United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Acid Deposition, Environmental
Monitoring and Quality Assurance
Washington, DC 20460
$1
Research and Development
EPA/600/S9-88/011 Sept. 1988
&EPA Project Summary
A Computerized Bibliographic
Literature Information System for
Total Human Exposure
Monitoring Research
Michael Dellarco, Wayne Ott, Lance Wallace, and Herb Hunt
The Bibliographic Literature In-
formation System (BUS) is a com-
puterized data base that provides a
comprehensive review of available
literature on total human exposure to
environmental pollution. Brief ab-
stracts (often condensed versions of
the original abstract) are included; if
the original document had no
abstract, one was prepared. Unpub-
lished reports are listed, as well as
final reports of the U.S. Gov-
ernment and other countries, reports
by governmental research contrac-
tors, journal articles, and other con-
tributions to the field of total human
exposure research. This bibliography
covers publications on exposure
models, new field data, and newly
emerging research methodologies.
Although the bibliography covers the
entire field of human exposure
methodology, emphasis is on those
field studies measuring all the
concentrations to which people may
be exposed, including indoors, out-
doors, or in-transit This report lists
the 788 full abstracts and all
keywords contained in the BUS sys-
tem as of fall of 1987. The 788
abstracts provide a good rep-
resentation of much of the world
literature on total human exposure
and indoor air quality. The time
period covers 1962 to the end of
1986, with only a few abstracts from
early 1987.
Versions of this data base are
available on floppy diskettes that can
be accessed on IBM-compatible
personal computers. Different
versions are available that will run on
either a floppy disk or on a hard-
disk system. These computer pro-
grams can search for abstracts
rapidly and print out desired
combinations of literature citations
and full abstracts. In practice, these
abstracts can serve the user as an
"automated index" of the BUS data
base on total human exposure and
indoor air quality.
This Project Summary was
developed by EPA's Office of Acid
Deposition, Environmental Monitoring
and Quality Assurance, Washington,
DC, to announce key findings of the
research project that is fully doc-
umented in a separate report of the
same title (see Project Report
ordering information at back).
Introduction
Total human exposure monitoring is a
new concept that seeks to determine,
with known precision and accuracy, the
pollutant concentrations actually reaching
people through food, water, and air,
whether people are located indoors,
outdoors, or in-transit. Such monitoring
provides the key information needed to
protect public health and to make risk
assessments through representative
samples of the general population. This
new field also includes:
• Surveys of human activity patterns;
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• Models designed to predict human
exposures from activity;
• Studies of the pollutant concentrations
found in the microenvironments that
people visit, such as in-transit
vehicles and indoor and outdoor
settings.
The emergence of this new topic over
the last two decades as a cohesive
scientific field has been accompanied by
a rapid growth in the scientific literature.
To facilitate access to this literature, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) developed the Bibliographical
Literature Information System (BLIS) to
assist managers and scientists respon-
sible for planning total human exposure
research. BLIS currently consists of a
data base of 788 abstracts of journal
articles, reports by contractors, and other
scientific documents up to February
1987. The entire data base can be
transported on 5.25" floppy diskettes,
and the BLIS program runs on an IBM-
PC/XT or equivalent to retrieve, search,
and print out these abstracts efficiently.
One version of this program, BLIS II,
requires only a single disk drive, while a
second can be installed on a hard disk
drive, requiring about 1.3 megabytes of
disk space.
Design Criteria
BLIS was designed to meet the
following criteria:
• Is user friendly; no personal computer
(PC) experience and no written
manual.
• Uses programming in the public
domain; proprietary commercial
programs need not be purchased.
• Is completely portable; uses standard
floppy disks.
• Changes drives to accommodate
different data bases and PCs.
• Employs Microsoft Disk Operating
System (MS-DOS) file management
capabilities. Individual files or groups
of files may be copied using DOS.
• Can be used with all PC clones.
• Abstracts, files, and keywords, entirely
in American Standard Code for
Information Interchange (ASCII) text.
(Any text editor can be used on the
data base.)
• Does not restrict size of abstract files.
• Provides well written, easy-to-
understand abstracts of the scientific
literature.
• Allows printing of reference and/or full
abstracts.
• Automatically lists all references or
citations alphabetically with automatic
generation of page numbers and an
index.
• May be string searched for any
keyword quickly, with slower full-text
search capability available.
