Entries in "Chemistry & Chemicals" ( for this category only)

New Endowed Professorship in Chemistry

Gilles Klopman, the Charles F. Mabery Professor Emeritus of Research in Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University has made seven-figure will commitment to Case's chemistry department.

See full story for more information.

C&EN Online

The Case community now has online access to Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) from 1998 to present. Access was arranged by OhioLINK.

[About C&EN]

Chemical & Engineering News is a weekly magazine published by the American Chemical Society. C&EN editors and reporters based in Europe, the U.S., and Asia cover science and technology, business and industry, government and policy, education, and employment aspects of the chemistry field.

C&EN Online offers Latest News, supplementary material to C&EN print articles, back issues of the magazine since 1998, and special features such as Reel Science, NanoFocus, RSS feeds, and blogs.

Reminder: Older Versions of SciFinder Retired

Please note that on January 2nd, 2008 CAS retired the following versions
of SciFinder/SciFinder Scholar, as communicated to customers in mid June
2007:

• SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar 2004.2 (MAC OS 9 and Windows)
• SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar MAC OS X 1.0
• SciFinder 2007.0 for Windows

National Chemistry Week: October 21-27, 2007

During this week, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of National Chemistry Week as promoted by the American Chemical Society.

Update: ICIS Creates a Students Portal - Includes Chemical Prices

ICIS has fixed the format of the chemical price list that is contained within their student portal. It formally did not view correctly in the Firefox browser, but it should work for all major browsers now.

ICIS Creates Student Portal

ICIS is working on a new student portal, or "knowledge zone". Right now it links to some resources available to students. In the future, they "hope it will turn into a space in which students and academics worldwide can communicate and discuss issues with each other, and showcase their best work to the wider world, not least potential employers."

Several librarians have contacted and discussed the lack of chemical prices for student projects with ICIS. In the past, I documented and shared my concerns directly with ICIS. Randy Reichardt has taken similar steps. He has personally been involved in the recent developments.

ICIS with the announcement of this new student portal has helped to fill this need for chemical prices. ICIS now provides "you with historical chemical prices. Note that these prices are a guide only, and must not be used to guide real-time business."

I understand chemical prices are hard to locate and maintain, even for a major chemical publisher, so this historical resource fills a major need for chemical engineering students.

Thank you ICIS and Randy Reichardt!

Continue reading "ICIS Creates Student Portal"

CSA Trust - Winter Newsletter

The Chemical Structure Association (CSA) Trust has published its winter Newsletter, which is freely available to all at http://csa-trust.org.

The Chemical Structure Association Trust (CSA Trust) is an internationally recognized, registered charity which promotes education, research and development in the field of storage, processing and retrieval of information about chemical structures, reactions and compounds. Many students and researchers world-wide, who work in this area, have benefited from the Trust Awards and Grants programmes to further their research work.

General Chemistry Online

Dr. Fred Senese of the Deparment of Chemistry at Frostburg State University has created an online guide to everything about general chemistry. General Chemistry Online includes:

• Common compound library
• Notes and guides for first semester general chemistry
• Flash-based modeling kits
• Articles
• Tutorials
• Simulations
• Quizzes
• Survival guide
• FAQs

[VIA: The Scout Report -- Volume 12, Number 31]

SOURCE Funds Case Students to Present Research

Several undergraduate students recently received SOURCE (Support of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors) travel funding to present their research at national conferences, including:

• Bradley Gill, senior biomedical engineering major, presented "Fluid volume conductance for determination of bladder volume" at the International Summer School and Symposium on Medical Devices and Biosensors. His faculty mentor is Margot Damaser;
• Nikki Kong, a senior chemistry major, presented a paper and poster at the 20th Annual Symposium of the Protein Society. Her faculty mentor is Mary Barkley; and
• Charles Sing, a junior polymer science and engineering major, presented a poster, "Effect of glass transition temperature on the kinetics of the phase separation of excimer-forming dyes in amorphous polymers," at the American Chemical Society's National Meeting and Exposition. Christoph Weder is his faculty mentor.

