Polyglot Search Translator

This module is part of the Bond University Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice Systematic Review Assistant suite of tools.

When given a complex search query in either PubMed or Ovid MEDLINE format it will attempt to translate it to any of the supported search engine formats.

It forms the Polyglot Search Syntax Translator module of the Systematic Review Accelerator.

DEMO

Table of Contents

• Polyglot Search Translator
• Contributing
• Testing
• Usage Guide
  • Plain-text phrases
  • Mesh Headings
  • Logical Syntax
  • Proximity searching
  • Line Referencing
  • Bracket Expansion
  • Replacing Empty Field Tags
  • Tooltips
  • Templates
  • Comments
• For Developers
  • Updating Polyglot
  • Input Output API
  • Parsed Tree Object
    • group
    • joinAnd
    • joinNear
    • joinNot
    • joinOr
    • mesh
    • phrase
    • raw
    • template

Contributing

Please get in touch if you would like to extend Polyglot or any of the databases we support. Its best to get in touch with us as we can provide help and resources.

Generally the process of extending Polyglot takes these steps:

1. Prepare a list of translations for known search symbols
2. Copy a known translation set most similar to the database being added
3. Check the translations using the [TestKits#testing]
4. Create a Pull-Request against this repo to include your changes

Testing

When adding new search translations we would strongly recommend existing the existing suite of testing scripts to include the new translations. This allows us to track regressions with future feature additions.

1. Edit an existing test file or create a new one to include your fixes
2. Run npm run test to verify the tests all pass successfully
3. Create a Pull-Request against this repo to include your changes

Usage Guide

A search query can be specified in either PubMed query format, Ovid MEDLINE format or a mix of the two. Most of the usual search query syntax will be supported by Polyglot by default.

The following sub-headings break down each individual syntax.

General notes:

• Generally you can use either PubMed or Ovid MEDLINE query syntax without any issue
• By default queries referenced by line number will be grouped
• Multiple terms can be grouped using speachmarks but this is optional
• Comments can be specified to make your search strategy easier to read in future
• Templates are supported allowing inserts of compound search terms which can be specific to different output engines

Plain-text phrases

To search for basic phrases simply specify the words within the search term with or without being enclosed in speachmarks. Specific search fields can be specified by appending it to the term in any of the following supported formats:

• Term (Generic search in all fields, polyglot will underline the word in blue: Replacing Empty Field Tags)
• Term[ti] (PubMed field specification, fields also supported: tiab, ti, tw, ab, nm, sh, pt, la)
• Term.ti. or Term:ti (Ovid MEDLINE field specification, fields also supported: tw, ti,ab, ab,ti, ti, ab, mp, nm, pt, fs, sh, xm, lg)

Mesh Headings

To search for a supported Mesh term use any of the following:

• Term[Mesh] (exploded Mesh heading, PubMed format)
• Term[Mesh:NoExp] (non-exploded Mesh heading, PubMed format)
• Term[Majr] or Term[MeSH Major Topic] (Major Mesh heading, PubMed format)
• exp Term/ (exploded Mesh heading, Ovid MEDLINE format #1)
• exp *Term/ (Major Mesh heading, Ovid MEDLINE format #1)
• Term/ (non-exploded Mesh heading, Ovid MEDLINE format #1)
• Term.xm. (exploded Mesh heading, Ovid MEDLINE format #2)
• Term.sh. (non-exploded Mesh heading, Ovid MEDLINE format #2)

Logical Syntax

Any of the following keywords can be used to join multiple phrases together:

• Term1 AND Term2
• Term1 OR Term2
• Term1 NOT Term2
• (Term1 OR Term2) AND (Term3 OR Term4) (logical grouping using brackets)

All keywords are case insensitive (i.e. and works the same as AND or And).

Proximity searching

Similar to Logical Syntax, proximity searching allows the searching of a secondary term within the range of the primary:

• Term1 ADJ3 Term2 (Search for Term2 within 3 words of Term1, Ovid MEDLINE format)
• Term1 NEAR3 Term2 (Search for Term2 within 3 words of Term1, Cochrane Library format)
• Term1 N3 Term2 (Search for Term2 within 3 words of Term1, CINAHL format)
• Term1 NEAR/3 Term2 (Search for Term2 within 3 words of Term1, Embase and Web of Science formats)
• Term1 N3 Term2 (Search for Term2 within 3 words of Term1, PsycInfo (Ebsco) format)
• Term1 N3 Term2 (Search for Term2 within 3 words of Term1, Business format)

Line Referencing

There are two main methods to number lines, either leave the beginning of the line blank and use the numbers provided in the left hand side of the editor, or specify a custom number at the beginning of each line. Automatic line expansion can be used by enabling the checkbox. If you specify a line number at the beginning of a line, all lines must be numbered.

