For reasons beyond my control, Warr Zone has gone missing from the "new look" Alchemist on ChemWeb. I am particularly sorry that some of the organisations mentioned in this week's column have not had their news drawn to your attention so I am taking the liberty of reproducing this week's column below. The links to the Warr Zone and Filternet archives have also gone missing from ChemWeb but the links from my own site http://www.warr.com to the archives http://chemweb.com/alchem/alchem98/warrzone/wz_current_set.html and http://chemweb.com/alchem/alchem98/archives/ar_current_set.html and http://chemweb.com/alchem/alchem98/filter/fi_current_set.html work OK. ________________________________________________________________________ WARR ZONE January 8, 1999 RSC Wins Award The Royal Society of Chemistry [http://www.rsc.org] has won Best Stand Award at Online Information 98, the worlds largest electronic information exhibition. Presenting the award, Sissel Hafstad (President of EIRENE, the European Information Researchers Network) praised the open and inviting design of the stand and its use of symbolism to achieve maximum impact on a modest budget. The stand had a giant "smoking" flask with a slogan "Solutions for the future". News from ID Business Solutions ID Business Solutions [http://www.idbs.co.uk] has released ActivityBase 3.2, the latest version of its discovery data management system, and an enhanced Object Manager (version 1.1). The company has also announced that it is going to provide chemical storage capabilities as part of the ActivityBase environment. There is a common interface for biological and chemical data with this new technology and it will be possible to store and search molecules, reactions and libraries (product based or reaction based), within a single database schema and combine this data with biological data generated through screening activities. Through the common biology and chemistry interface, researchers will be able to interrogate assay results, mine a database for molecules containing a particular substructure, or design a combinatorial library using generic reactions. Integration of biological and chemical data will enable complex cross discipline queries to be run. IDBS plans to support organic, polymer and organometallic chemistry (and salts of organic compounds), and claims that it will extend chemical representation beyond that currently supported by other software vendors. In particular, the number of chemistry descriptors will be increased to support enhanced stereochemical handling and bond types such as hydrogen and co-ordinate bonds. IDBS currently has a molecule registration capability available as an add-in to ActivityBase. This registration module can "hook in" to third party databases such as MDLs ISIS for storing and retrieving structures. IDBS is proposing a series of phased releases for the new software. The first phase of chemistry component technology is to be incorporated into ActivityBase 4.0, scheduled for release in the second quarter of 1999. Current Drugs Unveils 1999 Plans Current Drugs [http://www.current-drugs.com] will publish six new titles in the Current Opinion series in 1999: Current Opinion in Molecular Therapeutics, Current Opinion in Central and Peripheral Nervous System Investigational Drugs, Current Opinion in Anti-inflammatory and Immunomodulatory Investigational Drugs, Current Opinion in Cardiovascular, Pulmonary and Renal Investigational Drugs, Current Opinion in Anti-infective Investigational Drugs, and Current Opinion in Oncologic, Endocrine & Metabolic Investigational Drugs. The company has unveiled plans for version 3.0 of IDdb. It will have new Alerts, Competitor Analysis, Library and Personalise sections, new facilities for searching and annotation, links to other Internet or intranet resources and a knowledge management environment for linking IDdb intelligence to a companys internal resources. Current Drugs has announced an alliance with the EMC Corporation of Massachusetts to provide its customers with an extranet service for the Investigational Drugs database. Both leaseline and virtual private network options will be on offer. Current Drugs has also announced the forthcoming availability of DrugNet.com, a major new Internet-based service for the international pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. DrugNet.com will integrate specialist databases, decision support software and competitor intelligence services from a range of publishers and software vendors servicing the biomedical and pharmaceutical sector. It is thought that the product may be launched in the second quarter of 1999. Handbook of Chemistry and Physics CRCnetBASE 1999 All the text and figures of the 79th edition of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics [http://www.crcpress.com/catalog/478.htm] are now available on CD-ROM as the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics CRCnetBASE 1999, ISBN 0-8493-9720-0, from CRC Press [http://www.crcpress.com] and Springer-Verlag. The Advanced Internet Searchers Handbook This book, by Internet consultant Phil Bradley [philb@twilight.demon.co.uk], is written for those who already use the Internet but want to gain access to further information through improved search techniques. It develops understanding of search engines and how they work, and introduces more complex online searching techniques. It also looks at gateways, virtual libraries, USENET groups and commercial databases on the Internet. It costs £29.95 and is published by the Library Association [juliet.prowse@la-hq.org.uk]. Apologies for duplicate messages and a happy new year to all my readers. Wendy -- Dr Wendy A Warr Wendy Warr & Associates, 6 Berwick Court Holmes Chapel, Cheshire CW4 7HZ, England Tel/fax +44 (0)1477 533837 wendy@warr.com http://www.warr.com chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)