[VIA: Case Daily, November 9, 2006]

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Website Downtime

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) website (http://www.rsc.org) will be unavailable on Saturday 2 December 2006 from 09.00 to 17.00 GMT for essential maintenance.

The RSC apologises for any inconvenience that this downtime may cause.

Customer Services
Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, UK

Fourth Joint Sheffield Conference on Chemoinformatics: Call for Papers

The Chemical Structure Association Trust and the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society announce their Fourth Joint Sheffield Conference on Chemoinformatics. The conference will be held in The Octagon Centre and the Stephenson and Tapton Halls of Residence, University of Sheffield, UK, from 18th-20th June 2007.

Offers of papers are welcomed in all aspects of chemoinformatics.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• High-Throughput Screening, including: assay quality control; design of screening collections; systems based design
• Virtual Screening including, including: docking and pharmacophore analysis, similarity and clustering methods; machine learning
• Computational Methods for Lead Identification and Optimisation including: modelling and structure-activity methods; structure-based design; ADMET prediction
• New Algorithms and Technologies including: data mining; searching methods; distributed processing; data handling and visualisation;
• Case Histories, incorporating practical experience of any of the above

The programme will have space for ca. two dozen oral presentations, and there will also be extensive opportunities for poster presentations. Authors wishing to submit a paper should send a title and abstract (minimum 500 words) by 31st January 2007 to cheminf2007@sheffield.ac.uk, stating whether they wish to be considered for an oral or for a poster presentation.

Submissions will be selected as either oral contributions or posters by the Organising Committee, with notification of acceptance by 28th February 2007. In selecting papers for oral presentation, the Committee will seek to achieve a balance between the various areas of the subject and between new methodologies and successful applications of existing techniques.

Further details of the conference, including registration information and opportunities for sponsorship and participation in the conference exhibition will follow later in the year, and will be posted at the conference website.

[VIA: CHMINF-L listserv]

Chemistry Central Journal - New Open Access, Peer-Reviewed, Online Journal

Chemistry Central Journal (ISSN 1752-153X) is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal recently launched by Chemistry Central. Chemistry Central, developed by the same team who created BioMed Central, the leading biomedical open access publisher, is committed to ensuring peer-reviewed chemical research is immediately and permanently available online without charge or any other barriers to access.

Chemistry Central Journal encompasses all aspects of research in chemistry, broken down into discipline-specific sections.

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Chemistry Central is a new service publishing peer-reviewed open access research in chemistry from BioMed Central, the leading biomedical open access publisher. The Chemistry Central website currently features chemistry-related articles published in BioMed Central journals and independent journals utilizing BioMed Central's open access publishing services. Chemistry Central is planning to launch further chemistry-specific journals in the near future.

ICIS Chemical Business Americas - Update

I am glad to see Randy Reichardt at the University of Alberta got a little further with a response towards why the publication (Chemical Market Reporter) was drastically changed with no feedback or warning to academia. I only received a standard response from several people at ICIS that basically already told me the obvious - "we are only covering about 100 prices and focusing more on news". I made it clear to ICIS that the strength, and what made them unique to academic libraries, was that they covered such a large amount of chemical prices. The current price coverage was much weaker than they were promoting and probably of minimal value for engineering students. Chemical industry news had many publications and organizations that focused in this realm and they were leaving a niche market (chemical prices) that academia relied heavily on CMR for.

Randy Reichardt received another response from Penny Wilson, ICIS Global Editorial Director, that reaffirmed a commitment to students. I hope this statement is not just an attempt to keep current subscribers. Their past efforts have not shown that students were considered much in their decisions, or they did not truely understand their subscibers or future subscriber needs. I am hoping it is the later, and they just did not understand how much academia needed chemical prices before they dropped the prices from the print CMR, rigged together a clunky online access with no IP recognition, and finally slashed hundreds of prices from their inventory.

ICIS Chemical Business Americas - More News

Seems like ICIS Chemical Business Americas (Chemical Market Reporter) may be writing its own ending in academic libraries. Randy Reichardt has discovered that up to 75-80% of the prices that were historically tracked have been removed from the online price index.