To reference a certain line simply insert the line number before or after Logical Syntax. Any lines that are referenced will be automatically grouped

1. foo[ti]
2. baz[tiab]
3. 1 OR 2
4. bar[ti]
5. 3 AND 4

Bracket Expansion

While Ovid Medline supports using field tags on groups, PubMed doesn't, so any time a group contains a field tag on the end, it will be expanded for any engines which do not support field tags on groups.

e.g. Ovid to PubMed (foo or bar).ti. --> (foo[ti] or bar[ti])

Replacing Empty Field Tags

Any time there is a phrase without a field tag (a generic search for all fields), a dashed blue underline will appear underneath it. Clicking on the word will bring up a dialogue box which will allow you to specify a field tag to replace the missing field tag for either just that word or all phrases with no field tags.

Tooltips

Any time a black dotted line appears underneath a word, hover over it to display a tooltip with more information. These tooltips will usually appear to inform the user when polyglot makes a decision on their behalf.

e.g. When attempting to convert foo.ab. from and Ovid Medline Search to PubMed, because PubMed does not support searching the abstract field term by itself Polyglot translates it to the Title and Abstract field term.

Templates

These are specified using the <Template ID> syntax.

For example the "RCT Filter" template (specified via <RCT Filter> in Polyglot) has a specific syntax in PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE and in some search engines is omitted all other. Using templates allows Polyglot to correctly swap the syntax based on the output engine.

Template ID	Description
<rct filter>	Standard Cochrane RCT Filter
<sr filter>	Standard Cochrane SR Filter
<engine>	The current output engine

Comments

Comments allow you to add notes within your search strategy which will be removed from the output. These allow you to write your query in a human-readable way without effecting the output in each search engine.

To use comments simply add a hash character (#) anywhere on a line. Any text after that character will be ignored until the next line.

For Developers

Updating Polyglot

To update polyglot, update spreadsheet and then replace data/v4.xlsx with spreadsheet Run npm run preprocess to update translations and republish

Input Output API

polyglot = require('sra-polyglot').default;

var queries = polyglot.translateAll('"Primary Health Care"[Mesh] OR Primary care OR Primary healthcare OR Family practice OR General practice\n\nAND\n\n"Treatment Failure"[Mesh] OR Treatment failure OR Treatment failures\n\nAND\n\n"Bacterial Infections"[Mesh] OR Bacteria OR Bacterial\n\nAND\n\n"Anti-Bacterial Agents"[Mesh] OR Antibacterial Agents OR Antibacterial Agent OR Antibiotics OR Antibiotic');

console.log(queries);

Will output an object structure like:

