A thesaurus provides a standard language or set of terms with which to describe a subject area. Applied to indexing of a database, it indicates to a searcher which terms to use to retrieve the maximum number of relevant documents.
The thesaurus terms are used by indexers to describe the contents of publications in a consistent, comprehensive and concise manner. These terms are listed in the Subject field (SU) of each record added to the database.
The Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Database features the following thesauri:
Using our interactive Thesaurus Search you can browse for terms via a hierarchical, alphabetical, or search words within a concept. These display formats allow you to navigate the thesaurus alphabetically or through the hierarchical relationships between terms. After finding appropriate terms, you can submit a search for those terms in the database descriptor field.
The Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Database offers three Look ups or browsable indexes, so you can easily find spelling or format variations when looking for all alternative versions of an author's name.
You can find the Look up links in the advanced search page and they are available for the following fields
For a description of these fields, please see the searchable fields table to the right.
Note: Look ups are also available from the Command Line search (through the Look up terms link).
To use and locate the Look up a.k.a. browsable index, select the respective field from the advanced search pull-down menu. If a Look up is available, the Look up will appear under the drop down.
Click on this link and you will see a browsable and alphabetical index for that field. There are some indexes that will not display an alphabetical list before searching for the term, rather you will have to enter a term first, and then the alphabetical list of matches will display.
Once you locate the index term that you would like to add to your search us the checkbox next to iut to mark the item.
Repeat until you have gathered all the alternative terms that you need.
At the end, click the Add to search button. All the index terms that you marked will now appear in the respective search box, all combined with the OR operator.
|
Field Name |
Label |
Search Examples & Explanation |
|
Abstract
|
AB |
AB((single command uplink cycle) and (microscopic imaging)) AB(Athena Microscopic Imager Instrument) We use the journal-provided abstract with little or no modification, or have members from our editorial team write an abstract from scratch, drawing on the article’s text and concepts. Our team’s goal is to make the article’s point as clearly and succinctly as possible. |
|
Accession Number |
AN |
AN(A05-18-52610) Search the unique number for articles and documents. |
|
Author
|
AU |
AU(lane, hobson) AU(lane) Use to find documents written by a particular author. |
|
Author Affiliation
|
AF |
AF(Northrup Grumman) Use this field to retrieve documents associated to a particular institution. |
|
Classification
|
CL |
CL(18 Spacecraft Design, Testing and Performance) CL(18) Use to search classification. |
|
Conference
|
CF |
CF(infotech@aerospace 2005) Use to retrieve papers from a specific conference. |
|
ISSN
|
ISSN |
ISSN(0146-3705) This search field looks for the eight digit International Standard Serials Number (ISSN), where available. Hyphens are optional. |
|
Language
|
LA |
LA(English) Use to find documents in a specific language. |
|
Publication Date
|
PD |
PD(20091220) Use to find a specific publication date. Can be searched as: (YYYYMMDD) = (20091220) (YYYY and month) or (month and YYYY)= (2009 and Dec) or (Dec 2009) The use of <, >, and – are supported to specify before or after a specific date and a date range. E.g. for records with publication dates after 2009, use the following format: PD(>2009). |
|
Publication Type
|
RTYPE |
RTYPE(conference paper) |
|
Publication Year
|
YR |
YR(2005) Used to search documents published in a specific year. |
|
Publisher
|
PB |
PB(american institute of aeronautics and astronautics) Used to retrieve documents from a specific publisher. |
|
References
|
REF |
REF(smith, j) REF((smith, j) and (EVA and lunar strategy)) Use the reference search field to look for articles which cite a specific article, author or journal. It will search all components of a cited reference (cited author, cited publication, cited title or cited year). |
|
Report Number
|
RP |
RP(aiaa paper 2005-6919) RP(2005-6919) |
|
Source
|
SO |
SO(Infotech@Aerospoace 2005) SO(Infotech@Aerospoace and 2005) |
|
Subfile |
SFL |
SFL(aerospace & high technology) |
|
Subject
|
SU |
SU(space robots) SU(autonomous navigation) |
|
Title
|
TI |
TI(autonomous and inspection and robot*) Locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the article. |