Developing scientifi c business applications using open source search and visualisation technologies - Open Source Software in Life Science Research - page 338

Typical representation of three layout approaches that
are built into Prefuse. Force layout uses force repulsion
to spread the nodes effectively, radial layout pushes
the nodes into a series of circles and starburst layout
builds a space-fi lled radial tree

Figure 14.10

Alternatively, it is possible refi ne the search to include a key word by
clicking on it, or to do subsearches within the visualisation by 'spidering
out' searches.
For scientists, this allows them to surf across the enormous complexity
of data held in documents and fi nd new facts or trends without reading
individual articles. It also means that instead of searching for positive hits
in a standard Pubmed search, this approach lets users fi nd verifi able new
connections to investigate, something that is incredibly diffi cult to do
when you have a lot of information to sift through.

14.8 Other applications

￿ ￿ ￿ ￿ ￿

A number of other applications have been developed to make use of the
SOLR Publication Management Index. These include:

■ 1Alert. This system allows scientists to quickly set up a regular email or
RSS feed to show new developments in a given area. For example, the
system can provide a weekly email with a list of all the new publications,
conference proceedings and clinical trials pertaining to a particular
disease or disease area. In addition, more complicated search techniques
can be applied across the whole of the index to enable the scientists to be
informed of signifi cant events in the publications. 1Alert makes use of
the advanced tagging utilised within the SOLR Publication Management
Index to improve the document feedback produced for this alerting;