Microlevel Infometric Investigation in Phytochemistry

In this paper we present a computer-based methodology in answer to a specific question in the field of phytochemistry. This study, prompted by an academic question, was undertaken on a voluntary basis but may be used as an aid in a business decision. The study is divided into three parts: first describing the scientific background motivating this analysis, second, the method for collecting the data, and third, the statistical study of the data and analysis of the results. Throughout this paper it is shown how a practical question can be resolved by the use 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 checking was completed after each step. The aim of the exercise was to identify chemists who are specialists in natural compounds for high-quality perfumes. We have divided the question into three subjects which characterise the abilities needed to comprehensively cover the field of natural high-quality perfumes. We based our analysis on the supposition that to be considered a "specialist" is related to the publication activity of scientific articles in the three different areas of competence. The main difficulty of this study was to find authors who wrote articles on the three subjects, but not necessarily in the same article. The orginality of the approach consists in data collection from several databases without downloading the bibliographic references.