I looked today (September 12, 2006) at the price index. Only 86 prices were listed for 51 unique compounds. Last year when we spent the EXTRA money over 500 entries were included. In addition, many of the items that are included rarely come up in a chemical engineering design project at my institution. For example, I have never helped a student look up the following items nor did I need them a couple of years ago when I worked on my own chemical engineering design projects: coconut oil (2 entries), clover leaf oil, cotton oil (2 entries), canola meal, fish oil (4 entries), etc.

I will be updating my chemical engineering research guide to include other alternative resources and tricks for students to find chemical prices, as the value of this resource may no longer be a luxury academic libraries can afford.

Timeline of events:

• Chemical prices are removed from print edition
  
• Case spends the money to add online prices with an initial price of $415 for over 500 chemicals
  
• Announced name change
  
• Entry about poorly timed updated
  
• Today less than 100 entries exist

CMR Now Called ICIS Chemical Business Americas

UPDATE to my earlier posting and formal annoucement from publisher:

CMR is now ICIS Chemical Business Americas. As of the 4th September CMR has been reborn as ICIS Chemical Business Americas. As part of ICIS, we aim to leverage our strengths and reflect this in our branding. With our global and extensive resources from around the world we can present our readers with the most comprehensive publication in the sector.

ICIS Chemical Business Americas will continue to provide our readers with all the content that they have grown to rely upon at CMR, from news of the week to expert coverage of key markets. And we are sure our readers we love our new fresh design and our regular new sections.

The Case Community can continue to gain access from the Library Catalog under "Chemical Market Reporter", until the name and links have all been changed.

Chemical Market Reporter Publisher Again Shows No Respect for Academia

As you may recall previously, I worked with the publisher of Chemical Market Reporter to establish electronic access for the Case community. This came after many librarians expressed great concern to the publisher for not considering the needs of their users.

CMR was one of the few resources available for students to establish chemical prices for their many projects. The publisher switched to online-only without asking academic users what they needed the most. They tried to make things better by offering an online subscription, but many libraries were still left in the dark as they required a single password login and wanted more money. This publisher forgot that the future purchasers of CMR would be the very students they were ignoring now.

ICIS has again decided to ignore academic subscribers. They are changing CMR to another publication, but shut down operations right when many academic librarians were directing students to this resource. A "coming soon" message does not help students complete their assignments.

Nanopolymers 2007 - First International Conference

Nanopolymers 2007 - First International Conference
12th–13th June 2007, Germany

Rapra Technology is pleased to announce the first international Nanopolymers Conference, to be held in Germany, from 12th–13th June 2007. Nanotechnology is already making a major impact on new product introductions throughout the world, in many industry sectors. Many of these new products are based on the material property changes that may be achieved by incorporation of ingredients, at the nanoscale, into polymeric systems.

Although nanoparticulate carbon black has been used in car tyres for decades, it is only recently that other nanoparticulate ingredients have been dispersed in plastics to provide exciting new materials that are lighter weight and as strong as metals. The automotive industry has championed the use of nanocomposites, exploiting other properties, such as smoother surfaces, easier processing and even cheaper materials, which can be gained as well as providing lighter weight products. In addition, nanoscale ingredients are being added to polymeric thin films, thereby providing properties such as anti-scratch, anti-microbial and anti-reflective surfaces. It is also possible to obtain special visual effects through nano-coatings. The textiles industry and the sporting goods industry are also introducing nanotechnology based products, and it is estimated that there are now over 700 nano-based products on the market.

The main ‘nano’ ingredients being dispersed in polymeric systems are especially organoclays, nanoparticulate inorganics, and carbon nanotubes.

This conference provides an opportunity and a platform to present your research, product or process developments in this area to an influential and informed audience.

Presenting authors at Nanopolymers 2007 will be entitled to free registration on both days of the conference including meals, refreshments and a copy of the proceedings.

