Fielded Search Help

Use the fielded search to limit your search to certain metadata fields and/or the document body. All fields are metadata fields except for Document Body.

Cautions
Searching
Search Examples

Cautions

Your query is expanded to search the fields you choose. Long queries may result in very long expanded queries, which may be truncated by the Web server. If this should happen, try searching fewer fields. You may choose to include the URL in the results display to see the result without highlights (and therefore avoiding truncation by the Web server).
Incomplete Date fields will have their missing values automatically provided, depending on whether it is a starting or ending date. Starting dates will round to the start of the month (YYYY-MM-01) and/or start of the year (YYYY-01-01). Similarly, ending dates will round to the end of the month and/or the end of the year.
Search words are case-insensitive, except for search operator words which must be all upper case.
Note! The prior versions of the Profiles site used the Verity search engine to handle user queries. The search engine has been replaced with a new search engine that does not support the old Verity formatted queries. Therefore previously saved search queries strings will unlikely produce the expected results.

Entering values into multiple fields implies an AND of those fields. Enter your search criteria into one or more field then select either of the Fielded Search buttons to initiate the search. If no search fields have values entered, the search page is simply redisplayed.

Synonyms

Medical terms can be difficult to remember, and often there are many names for a single concept (e.g., cancer of the colon, colonic neoplasm, colon cancer, etc.). Thus, Profiles in Science adds words related to those you entered automatically. This may increase the number of documents retrieved.

Example: When using the phrase heart attack in a search, the related phrase myocardial infarction will be added.

Date Fields

Dates items have two entry fields. The combination of fields enables the user to define a date range to search over. By default, the first field (top most) represents the earliest date of the range. The second field represents the latest date. Incomplete Date fields will have their missing values automatically provided, depending on whether it is a starting or ending date. Starting dates will round to the start of the month (YYYY-MM-01) and/or start of the year (YYYY-01-01). Similarly, ending dates will round to the end of the month and/or the end of the year. The comparison options next to each date field tells Profiles how to compare the associated date with the dates found in that field. The two dates in the range are each compared to the date found in the data field then the results are ANDed to determine if the date falls in that range. Only a single date needs to be specified if, for example, you are searching for resources with a date on or after January 01, 1950 (>= 1950-01-01).

Date Comparison Operators:

Operator	Date Meaning
<	Before
<=	Before or On (inclusive)
=	Only on this date
not =	NOT on this date
>=	After or On (inclusive)
>	After

There are two keywords which can be used to specify indefinite quantities. Keywords must be all UPPERCASE letters.

MIN	The earliest date available
MAX	The latest date available

Dates may be entered in YYYY-MM-DD or MonthName Day, Year format. Common abbreviations for Month names are acceptable (without trailing periods), such as Jan for January.

Date Field Examples:

Date Field Values	Meaning
1997-03-23 blank	Any date from 1997-03-23 or later
March 23, 1997 blank	Any date from March 23, 1997 or later
1997-03-23 MAX	same behavior
1997-03-23 1997-03-23	Date field equals 1997-03-23
blank 1997-03-23	Date is before 1997-03-23 inclusive
MIN 1997-03-23	same behavior
1997-03-23 1999-01-01	Date is greater than or equal to 1997-03-23 but less than 1999-01-01 inclusive

Note: Profiles attempts to make reasonable assumptions with date specifications. A blank specification defaults to MIN or MAX depending on the which field was blank.

Search Operators

Operators allow you to customize search strategies. Several operators are supported in Profiles in Science. Search operators must consist of all UPPERCASE letters:

Operator Definition Example

AND Retrieved documents contain all words or phrases (and synonyms) connected by the AND operator leukemia AND chemotherapy

OR Retrieved documents contain either word or phrase (and synonyms) connected by the OR operator aspirin OR ibuprofen

NOT Retrieved documents do not contain the word or phrase (and synonyms) following the NOT operator Immunodeficiency NOT AIDS

" " Retrieved documents contain the exact words as specified between the quotes (and synonyms) "heart attack"

Operator	Definition	Example
AND	Retrieved documents contain all words or phrases (and synonyms) connected by the AND operator	leukemia AND chemotherapy
OR	Retrieved documents contain either word or phrase (and synonyms) connected by the OR operator	aspirin OR ibuprofen
NOT	Retrieved documents do not contain the word or phrase (and synonyms) following the NOT operator	Immunodeficiency NOT AIDS
" "	Retrieved documents contain the exact words as specified between the quotes (and synonyms)	"heart attack"

Notes on Operators

Profiles in Science interprets commas (',') in search statements as AND operators. For example, the search strategy diabetes, st. louis, missouri is identical to diabetes AND st. louis AND missouri.
By default, Profiles in Science retrieves documents that contain all words entered, regardless of order. To ensure that words are searched in a particular order, use the multi-word operator. Example: heart attack retrieves all studies that contain both the word heart and the word attack whereas "heart attack" retrieves documents containing the phrase, heart attack.

Search Examples

Enter words or phrases separated by commas. Words, their inflectional variations, and synonyms will also be searched.
Examples:

Search Terms	Resultant Documents
cancer	cancer, cancers, tumors, and variations
heart attack	"heart attack", "myocardial infarction"
"heart attack"	the literal words "heart attack" must be found
crab OR lobster OR shrimp	any of the words crab, lobster, or shrimp
bank AND loan AND business	all of the words bank, loan, and business
bank, loan, business	all of the words bank, loan, and business.
bank NOT river	The word bank but not the word river
swim OR bike AND run	Stemmed variations of bike and run on the same page or stemmed variations of swim
(swim OR bike) AND run	Stemmed variations of swim or run and stemmed variations of bike
((swim OR bike) AND run) OR walk	Stemmed variations of swim or run and stemmed variations of bike on the same page or stemmed variations of walk