstract are
calculated (the "scores" are descriptions of how well a given
abstract matches the query conditions, normalized to 1.0).
- SYNONYM REPLACEMENT
- If this is turned on, the standard term list will be used to
replace words. This corrects for misspellings in the abstract text
or author names, and equates words such as "accelerate", "accelerated",
and "acceleration".
It is also possible to turn synonym replacement on or off for individual
words within a query. By default, synonym replacement is done for all
words. To exclude a word from synonym replacement, use
the "=" sign before that word (to exactly match that word and no synonyms).
If you have turned off synonym replacement but want it on for a given word,
use the "#" sign before the word.
- SIMPLE LOGIC QUERIES
- The simple logic recognizes '+' and '-' before the words. To require a
word to be found in a search, it needs a '+' in front of it. A '-' before a
word indicates that only references that do NOT contain that word should be
returned. AND , OR, NOT are stopwords and will be ignored in the simple
logic.
Note that if you want to exclude a word, it is best if it is not the first
or only word listed in the search. This requires every abstract in the
system to be returned, before the excluded word can be found and omitted
from the returned abstracts.
It is also possible to turn synonym replacement on or off for individual
words within a query. By default, synonym replacement is done for all
words. To exclude a word from synonym replacement, use
the "=" sign before that word (to exactly match that word and no synonyms).
If you have turned off synonym replacement but want it on for a given word,
use the "#" sign before the word.
- FULL BOOLEAN QUERIES
- This allows more complex queries than just combining all words with
"OR" or "AND". The allowed boolean operators are: "and", "or", "not", "(",
and ")". They can be used in any combination (as long as "(" and ")"
match). For example the query "(redshift or survey) and not galaxy"
finds all references that contain either "redshift" or "survey", but
not "galaxy". The order of precedence of the operators is "(...)",
"not", "and", "or". For larger numbers of search terms, this type of
search will be slower than regular searches, especially if the "not"
operator is used. For full boolean author searches, the syntax is
somewhat awkward. Each operator has to be on a separate line. This
includes the "(" and ") operators. Regular scoring is done on any
terms that are combined with "or". "and" and "not" combinations are
scored as 1.
- USE FOR WEIGHTING?
- This determines if the field should be used in calculating the
scores. If this is turned on, then this search field (authors,
keywords, etc) will be included in the calculation for the total
score of each abstract. If it is not turned on, the search field
will be used for selection as specified in the other flags but will
be ignored for the score calculation. This serves two main functions,
to selectively turn off portions of a complex query without editing
the query, and in conjunction with the REQUIRE FIELD FOR SELECTION
flag to permit a Boolean search on a field to be combined with a relevancy
ranking.
- WEIGHTED SCORING
- This sets how the score for each abstract is calculated. If this
is not turned on, the scoring is "straight"; each query condition that is
met (a "hit", e.g. if the abstract contains a keyword specified in the
query) receives a score of 1 (before normalization). If this is turned on,
the scoring is "weighted"; the score for a "hit" is the inverse log of the
frequency of the specified condition (e.g. keyword) in the total database.
This gives a higher score to "hits" of rarely used words since they are
presumably a stronger search criterion.
- REQUIRE FIELD FOR SELECTION
- This determines how the words across fields are combined. If
this is turned on, an abstract will only fulfill a query when the
given field conditions are met. For example, if you give an author
and set this to "yes" in the author Query Settings, all abstracts
which are retrieved must contain that author. When this is not turned
on, abstracts which do not contain that author, but which meet
other conditions in the query will also be returned.
When the query has been set up to your satisfaction, press Send
to send the query.
When the query has finished, a ranked list of
papers that fulfilled the query requirements is returned. To view
more information on a given paper, click on the bibliographic code.
Or select the checkbox for those papers of interest and use the
"Retrieve Selected Abstracts" button at the bottom of the page.
If you would like to see more than the first 50 references, change
the appropriate numbers on the query form.
Assume there is a list of desired authors in the
author field in the Abstract Query window. Assume that one wants
papers where at least one of the desired names is an author, but does
not want the paper to appear more relevant if more than one desired
author is a co-author. In the Author Query Settings window, you
would turn off USE FOR WEIGHTING, turn off REQUIRE FIELD FOR SELECTION,
and turn on REQUIRE FIELD FOR SELECTION which would allow the rest
of the query to determine the relevancy score.
The abstract server has a number of features which have been developed
in order to improve searching the dataset. These include the use of
synonyms, stop words, and word translations.
By default, each search term specified in the title, abstract, or
author query field triggers a search for all the term's synonyms as
well as the term itself. The use of synonym searches for text words
has been established to equate different tenses of the same verb, different
genders of the same name, as well as different words with the same meaning.
In addition, we use synonyms to perform foreign language translations,
to equate foreign words with their English counterpart. This feature can
be turned off by modifying the default settings.
For authors, synonym replacement allows the user to search on an author's
name and get back any alternative or incorrect spellings of which we are
aware. For example, the author synonymn pair "A'HEARN, M" and "AHEARN, M"
allows users to search on either spelling and
retrieve abstracts which contain either spelling. If you are aware of
an author name, misspelling, or foreign word translation which does not
seem to be working correctly, please inform us by email to ads@cfa.harvard.edu
We maintain a list of stop words
which are words that are removed from queries before they are processed.
These are words commonly used in the English language with great
frequency, as well as adverbs, prepositions and any other words not carrying a
significant meaning when used in a scientific context.
