Chempedia is the free and open chemical substance registry. It enables anyone to register, at no cost, individual substances through a Web-based interface. Each substance receives a unique, numerical, checksummed identifier that can be used anywhere and looked up at no cost. Each substance also gets a canonical URI from which everything that is known through Chempedia can be found.

Chempedia uses a streamlined from of peer review that combines concepts used in traditional peer review with experiences learned from modern social media.

Source: depth-first

USGS Minerals portal provides Statistics and information on the worldwide
supply of, demand for, and flow of minerals and materials essential to the U.S.
economy, the national security, and protection of the environment.

See also:

• Copper Statistics and Information
• Mineral Industry Surveys and Industry Data
• Minerals Yearbook (Annual)
• USGS Publications and Data Products
• Recycling
• Metal Industry Indicators (Monthly)

Author: Jenna Cellini, University of Pennsylvania

This thesis seeks to explore the development of a building material with regards to its durability and production. It does so in the examination of the advances in material understanding and technique with regards to a unique twentieth century material – precast exposed aggregate concrete. Tested, refined and later patented by craftsman John J. Earley, the precise process of creating exposed aggregate concrete cladding (today known as the MoSai technique) holds unique implications for its preservation. Analyzing what Earley – and those who helped refine the MoSai process over the years – understood with regards to the material’s properties will determine whether the material’s evolved production has preservation implications inherent to the process. The way in which Earley approached perfecting precast exposed aggregate concrete paneling will also assert his place in architectural history beyond the development of a durable, permanent material; his Earley Process has had lasting influences on today’s standards and production – separating today’s materials from their traditional predecessors and thus, potentially affecting how preservationists view all modern materials as they ready themselves for the future of their work.

Full text avilable The ScholarlyCommons: Repository is a collection of the scholarly output of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania at The Development of Precast Exposed Aggregate Concrete Cladding:

AMSER is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use.

AMSER is funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the National Science Digital Library, and is being created by a team of project partners led by Internet Scout Project.

Switch to browsing by Classification
Switch to browsing by LCC (More Detailed Classifications)
Switch to browsing by Key Concept

See: Science and Engineering Resources

ThermoDex contains records for selected printed and web-based compilations of thermochemical and thermophysical data for chemical compounds and other substances. You can select one or more compound types and link them to one or more property terms, and ThermoDex will return a list of handbooks that could contain these data. Due to copyright and technical considerations, the actual data are not contained in ThermoDex. ThermoDex is based primarily on the holdings of the Mallet Chemistry Library at the University of Texas at Austin. Links are provided to identify library holdings in your area.

See: ThermoDex: An Index of Selected Thermodynamic and Physical Property Resources

Suppose we need to find information on ‘Enthalpy’ and ‘Gibbs Free Energy’. Mark the items in ‘Thermodex’, and then click on ‘Search’.  We find a book titled ‘Chemical Properties Handbook’. Click on ‘Find in a Library’ link and use Zipcode 19104 to see if our Library has this book. The first link tells us that our library do have a copy of this reference book. See Drexel University Libraries link to locate information on where to find this book. However, one important point to remember is that this link points only to the print version. We do subscribe to the electronic version of this book. Therefore, it is necessary to check our online catalog as well.

Access the electronic version at: Chemical Properties Handbook

Scitopia.org is a free federated vertical search that lets you explore the research most cited in scholarly work and patents in a single click.

It was created through the imagination and collaboration of 21 leading science and technology societies.

Societies include: American Geophysical Union (AGU), American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Institute of Physics (AIP), American Physical Society (APS), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), The Electrochemical Society (ECS), IEEE, Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP), Optical Society of America (OSA), SPIE, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

See also Sci-Tech Societies Unite to Create Scitopia.org Search Portal

Wind, Solar Could Play Bigger Roles in Future US Energy Mix

“U.S. climate change legislation now before Congress would mandate that by 2020, 15 to 20 percent of the nation’s electricity supply would come from renewable sources like wind and solar.

Currently wind and solar contribute only about 2 percent, with hydropower providing an additional 6 percent.

The new report examines the potential of wind and solar electricity in the United States
Can these renewable sources meet the nation’s energy needs? A new report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change finds that wind and solar can be a major source of electricity in the United States.”

Please read the whole artilcle at:

Wind, Solar Could Play Bigger Roles in Future US Energy Mix

INIS, the International Nuclear Information System, was established in 1970 in response to the IAEA’s mandate “… to foster the exchange of scientific and technical information on peaceful uses of atomic energy”.

INIS processes most of the world’s scientific and technical literature on a wide range of subjects from nuclear engineering, safeguards and non-proliferation to applications in agriculture and health.

Access: INIS (International Nuclear Information System) Database

Scirus is a comprehensive science and engineering specific search engine that searches open-access websites as well as peer-reviewed content from publisher sites.  With over 450 million scientific items indexed at last count, it allows researchers to search for not only journal content but also scientists’ homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information.

Scirus is also linked from Databases/Article indexes for Engineering or it can be found by searching on our Library’s online catalog in the ‘Title’ field.

To link to Drexel full text from Scirus, first add Drexel University in the Library Partner Links within Scirus Preferences

Thomas Fuller, SF Environmental Policy Examiner, analyzed nanotechnology patents using ‘Advanced Search’ feature in scirus.   He found records of 8,007 patent filings for nanotechnology.  According to Fuller, “Of those 8,007 patents that have nanotechnology in the title, abstract or text, 7,007 were filed in the past 5 years.  That’s 88%. Almost a quarter–23%–were filed last year alone. That’s one reason why I think nanotechnology will be to this century what electricity was to the last.” He also writes, “the recovery of the American economy and progress to unprecedented heights over the next 10 years would be led by nanotechnology, bio-technology and robotics.”

Read the full article at: American economy and progress to be led by nanotechnology, bio-technology and robotics.

BuildingGreen Suite integrates online versions of GreenSpec, Environmental Building News, and a database of more than 160 high-performance building case studies. The information is searchable and cross-referenced by CSI MasterFormat division, LEED credit, or green topic. Each article, product listing, and case study also lists related content and information sources.

Access: BuildingGreen Suite or go to Databases by Title page an click on BuildingGreen  Suite.

Building Green also provides access to High Performance Building database that provides access to case studies of projects ranging from homes and commercial interiors to large buildings and even whole campuses and neighborhoods. See ‘Using High Performance Building Database’ for more information on how to search this database.

The BuildingGreen.com LIVE blog is the place for real-time event coverage, reviews,and latest news from atest news from all over the green building world. You can find entries such as Putting wind turbines on buildings doesn’t make sense