First, I would like to thank all the interested and supporters
of the CarbNet project. Since the announcement of the system
two months ago, we have had over 300 users, and over 400 spectra
submitted for identification. For those of you who hear this
for the first time; CarbNet is a Neural Network based service
available via the World Wide Web. (The initial announcement of
the system is attached)
Because of a name conflict with an European organization, also
called CarbNet, we have decided to change the name of the
Software to CCRC-Net. The www adress to our homepage remains
the same: http://www.ccrc.uga.edu For those of you who have
created a direct link to CarbNet, it's web adress now is
http://www/ccrc.uga.edu/ParsKimi.first.html Both of these
adresse are case sensitive.
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Initial announcement for CCRC-Net with some corrections:
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The Complex Carbohydrate Research Center (CCRC) of the
University of Georgia is announcing an analytical
glyco-chemistry service via the World Wide Web. The software is
called CCRC-Net (Complex Carbohydrate Research Center Neural
Networks), and is available
at http://www.ccrc.uga.edu/ CCRC-Net is an analytical tool for
identification and verification of carbohydrate spectra. The
system uses a neural network pattern matching engine to match
spectra of unknown compounds submitted by the user with spectra
of compounds from CCRC's databases. Each search of CCRC-Net
produces a ranked "hit list" of compounds in our library whose
spectra most closely match the unknown spectrum, and a graphical
presentation of both the submitted spectrum and the "best match"
sample spectrum from CCRC-Net. Each compound in the hit list is
associated with a score that represents the closeness of the
match. The graphical presentation assists in the visual
verification of the search result. A capability is provided for
"static" zooming into a certain region of the spectra.
The CCRC currently offers analytical services for two types of
complex carbohydrates. These are: combined Gas
chromatography-electron impact mass spectra (GC-EIMS) of
partially methylated alditol acetates (PMAAs), and for 500-MHz
NMR spectra of xyloglucan subunit oligosaccharides.
The CCRC-Net software is currently a prototype. We hope that,
after using this prototype, your feedback will assist us in
developing an improved version. Some improvements such as
"dynamic" zooming capability will be incorporated as soon as
JAVA (or an alternative such as OLE) compatible web browsers
become more comon. CarbNet currently uses some extensions to
HTML 2.0. Therefor, it is best presented by Netscape's or
Microsoft's web browsers.
If you have a spectrum of the above-mentioned types, we
encourage you to submit it to CCRC-Net and let us know how well
CarbNet performs in helping to identify your compound. We
especially encourage you to send us an e-mail message if you
encounter a problem or receive an incorrect response from
CCRC-Net. You should be aware that these spectral libraries are
not complete; we plan to add spectra to each of these libraries
and to introduce libraries of other types of complex
carbohydrates. If either library does not produce a "match" for
your submitted spectrum, we ask that you contact us by e-mail at
the address below so that we can arrange to add your spectrum to
our library. Thereby increasing the value of the library to the
scientific community.
On the system, we have sample spectra for above mentioned
libraries. If you do not have a spectrum to submit, we
encourage you to use these spectra to initiate a search, and
observe the functionality of the system. We welcome any
comments that you might have.
For further inquiries or any problems with CCRC-Net, please
contact faramarz at mond1.ccrc.uga.edu.
PS: We are soliciting proposals for expanding the CCRC-Net
library system within the carbohydrate field and beyond. If you
use a library of data that you often refer to, and could benefit
from a Neural Network pattern matching engine, we would like you
to send us an email. We are looking to expand the current
system beyond carbohydrates, into recognition and analysis of
various types of medical data, as well as fields such as
synthetic Chemistry. The new libraries will be available for
public use via the world wide web.
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End Inclusion
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Faramarz Valafar
Complex Carbohydrate Research Center
University of Georgia
USA