Last, we perform word translations for certain terms or patterns which
are conventionally written in a few different ways. This is most
commonly done with astronomical object names (e.g. "M 31" and "M31"),
as well as some composite words (e.g. "X RAY", "X-RAY" and "XRAY").
The list of words which are currently translated is
available.
If you are aware of others which should be included, please inform
us by email to ads@cfa.harvard.edu
To obtain a list of articles which appear in a major journal,
you can do a Table
of Contents Query. Select the year and/or volume number for
the desired journal. A Table of Contents query generates a list of
references for the papers available from the specified journal.
Note that a toc query will return only what is in our database
(not necessarily complete).
To obtain a list of articles which appear in a minor journal or
conference proceedings, you need to obtain the partial bibliographic
code from the list of journals
and do a Bibliographic
Code Query.
The Query Results window contains a list of all abstracts which fulfilled
the input query. This list contains the bibliographic code, score,
publication date, authors, title, and list of
available items.
To retrieve the rest of the abstract information (including journal
reference, author affiliations, and abstract text), you have one of
the two following options:
- Click on a bibliographic code link to see information for individual
abstracts.
- Click on selection boxes to the left of each bibliographic code for
which you would like to see the abstract. Press Retrieve Selected
Abstracts at the bottom of the list.
This feature shows at a glance what items are available for a particular
abstract. This allows the user to see, for example, which articles have
abstracts or full text articles available. The following abbreviations
are used:
- A: NASA/STI Abstract Available
- C: Citations Available (references that cite that article)
- D: Data Table Available from CDS
- E: Electronic Version Available from AAS
- F: Full Text of Article Available
- I: Author Comment is Available
- M: Article is available for purchase through the mail
- N: Source Information available from NED
- O: Original Author Abstract also Available
- P: PDS (Planetary Data Systems) Information is Available
- R: References Available (references cited by that article)
- T: Table of Contents search available.
Through this feature, the ADS Abstract Service provides the
capability of finding all relevant abstracts in the database.
This is done by modifying the query based on the results of a
previous query. This feature is only available for individually
retrieved abstracts.
- Select the fields that you would like to use to update the query.
This will create a new query, inserting the values of the fields from
the results of the most recent query. Choose from:
- 1. Authors
- 2. Keywords
- 3. Title
- 4. Abstract Text
- Choose what you would like returned.
- 1. Query Results: The new query will be submitted, and the list of
abstracts which fulfill that query will be returned.
- 2. Query Form: The new query will be set up, and the query form will
be returned. Further modifications may be entered in the query form, then
press "send" to submit the query.
WARNING: A very long query can take several minutes to return. One can speed
the query up substantially by limiting the date range in the Query Form.
We have enhanced the ADS Abstract Service with the capability of searching
the database for recent entries. This service allows the user to conduct
searches of the abstract database for all new abstracts which fulfill his
or her favorite query. The service can be used through the WWW or through
email, and can be automated to return all new entries within a specified
period (such as the last month).
To use this service:
- 1. Build the query:
-
Use the WWW interface to build a query by repeatedly executing it until
the desired result is returned. If you do not have WWW access, you can
request the query form by email to "adsquery@cfa.harvard.edu". A message
body containing "help" will provide some assistance. To set up a query,
the message body should include:
action=https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html
method=get
return=form
This returns the form with hyperlinks surrounded by "@"
signs. To follow a hyperlink, uncomment the appropriate one
in the section which begins "Start of hyperlinks". To submit
the form, fill out the form in the section which begins
"Begin of Form 1" by filling in search criteria after the "="
signs.
- 2. Save the query form:
-
Request that the query form be returned for this query by selecting
"Return Form" in the Build Query Form section below the send button.
A negative number in the "Entry Date" day field determines how far
back the query goes. For example, to get any entries in the last
month, use -31.
- 3. Use the form:
-
This form can be used either through the WWW by opening it in the
browser (or saving it in your hotlist) with the syntax:
file:/directory/filename
or it can be used to execute an e-mail query by typing:
mail adsquery@cfa.harvard.edu < /directory/filename
If you are on a Unix machine, you can set up a crontab file which will
automatically send this email message at specified intervals. To enable
this feature, edit your crontab file by issuing the command "crontab -e"
and entering the following:
0 24 1 * * mail adsquery@cfa.harvard.edu < /directory/filename >/dev/null
where /directory/filename is the name of your saved query file.
This will execute the query on the first of every month and query back for
31 days (if the day field contains -31).
You can help improve our service! If you have comments for us, please
submit them through our feedback form.
We always welcome comments and suggestions for improvements.
In addition, you can supply author comments about papers for which you are
an author. This comment will be linked to the abstract so that it will
be displayed whenever the paper in question is retrieved by a user.
This is a useful way to incorporate errata or make additional information
available. The author comments should be submitted through our
forms interface.
These comments can be plain text or fully formatted html documents.
They can include comments about the abstract, clarifications or more
extended descriptions, and links to other abstracts and documents.
We reserve the right to edit or reject any author comments that are
inappropriate. For an example of an author comment, see Mike Kurtz's
PhD Thesis.
If you wish to acknowledge us in a publication, kindly use a
phrase such as the following: "This research has made use of
NASA's Astrophysics Data System Astrophysics Science Information
and Abstract Service." Thanks!
More information about the ADS project is available here,
or you can send e-mail to us at ads@cfa.harvard.edu