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This paper is a practical introduction to searching for bibliographic information on engineering materials. It is not intended as a ‘how‐to’ guide; rather, its aim is to open a window on the databases that are available and illustrate the all‐encompassing nature of the study of materials science and technology. Databases in languages other than English, full‐text sources and purely numeric databanks are not included.

The types and numbers of database user support materials are multiplying as producers become more involved in the servicing of the user community and as the number of online databases grows. (Approximately 100 files are available now for online searching, and each month brings a few more on each of the systems.) Currently available materials can vary in cost, format, depth, and purpose. This paper is an assessment of the available materials, offering comments on both availability and cost as well as the relationship, if any, between the search materials and the topic area of the file or the organizational type of the producer. This paper does not attempt to evaluate content or measure quality; it discusses vendor‐produced materials only when a contrast between the two groups would be helpful.

This research paper explores the roles of electronic texts in research projects in the humanities and seeks to deepen the understanding of the nature of scholars' engagement with e-texts. The study used qualitative methodology to explore engagement of scholars in literary and historical studies with primary materials in electronic form (i.e., e-texts). The study revealed a range of scholars' interactions with e-texts during the whole research process. It uncovered a particular pattern of information-seeking practices in electronic environments called netchaining and the main types of uses and contributions of e-texts to research projects. It was found that e-texts play support and substantive roles in the research process. A number of influences from electronic environment are identified as challenges and aids in working with e-texts. The study does not have statistical significance. It indicates a need for further research into scholarly practices, training requirements, and new forms of service provision. Study results are relevant for the development of digital collections, information services, educational programs, and other forms of support for the use of technology in research. The results can be also used to inform approaches to text encoding and development of electronic information systems and have implications for organizational and industry policies. The study found a range of scholars' interactions and forms of intellectual engagement with e-texts that were not documented and analyzed by earlier studies. It provides insights into disciplinary variations in the humanities and contributes to the understanding of scholarly change catalyzed by information technology.

The University of Illnois Information Retrieval Research Laboratory contracted with the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to identify and analyze word‐oriented databases of potential relevance to FEMA. A subject profile technique was used to measure how many potentially relevant citations were found in selected databases, thus allowing a ranking and comparison of databases for the multidisciplinary field of emergency management. “Distribution of Citations in Databases in a Multidisciplinary Field” describes the ranking of databases relevant to emergency management and demonstrates the applicability of Bradford's law of scatter to citations in databases. This article describes an experiment to compare the subject profile technique used in the FEMA project to another common database coverage evaluation technique — the ‘bibliography’ or ‘review article’ technique. Although the two techniques have slightly different purposes, they can both be used to compare the coverage of databases in a particular subject area. This study shows the subject profile technique to be less costly and less time consuming.

A workstation‐based system for materials planning is intended to complement a host‐based materials‐planning system, thereby leading to a multi‐level system that combines fully detailed planning procedures with “aggregate” decision support capabilities. Planning objects as well as planning procedures are formulated within the relational database frame‐work. By that means, at execution time the database management system guarantees processing efficiency as well as consistency control. After a short characterisation of the state‐of‐the‐art of database utilisation in conventional materials planning, a set of requirements which have to be met by the proposed approach is formulated. Based on this, the suitability of the relational database model as a framework for multi‐stage materials planning is discussed. In particular, the integration of abstraction hierarchies is emphasised and hierarchical planning procedures adopted from artificial intelligence are integrated into the concept. Some examples adopted from a prototype show that, at least for simple planning problems, it is possible to achieve end‐user support at any level of detail when using a relational database system for materials planning.