Papers are now being invited for submission on any of the following areas:

• Aspects and impact of nanopolymers on specific industry sectors (automotive, aerospace, marine, energy, healthcare, packaging, leisure, etc.)
• Production challenges to incorporation and use of nanoclays, nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, or fullerenes in composites and thin film coatings
• Property improvements achievable with nano-scale ingredients such as lighter weight, improved barrier properties, scratch resistance, anti-microbial, anti-reflective, conducting properties
• Characterisation aspects of incorporating nano-scale ingredients into nanopolymers
• Market data on growth of nanopolymers
• New research and development in the field of nanopolymers

If you are interested in presenting a paper at this event, please send a title, short summary, speaker name(s) and company name(s) to Alix Yates email ayates@rapra.net or Fax +44(0)1939-252416 by the deadline of 22nd December 2006.

Register before 12 April 2007 to take advantage of the special Early Bird Discount registration fee.

More Open Access Books from Caltech

Caltech has offered more open access books since my initial post. Thanks to Dana Roth (Caltech, Chemistry Librarian) for the update.

Caltech has started a depository of open access books by Caltech authors. Subjects include chemistry, economics, geological & planetary sciences, mathematics, and mechanical engineering. The books range from 1959 to 2005.

New chemistry books include:

• Carl J. Ballhausen and Harry B. Gray, Molecular orbital theory: an introductory lecture note and reprint volume, 1965
• Roberts, John D. and Stewart, Ross and Caserio, Marjorie C., Organic chemistry: methane to macromolecules, 1971

ICIS Jobs - Coming Soon

UPDATE:
ICIS jobs is now available.

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ICIS jobs will be available soon, with searchable chemicals jobs and careers information.

ICIS is an information provider for the chemical and oil industry.

Chemistry World News by RSS Feed

Chemistry World's daily news service is now available as a RSS feed, joining the existing feeds for RSC Journals.

Chemistry World is packed with articles on all aspects of the chemical sciences, regular company and individual profiles, job vacancies, commercial technology reports and many fascinating features.

(VIA: SD Librarian, July 28, 2006)

Fuel Cells and the Hydrogen Economy

From ScienceBase:

Hydrogen fuel cells have been relatively neglected through insufficient support from industry and government, according to a study published today funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Read the full commentary at ScienceBase looking at fuel cells as disruptive technology or browse the documents related to the research at ESRC.

Award Name: The Development and Diffusion of Fuel Cell Technology as a Disruptive Innovation
Award Holder: Prof Chris Hendry
Programme Name: Sustainable Technologies
Co-applicant(s): Dr P Harborne, Prof C Arcoumanis

Google & ACS Trademark Case

According to CNET News.com, the Google Scholar trademark case ends with the American Chemical Society.

ACS, which was founded in 1876 and claims to be the world's largest scientific society, sued Google in 2004. The suit claimed that the free "Google Scholar" journal-search service unfairly competes with ACS' "SciFinder Scholar," which appears to be more comprehensive but charges a fee.

Open Access Books from Caltech

Caltech has started a depository of open access books by Caltech authors. Subjects include chemistry, economics, geological & planetary sciences, mathematics, and mechanical engineering. The books range from 1959 to 2005.

As of July 23, 2006, some of the books included:

Mathematics:
Abraham, Ralph and Marsden, Jerrold E. (1987) Foundations of Mechanics, Second Edition. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Redwood City, CA. ISBN 080530102X

Mechanical Engineering:
Brennen, Christopher Earls (2005) Fundamentals of Multiphase Flow. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 13 978-0-521-84804-6

Brennen, Christopher Earls (1995) Cavitation and Bubble Dynamics. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0195094093

Brennen, Christopher Earls (1994) Hydrodynamics of Pumps. Concepts NREC and Oxford University Press.

Housner, George W. and Hudson, Donald E. (1980) Applied Mechanics Dynamics. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Housner, George W. and Vreeland, Thad, Jr. (1965) The Analysis of Stress and Deformation. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Chemistry:
Goddard, William A., III (1986) Nature of the Chemical Bond. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Langford, Cooper H. and Gray, Harry B. (1966) Ligand Substitution Processes. W. A. Benjamin, Inc., New York.

Roberts, John D. (1961) Notes on Molecular Orbital Calculations. W. A. Benjamin.

