NIST system for thermodynamic data standards
FCW.com News - Data explosion strains peer review
The link above is a stimulating little article on FCW.com about how the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) deals with the overload of thermodynamic data reported in journals. From the FCW article:
"Recent improvements in measurement equipment mean that an already voluminous amount of thermodynamic data is doubling every 10 years.
That explosive growth is straining the traditional journal-based peer-review system and causing increasing numbers of errors to creep into the data. Companies in the chemical, pharmaceutical and energy industries depend on accurate data for their engineering applications and research projects.
As part of its responsibility for promoting U.S. competitiveness through standards and technology development, NIST worked with industry partners to create a standard data format and online system for verifying and disseminating thermodynamic data."
The XML-based system transforms the published data into a standard format and stores it in a central database that researchers can access via the Web. When authors submit data, the system automatically checks for inconsistencies and alerts the authors to any questionable data.