States that since 1980, UKOLN has been carrying out a survey to monitor the availability of bibliographic records in the BNB files on the British Library automated information service (Blaise). Work on the ordering stage sample is now to be extended by investigating the availability of records from other sources of bibliographic records. Looks at the survey and the new sources to be included in the extended survey. Divides the participant sources (BNB, BDS, Book Data, J. Whitaker & Sons, BLCMP, CURL, LASER, OCLC and SLS (Information Systems) Ltd into two groups and describes the survey methodology and sample structure. Presents a set of source profiles which have been prepared as background material to accompany the results for each source since straight comparisons would not be advisable, given the differences in objectives and set‐up of the sources. Gives some comparisons of the features of different sources.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new building typology for: the estimation of heat demand of urban agglomerations; and the assessment of the environmental impact linked to urban re-development policies.

In order to: capture regional differences of urban areas; and describe individual building components of neighbourhoods, the author proposes the construction of a new building typology based upon a regional material catalog (Klauß et al. 2009a).

The main findings of this analysis are primarily on method. The author presents a method to estimate the building shell from available information on the digital cadastre and the first attempt to link material databases with a ranking algorithm. The analysis application presented in this paper shows that the embodied energy on insulation materials and the corresponding energetic payback time depends on the “real” building shell, making it important to accurately compute this value.

Results from this analysis present an heat demand urban model able to capture: regional differences, thanks to the use of the regional material catalog, local characteristics of the building stock, thanks to the detailed information of the digital cadastre, and ability to link building stock models with rich Live Cycle Inventory (LCI) databases for the explicit consideration of the embodied energy of retrofit measures. Further applications of the developed method could be used to assess new urban development plans of the city as well as financial incentives packages for building retrofits.

This analysis shows the first step towards the development of a new building typology constructed upon a regional material catalog. This innovation allows taking regional differences into account. Because the author uses a detailed catalog of building components, an accounting of embodied energy by linking data of a LCI database is possible. In this paper the author presents an application of the enriched data set, the presented example shows the needed embodied energy by adding an extra layer to the predefined building components of selected buildings of the digital cadastre.

A database for finite element models and related data is developed and incorporated into a prototype system for integration of non‐linear finite element codes with a product design system. In the prototype system, the database is used as a link for integrating commercial, public domain as well as in‐house codes. In the present system, the public domain finite element codes NIKE2D, NIKE3D, DYNA2D, DYNA3D and TOPAZ2D are integrated with the CIM–system I–DEAS. The prototype system is primarily intended as a platform in research projects for development of integrated environments tuned for simulations of specific manufacturing processes such as quenching, welding, hot rolling, metal powder compaction and hot isostatic pressing.

The purpose of the paper is to marshal the carbon sources, and explore a computational model to calculate the buildings’ carbon emissions by using building information modeling (BIM) techniques. The study aims to integrate the BIM techniques with the carbon emission and energy analysis tools, which can provide a more exact quantification result.

To define the scope of this study, several standards or regulations have been comparatively analyzed. The BIM technique has also been used to establish the computational model of carbon emissions, including the calculation principle, the basic database, and each process of modeling. Finally, a case study is given to test the theoretical study.

The paper provides a quantitative calculation method for the carbon emissions of buildings, and suggests an approach to integrate the BIM techniques with the low carbon research. This allows the quantity of material consumption and carbon emission to be calculated in real time during the whole construction process.

Because of the chosen American database, the calculation results may lack generalizability. Therefore, the approach of establishing a universal database of carbon emission coefficients will be the next key point.

As this research shows, there is a need for an advanced calculation method to evaluate the buildings’ carbon emission exactly by BIM techniques, which also provides a basis to establish the regulation of carbon transaction tax in the future.

This paper fulfils an identified need to calculate the carbon emission during the buildings’ construction stage, so that better decisions can be made to optimize the construction plan and choose the low emission materials properly.

A behavioural approach to information retrieval system design is outlined based on the derivation of a behavioural model of the information seeking patterns of academic social scientists. The information seeking patterns of a variety of academic social scientists were broken down into six characteristics: starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, and extracting. These characteristics constitute the principal generic features of the different individual patterns, and together provide a flexible behavioural model for information retrieval system design. The extent to which these characteristics are available on existing systems is considered, and the requirements for implementing the features on an experimental system are set out.