Roberts, John D. (1961) An Introduction to the Analysis of Spin-Spin Splitting in High-Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectra. W. A. Benjamin.

Roberts, John D. (1959) Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: applications to organic chemistry. McGraw-Hill Series in Advanced Chemistry. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

(VIA: Science Resources, May, 8, 2006)

Nationwide Chemical Security Plan

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on June 30 released the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), which includes the first nationwide plan to protect U.S. chemical plants and related infrastructures.

According to Chemical & Engineering News (July 3, 2006), sector-specific security plans that complement NIPP and detail the risk management framework will be released within six months.

Chemistry Magazine

Chemistry is a tabloid published for American Chemical Society Members, Student Affiliates, and those interested in learning more about the chemical sciences and the American Chemical Society.

Snapshot Of The Chemical Industry

Chemical & Engineering News (July 10, 2006) provided a snapshot of employment, finanaces, production, and trade in Facts & Figures Of The Chemical Industry.

(VIA: Quick Picks, July 11, 2006)

Big Money for "Little" Research

C.C. Liu, a chemical engineering professor at Case Western Reserve University, will lead a team studying novel microscopic machines powered by ultra light-sensitive molecules as part of a four-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

See full article from Crain's Cleveland Business on the web (July 19, 2006).

(VIA: Case Daily, July 20, 2006)

Call for Nominations for the 2008 ACS National Awards

Nominations for 53 national awards administered by the ACS to be presented in 2008 are being solicited. See the full announcement for more details.

ChemDB at University of California, Irvine

ChemDB is a public database of small molecules available on the Web. ChemDB is built using the digital catalogs of over a hundred vendors and other public sources and is annotated with information derived from these sources as well as from computational methods, such as predicted solubility and three-dimensional structure. It supports multiple molecular formats and is periodically updated, automatically whenever possible. The current version of the database contains approximately 4.1 million commercially available compounds and 8.2 million counting isomers. The database includes a user-friendly graphical interface, chemical reactions capabilities, as well as unique search capabilities.

Additional information:
ChemDB: a public database of small molecules and related chemoinformatics resources
Jonathan Chen, S. Joshua Swamidass, Yimeng Dou, Jocelyne Bruand, and Pierre Baldi
Bioinformatics 2005 21(22):4133-4139

(Thank you to Gary Wiggins on the Chemical Information Sources Discussion List - CHMINF-L for pointing out this resource.)

TOXNET - TOXicology Data NETwork

TOXNET (TOXicology Data NETwork) is a cluster of databases covering toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health and related areas. It is managed by the Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program (TEHIP) in the Division of Specialized Information Services (SIS) of the National Library of Medicine (NLM). TOXNET provides free access to and easy searching of the following databases:

• HSDB (Hazardous Substances Data Bank)
• IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System)
• ITER (International Toxicity Estimates for Risk)
• CCRIS (Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System)
• GENE-TOX (Genetic Toxicology)
• Tox Town
• Household Products Database
• Haz-Map
• TOXMAP
• LactMed (Drugs and Lactation)
• TOXLINE
• DART/ETIC (Development and Reproductive Toxicology/Environmental Teratology Information Center)
• Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)
• ChemIDplus

See the Factsheet for TOXNET: Toxicology Data Network for detailed descriptions.

Chemistry Between Women & Science

The Chronicle of Higher Education (Volume 52, Issue 38, Page A10, May 26, 2006), in an article called The Chemistry Between Women & Science, interviewed three women about their career paths and why so few women are in academic science careers.

(VIA: Quick Picks, May 29, 2006)

PROGRESS - Women Chemists and Chemical Engineers

PROGRESS is a three-year pilot project launched in 2002 by the American Chemical Society to develop, test, and evaluate 7 new programs aimed at facilitating the full participation and advancement of women chemists and chemical engineers. Its goals are to assist entry-level professionals find employment and guide and support early and mid-career professionals seeking advancement.