• Provides high speed keyword search.
Uses arrays where possible to achieve
Random Access Memory (RAM) high
speed search (for example, 150 +
abstracts/second).
• Provides alphabetical list of authors
and a keyword search list which can
be called up to assist the user.
File Structure Requirements
The file structure is intended to be
compatible with virtually every word
processing package as well as scores of
other programs that can import ASCII
files without control characters. Each
citation is contained in a separate file
easily located by use of the BLIS
reference number within the file name.
Development of the Data Base
BLIS was designed to accommodate
only studies of human exposure to
environmental pollution. The aim was to
construct a comprehensive bibliography
consisting of human exposure, and
studies of sources of indoor pollutants or
exposures.
BLIS emphasizes studies in which
pollutants were observed in contact with
members of the general public rather
than specific occupational groups. BLIS
includes all pollutants and categories of
pollutants except asbestos. Because of
the extensive data bases already
available on radon, the literature in BLIS
on radon is not complete.
Five key journals were scanned as
sources for BLIS:
• Environmental Research
• Environment International
• Environmental Science and
Technology
• Journal of the Air Pollution Control
Association
• Atmospheric Environment
Other sources of materials were the
proceedings of pertinent conferences
and symposia, two bibliographic reviews
on indoor air quality, and reports, both
published and unpublished, from EPA
and other federal agencies.
After approximately 400 abstracts
were entered into BLIS, a report was
prepared listing these abstracts. This
report was sent to many of the authors
with a letter requesting that they review
the 400-abstract manuscript for its
accuracy and send additional articles and
reports that should be included. Replies
were received from the U.S., Denmark,
Germany, Japan, the Netherlands,
Switzerland, and Yugoslavia. Most re-
spondents had favorable commenl
about BLIS and nearly all reviewei
included additional articles or citations f<
inclusion in BLIS. All of these article
along with many others, were entere
into the system to give the 788 abstraa
currently comprising the data base.
One of the most importar
considerations in the development <
BLIS was the criteria establishing
keyword search capability Keywords ar
relevant to indoor air and total huma
exposure. They are single words; n
combinations are used. Keywords includ
cities, pollutants, foreign nations, and
great variety of nouns and adjectives.
Citations, abstracts and keyword
were edited by a scientific reviewer and
professional technical editor to ensur
uniform quality control and concise
comprehensive abstracts.
BLIS was developed in two versions
• Floppy Version - "BLIS II" is fc
users without a hard drive It consist
of seven disks: a main program dis
and six data base disks covering 196
through Feb. 1987. BUS II requires
single 5.25" disk drive, 256K c
memory, and DOS 2.0 or higher. BLi:
II is limited to accessing 999 abstract;
• Hard Disk Version - "HIGHBLIS
allows users to search the entire dat
base at one time. All years of data ar
searched as a combined group c
files. This version fits on 10 diskette
and requires about 1.3 megabytes c
disk space. HIGHBLIS must b
installed on a subdirectory callei
"C:\HIGHBLIS" to be operationa
HIGHBLIS theoretically has the abilit
to access up to 9,999 abstracts.
Both versions of BLIS present!
contain 788 abstracts. Because of th
number of abstracts that can be pnntei
out efficiently, a laser or other high spee<
printer is very helpful.
A report is being prepared describmi
the BLIS system and data base, includmj
a full listing of the 788 abstracts am
literature citations currently in BLIS
Copies of this report will be madi
available from both the Environmente
Protection Agency and the Nations
Technical Information Service.
Currently a mechanism is beim
explored for distributing the BLI!
software and its data base on flopp'
diskettes. The software is in the pubiii
domain and is available for a reasonabli
fee covering duplication and handlini
charges from:
Herb Hunt
PrograManagement Systems (
Suite 100
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1377 K Street, NW
I Washington, DC 20005
Using BUS
Perhaps the easiest way to
understand the BUS software functions
is to illustrate a typical use of the
system: With the floppy version (BLIS II),
the user inserts the main disk into one of
the disk drives and types "BLIS II." A
welcome banner identifies the system
and its authors and asks the user to
"press any key to continue." The next
screen instructs the user to place the
disk for the "years of interest" in the disk
drive and "press any key to continue."
Six functions are available on the BLIS
main menu of options: Set Up Printer,
Display System Author List, Search for
Specific Author, Search Abstracts for
Keywords, Return to Menu, and Search
Every Word in Every Abstract.
