MICROLEVEL INFOMETRIC INVESTIGATION IN PHYTOCHEMISTRY

In this paper we present a computer-based methodology in answer to a s pecific question in the field of phytochemistry. This study, prompted by an academic question, was undertaken on a voluntary basis but may b e used as an aid in a business decision. The study is divided into thr ee parts: first describing the scientific background motivating this a nalysis, second, the method for collecting the data, and third, the st atistical study of the data and analysis of the results. Throughout th is paper it is shown how a practical question can be resolved by the u se of information technology. The study was carried out by automating a series of data processes, from data collection and analysis to final presentation of the results in a user-friendly manner. Manual checkin g was completed after each step. The aim of the exercise was to identi fy chemists who are specialists in natural compounds for high-quality perfumes. We have divided the question into three subjects which chara cterise the abilities needed to comprehensively cover the field of nat ural high-quality perfumes. We based our analysis on the supposition t hat to be considered a ''specialist'' is related to the publication ac tivity of scientific articles in the three different areas of competen ce. The main difficulty of this study was to find authors who wrote ar ticles on the three subjects, but not necessarily in the same article. The orginality of the approach consists in data collection from sever al databases without downloading the bibliographic references.