(VIA: Quick Picks, May 29, 2006)

First Open Access Nanotechnology Journal from Major Publisher

Springer and the Nano Research Society have announced a new partnership to publish Nanoscale Research Letters (NRL), which will be the first nanotechnology journal from a major commercial publisher to publish articles with open access. The new journal provides an interdisciplinary forum for the open communication of scientific and technological advances in the creation and use of objects at the nanometer scale. The first open access articles are scheduled to appear on Springer's online platform, SpringerLink, in July 2006.

Read the full announcement for more information.

(VIA: LISNews, June 12, 2006)

Beilstein database exceeds ten million reactions

MDL Information Systems GmbH is pleased to announce that the Beilstein database now provides more than ten million structure-searchable reactions. Passing this important milestone emphasizes the enduring value of the Beilstein database as the essential first step in chemical discovery. See the full press release for more information.

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Beilstein Crossfire is one of the several hundred databases available to the Case community.

MOLTABLE - Chemoinformatics Portal & its Application in Bioinformatics

When a potentially useful drug is designed or discovered, it must be delivered in a way that maximizes its ability to benefit patients.

The Moltable initiatives to discover drug candidates against CANCER, AIDS, Malaria and other potentially devastating infectious diseases through chemoinformatics research. Drug candidates in various stages of research are being analyzed to discover new and promising candidates. Dynamic QSAR initiatives through 'focused' virtual library design and the results will be made 'open access' through Moltable portal (National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India).

The portal includes links to projects, a repository for molecules, and various other resources.

Isaac Newton's "Alchemical Notebooks" Available Online

The Chymistry of Isaac Newton is producing a scholarly online edition of Newton's alchemical manuscripts integrated with new research on Newton's chymistry. To date, about seven hundred pages have been transcribed and encoded in TEI/XML. Of these, roughly six hundred have been edited and are available online, including Newton's Most Complete Laboratory Notebook.

Isaac Newton, like Albert Einstein, is a quintessential symbol of the human intellect and its ability to decode the secrets of nature. Newton's fundamental contributions to science include the quantification of gravitational attraction, the discovery that white light is actually a mixture of immutable spectral colors, and the formulation of the calculus. Yet there is another, more mysterious side to Newton that is imperfectly known, a realm of activity that spanned some thirty years of his life, although he kept it largely hidden from his contemporaries and colleagues. We refer to Newton's involvement in the discipline of alchemy, or as it was often called in seventeenth-century England, "chymistry."

(VIA: Librarian In Black, April 14, 2006)

International Conference on Chemoinformatics - August 2006

National Chemical Laboratory Pune, India is planning a two-day International Conference on Chemoinformatics during 7-8 August 2006 which would be participated by eminent scientist and professors in this specialized area from both academia and industries.

Several distinguished scientists from Germany, UK, USA etc. along with Indian scientists are participating in this important meeting. The conference will bring together more than 100 participants for this scholarly event focusing on the futuristic application of cheminformatics in medicinal chemistry, material science, structure elucidation and structure activity/property/toxicity relationship studies, high performance computing, chemical data mining etc., Other participants would present oral and poster presentations of their work.

Periodic Table of Data

The Periodic Table of Data is a visual database of physical and thermochemical properties of the chemical elements. It includes an interactive periodic table, visualization of properties, graphs, tables of data, energy level diagrams, and games. The data in this resource has been taken from The Royal Society of Chemistry Electronic Data Book CD, London: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2002, with some minor corrections for consistency.

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[About RSC]

The RSC is the largest organisation in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences. Supported by a worldwide network of members and an international publishing business, our activities span education, conferences, science policy and the promotion of chemistry to the public.

Chmoggle - Chemical Information Search Engine

UPDATE:
Under pressure from Google, Chmoogle is now called eMolecules.

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On November 18, 2005, eMolecules, Inc. announced the launch of Chmoogle.

Chmoogle wants to be the world's leading free open-access chemistry search engine. Chmoogle's mission is to discover, curate and index all of the public chemical information in the world, and make it available to the public. Chmoogle distinguishes itself by extremely fast searches, an appealing presentation of results, and high-quality chemical drawings. Chmoogle discovers sources of chemical data by searching the internet, and receives submissions from data providers such as chemical suppliers and academic resea