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Quick Guide to Applied Science & Technology

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Applied Science and Technology Full Text (AST-FT) covers research in the applied sciences, engineering, and computer science. It includes citations and abstracts for articles in about 400 basic science and technology journals from 1983 to the present. You can access AST-FT from the pull-down menu on the Article Databases page. For more complete coverage of scholarly research, use Compendex or INSPEC.

Keyword Searching

Using the default Anywhere option, you can search for keywords and phrases anywhere within records. To override the default search, use boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT).

Retrieves records with the exact phrase wastewater treatment in any field:

searching with an exact phrase


Retrieves records with the words wastewater and treatment in any field, but not necessarily together:

keyword searching using boolean operators: and, or, not

Author Searching

Author names appear in the author name (aut) field and are hyphenated with the last name first. The hyphen is critical. Names often have multiple variations so use the Index function to find all the variations.

Click on the Index tab at the top of the screen.

Choose the Author Name index from the pull-down menu, then enter the author's last name and first initial.

Click on Go To Term.

selecting an author's name to search


Check all possible variations of the name in the index, then click on the Search Marked button.

For example, S. Shankar Sastry might appear as "sastry-s" or "sastry-s-s" or "sastry-s-shankar."

selecting the variations of an author name search


If unsure of the initials, try the Search screen instead. Choose the Author option from the search menu.

Use the wildcard * to retrieve all variations of the author's name.

Remember the hyphen.

performing an author search using a wildcard character

Subject Searching

Scan your keyword search results to identify appropriate subject headings from the Descriptors field in relevant records. You can search for appropriate subjects on the Search screen, using the Subject option from the search menu.

Searching for the phrase "neural networks" will find records with that phrase anywhere in the descriptor.

The hyphenated "neural-networks" will only find records assigned that exact descriptor.

performing a subject search with an exact descriptor


To select appropriate subject headings from a list of subjects, use the Index function.

Click on the Index tab at the top of the screen.

Choose the Subject index from the pull-down menu, then enter one word or phrase.

Click on the Go To Term button.

use the subject index to choose an appropriate subject heading


Check those subject headings relevant to your topic, then click on the Search Marked button.

Searching Specific Fields

You can also limit searches in AST-FT to a specific field, such as journal name (so), abstract (ab) or publication year (py). A complete list of fields is available from the Database Guide.

The so field contains the journal name, volume, issue, and page numbers. The py field lets you search for any year or range of years.

searching by specific journal name, abstract, or publication years

Find Citation

You can use the Find Citation search to quickly find a journal article for which you already have some information. Enter the article title, journal title, author name, ISSN, and/or publication year.

Working with Search Results

Search results are displayed in reverse chronological order by default. Click on Change Display to set the display options for your session.

Search Results:
To view the full record, click on the Complete Record link. To display your results in a full screen, click on the Hide search panel icon.  

Finding Call Numbers and Full Text:

Follow the UC-eLinks option for each record in order to:

Printing, Mailing and Downloading:
At the top of your search results, you will find buttons to Print, Save, and E-mail.  

After selecting your preference, follow the instructions on the screen. Use the Save (floppy disk) option to export citations to EndNote or RefWorks.