Assuming the user wants to perform a
keyword search for information coded in
BLIS, option 4 would be the mam menu
option choice. The system instructs the
user to use standard chemical
nomenclature (i.e. Fe, CO, NOa) and
notes that all keywords are in lower case
except acronyms and proper names.
Suppose the user searches for the
keyword "model" in the 1984 volume of
BLIS. After entry of the word "model,"
BLIS reports 33 matches found out of
189 abstracts searched in the year 1984.
The 33 BLIS II abstract reference
numbers (3-digit codes) appear at the
top of the screen. Sub-options then
permit the user to search for a new
keyword, display or print the citations or
abstracts associated with the found
keyword, or return to the main menu .
If the user specifies option 4, BLIS
prints the screen displayed citation,
keywords, and the full abstract
alphabetically, by author.
In the future, the following en-
hancements to BLIS will be fully
explored:
• Expanding the data base by
increasing the number of abstracts.
• Further refining the keywords to
improve search capabilities.
• Improving the speed of HIGHBLIS
searches by using larger arrays.
• Making HIGHBLIS available to IBM
System 2 users.
• Investigating high-density storage
media such as CD-ROMS (Compact
Disk - Read Only Memories).
EPA participates in the Human
Exposure Assessment Location (HEAL)
(project, an effort sponsored by World
Health Organization (WHO) designed to
improve the quality of human exposure
data collected globally. Technology
transfer and training are important
components in the establishment of
HEAL. Not all of the participants are
actively involved in total human exposure
monitoring and must familiarize them-
selves with the theory and practice of
this emerging field.
BLIS has received a favorable
reception in WHO and among several of
the participants. In the future, it may
serve not only as a central repository for
technical information and past studies
concerning human exposure monitoring
but also may be appealing because it is
easily transportable to foreign col-
leagues. For those countries where
English is a second language, BLIS may
be especially useful because it can be
queried to produce only those citations
which are immediately relevant to the
issue at hand. This would facilitate
retrieval of technical reports and min-
imize translation costs to only those
studies deemed necessary for particular
HEAL studies. Currently, officials in WHO
headquarters, Geneva, are evaluating the
utility of BLIS for transferring information
to member states.
Conclusion
BLIS currently is built on the total
human exposure and indoor air quality
literature and can be adapted to other
topics. BLIS demonstrates that today's
personal computer can be used as a
literature searching tool to assist re-
searchers and officials seeking infor-
mation on projects that may not yet be
published in the scientific literature, as
well as papers given at scientific
meetings and articles in journals.
The BLIS approach is especially
suited to emerging new scientific fields,
such as total human exposure, where the
literature is not yet too voluminous. At
the present time, the authors believe that
the 788 abstracts in BLIS represent a
substantial fraction of the world's lit-
erature on human exposure to envi-
ronmental pollution (excluding radon and
asbestos) up to February 1987, the date
the last abstract was entered. In 1988,
they plan to add about 300 more
abstracts to the system. At present, no
decision has been made about ex-
panding the data base beyond 1988. If
the data base expands, it might be useful
to explore CD-ROMS as the system
storage medium.
By following a design concept of
"maximum compatibility" with all other
software and word processors that use
DOS, the system and its data base are
extremely flexible and easy to use. The
system is ideally suited to "technology
transfer" activities that seek to educate
personnel about rapidly emerging fields.
In its current form, BLIS, and the report
developed from it, can help promote a
wider understanding of the many
advances that are being made in total
human exposure monitoring research and
will facilitate improved communication
among federal, state, and local
governments, universities and private
consulting firms, and foreign countries.
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Michael Dellarco, Wayne Ott (also the EPA Project Officer), and Lance
Wallace, the EPA authors, are with the Office of Acid Deposition,
Environmental Monitoring and Quality Assurance, Washington, DC 20460.
Herb Hunt is with PrograManagement Systems, Silver Spring, MD 20901.
The complete report, entitled "A Computerized Bibliographic Literature
Information System for Total Human Exposure Monitoring Research,"
(Order No. PB 88-250 3601 AS; Cost: $38.95, subject to change) will be
available only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Office of Acid Deposition, Environmental Monitoring and Quality
Assurance
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20460
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Center for Environmental Research
Information
Cincinnati OH 45268
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