Physical Reference Data of the NIST Physics Laboratory Presentation for the DASER Symposium Digital Archives for Science & Engineering Research Saturday, November 22, 2003 Bob Dragoset Physics Laboratory

2 Physical Reference Data Office of Electronic Commerce in Scientific and Engineering Data, NIST Physics Laboratory Karen Olsen, programming Gloria Wiersma, HTML editing Nearly 30 online databases covering: Fundamental Physical Constants Atomic and Molecular Spectroscopy Electron-Impact Atomic Cross Sections X-ray Attenuation and Absorption First database online June 1994

3 Data Storage & Integrity Public & internal web servers Dual, mirrored disk drives Daily backup of internal web server Automatic monitoring of unauthorized file modification on public web server All files for each new or updated database are archived on CDs and stored outside NIST. Firewalls are configured for minimal access to public web server. public server internal server

4 Data Input ASCII files Fixed-column Tab-delimited LaTeX to gif for equation images Scanned legacy documents Data entry through web interfaces Scripts & programs for processing data Automatic daily updating MySQL and PHP (open source)

5 Data Output Dynamic web pages HTML tables ASCII files fixed-column tab-delimited User-selected output options PDF files generated "on-the-fly" Custom data graphs Dynamic calculations of user-defined compounds and mixtures

6 Physical Reference Data Fundamental Physical Constants 260,000 page requests / month Searchable Bibliography 3600 references Fundamental Physical Constants 260,000 page requests / month Searchable Bibliography 3600 references Atomic Spectra Database ,000 spectroscopic lines 66,000 energy levels 90,000 page requests / month Atomic Spectra Database ,000 spectroscopic lines 66,000 energy levels 90,000 page requests / month

7 Physical Reference Data (cont.) Microwave Molecular Spectral Databases diatomics (121), triatomics (55), & hydrocarbons (91) 30,000 spectral lines 23,000 page requests / month Microwave Molecular Spectral Databases diatomics (121), triatomics (55), & hydrocarbons (91) 30,000 spectral lines 23,000 page requests / month Electron-Impact Cross Sections 70 molecules & 2 atoms (updated soon) theory comparison with experiments 25,000 page requests / month Electron-Impact Cross Sections 70 molecules & 2 atoms (updated soon) theory comparison with experiments 25,000 page requests / month

8 physics.nist.gov/constants Extensive evaluation method for determining values of the constants

9 DATA INPUT Choose reference source Choose Journal (e.g., pr) Enter info (TeX if needed) title first & last pages year authors keywords Editing screen available showing HTML & TeX Scientist proofs Secretary: final approval Database automatically updated daily DATA INPUT Choose reference source Choose Journal (e.g., pr) Enter info (TeX if needed) title first & last pages year authors keywords Editing screen available showing HTML & TeX Scientist proofs Secretary: final approval Database automatically updated daily DATA OUTPUT HTML output PDF output Generate PostScript by running LaTeX with BibTeX references (39,000 line file) Distill PostScript file DATA OUTPUT HTML output PDF output Generate PostScript by running LaTeX with BibTeX references (39,000 line file) Distill PostScript file

10 Data Input Data entered into Oracle database from uploaded data files. ASCII output from Oracle database put into Ctree database and data massaged. ASCII output from Ctree database used by Korn shell & PERL scripts for web output. Ctree was used because NIST originally offered a PC-based product containing the data. Data Input Data entered into Oracle database from uploaded data files. ASCII output from Oracle database put into Ctree database and data massaged. ASCII output from Ctree database used by Korn shell & PERL scripts for web output. Ctree was used because NIST originally offered a PC-based product containing the data.

11 DATA OUTPUT Many user-selected options, including: ASCII fixed-column HTML & paged HTML User options are listed in the URL, which can be bookmarked. Options stored without using "banned" cookies. DATA OUTPUT Many user-selected options, including: ASCII fixed-column HTML & paged HTML User options are listed in the URL, which can be bookmarked. Options stored without using "banned" cookies.

12 The "Atoms" portion of the new version of the database was designed using MySQL database & PHP programming language, both Open Source. Manual check required.

13 DATA INPUT: Legacy data Scanning, OCR, & manual labor used to generate hundreds of molecular constants tables in HTML. Errors found and corrected by running scripts on electronic data file. DATA INPUT: Legacy data Scanning, OCR, & manual labor used to generate hundreds of molecular constants tables in HTML. Errors found and corrected by running scripts on electronic data file.

14 DATA OUTPUT Search & retrieval using several data fields, including: molecule telescope reference empirical formula DATA OUTPUT Search & retrieval using several data fields, including: molecule telescope reference empirical formula

15 For More Information Bob Dragoset National Institute of Standards and Technology Bob Dragoset National Institute of Standards and Technology