{
	"pubmed": "(\"Primary Health Care\"[MESH] OR Primary care OR Primary healthcare OR Family practice OR General practice)\n\nAND\n\n(\"Treatment Failure\"[MESH] OR Treatment failure OR Treatment failures)\n\nAND\n\n(\"Bacterial Infections\"[MESH] OR Bacteria OR Bacterial)\n\nAND\n\n(\"Anti-Bacterial Agents\"[MESH] OR Antibacterial Agents OR Antibacterial Agent OR Antibiotics OR Antibiotic)",
	"ovid": "(exp Primary Health Care/ OR Primary care OR Primary healthcare OR Family practice OR General practice)\n\nAND\n\n(exp Treatment Failure/ OR Treatment failure OR Treatment failures)\n\nAND\n\n(exp Bacterial Infections/ OR Bacteria OR Bacterial)\n\nAND\n\n(exp Anti-Bacterial Agents/ OR Antibacterial Agents OR Antibacterial Agent OR Antibiotics OR Antibiotic)",
	"cochrane": "([mh \"Primary Health Care\"] OR Primary care OR Primary healthcare OR Family practice OR General practice)\n\nAND\n\n([mh \"Treatment Failure\"] OR Treatment failure OR Treatment failures)\n\nAND\n\n([mh \"Bacterial Infections\"] OR Bacteria OR Bacterial)\n\nAND\n\n([mh \"Anti-Bacterial Agents\"] OR Antibacterial Agents OR Antibacterial Agent OR Antibiotics OR Antibiotic)",
	"embase": "('Primary Health Care'/exp OR Primary care OR Primary healthcare OR Family practice OR General practice)\n\nAND\n\n('Treatment Failure'/exp OR Treatment failure OR Treatment failures)\n\nAND\n\n('Bacterial Infections'/exp OR Bacteria OR Bacterial)\n\nAND\n\n('Anti-Bacterial Agents'/exp OR Antibacterial Agents OR Antibacterial Agent OR Antibiotics OR Antibiotic)",
	"webofscience": "(Primary care OR Primary healthcare OR Family practice OR General practice)\n\nAND\n\n(Treatment failure OR Treatment failures)\n\nAND\n\n(Bacteria OR Bacterial)\n\nAND\n\n(Antibacterial Agents OR Antibacterial Agent OR Antibiotics OR Antibiotic)",
	"cinahl": "((MH \"Primary Health Care+\") OR Primary care OR Primary healthcare OR Family practice OR General practice)\n\nAND\n\n((MH \"Treatment Failure+\") OR Treatment failure OR Treatment failures)\n\nAND\n\n((MH \"Bacterial Infections+\") OR Bacteria OR Bacterial)\n\nAND\n\n((MH \"Anti-Bacterial Agents+\") OR Antibacterial Agents OR Antibacterial Agent OR Antibiotics OR Antibiotic)",
  "business": "((MH \"Primary Health Care+\") OR Primary care OR Primary healthcare OR Family practice OR General practice)\n\nAND\n\n((MH \"Treatment Failure+\") OR Treatment failure OR Treatment failures)\n\nAND\n\n((MH \"Bacterial Infections+\") OR Bacteria OR Bacterial)\n\nAND\n\n((MH \"Anti-Bacterial Agents+\") OR Antibacterial Agents OR Antibacterial Agent OR Antibiotics OR Antibiotic)"
}

See the JSDoc of the inline code for more details on the supported APIs.

A demo is also available. To use this follow the instructions in the demo directory.

Parsed Tree Object

This section is only intended for people who are interested in the inner working of the parsing tree used by Polyglot.

Each of the following sub-sections describes a node which can be contained within the compiled tree returned by Polyglot.parse(query).

The result tree can then be fed into Polyglot.engines.ENGINE.compile(tree) to return the translated search.

group

A sub-grouping of nodes. This represents a lexical parentheses level.

Property	Type	Description
field	String Enum	The field to use for complex logical comparisons (see the phrase section for the full list)
nodes	Array	Sub-nodes to include within the search group

joinAnd

A logical 'And' condition between the previous and next element.

joinNear

A proximity join between the previous and next element.

Property	Type	Description
proximity	Number	The number of (usually) words to allow as a maximum proximity scan

joinNot

A logical 'Not' condition between the previous and next element.

joinOr

A logical 'Or' condition between the previous and next element.

mesh

A valid Mesh heading.

Property	Type	Description
content	String	The Mesh heading to use
recurse	Boolean	Whether to recurse down child Mesh nodes when searching. This is only present if the input syntax supports it (Ovid MEDLINE specifically)

phrase

A simple text phrase.

Property	Type	Description
field	String Enum: title, abstract, title+abstract, practiceGuideline, floatingSubheading	The field to use for simple phrase comparisons
content	String	If specified the string of text to search for in the field specified by context. Cannot be used with nodes
nodes	Array	If specified points to a group of nodes used to compile the search expression to be searched in the field specified by context. The nodes structure must contain exactly 1 element and it must be of a group type. Cannot be used with content

raw

A string of text that should be passed from the input to the output. This string can contain control characters such as line-feeds.

Property	Type	Description
content	String	The string of text to preserve

template

A meta template specified which Polyglot will insert into the output correctly based on the search engine.

These are specified using the <Template ID> syntax.

For example the "RCT Filter" template (specified via <RCT Filter> in Polyglot) has a specific syntax in PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE and in some search engines is omitted all other. Using templates allows Polyglot to correctly swap the syntax based on the output engine.

Property	Type	Description
content	String	The lower-case version of the template ID to use