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Literature searching

Some people look at doing literature searches as a chore. Me, I think it’s fun.

My typical project protocol normally goes like this:

  1. Come up with an idea
  2. Do a quick literature search to see what else there is on the topic
  3. Draft up a protocol for the experiment
  4. Do the experiment
  5. Analyze the results
  6. Do a more extensive literature search in preparation for writing it up
  7. Write, revise, rewrite
  8. Submit for publication somewhere

Step 6 is the fun literature search, because it means trips to the library. I usually find everything I need using PubMed, although sometimes it takes a while to find the right search terms to use. Get a collection of abstracts, highlight the ones I want to get and it’s off to the library to dig out dusty old journal volumes for the paper I’m looking for. When I’m done, it’s always fun to browse through the journals to see what interesting articles were being published at the time. That’s my favourite part of the literature search. Now and then I’ll even stumble onto a bonus article that I need to copy. You’d be surprised at how much interesting reading you can find in a 10 or 20 year old journal volume. Usually it’s mostly from a historical perspective, but sometimes there’s that long forgotten article that just happens to have exactly what you’re looking for and didn’t show up in the literature search.

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The 2006 PACS

Just an entry to remind myself where to find the newest PACS® (Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme®).

2006 PACS®

Biological and medical physics is category 87. The medical imaging categories go from 87.57 to 87.63.

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phpMyAdmin searching bot

Every now and then, I’ll spot a bot hitting the server looking for an installation of phpMyAdmin. Presumably it’s looking for a version to exploit or one that can be used to swipe data from. They typically come as a burst of requests trying to find it in some variation of commonly used folders.

Today though was the first day I spotted a bot that actually specified a user-agent in it’s HTTP request. Isn’t that kind of like a burgular wearing a bright red shirt that has ‘THIEF’ written on it?

h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:54 -0400] “GET /PMA/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 4998 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:54 -0400] “GET /phpmyadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5005 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:55 -0400] “GET /mysql/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5000 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:55 -0400] “GET /admin/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5000 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:56 -0400] “GET /db/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 4997 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:56 -0400] “GET /dbadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5002 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:56 -0400] “GET /web/phpMyAdmin/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5009 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:56 -0400] “GET /admin/pma/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5004 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:57 -0400] “GET /admin/phpmyadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5011 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:57 -0400] “GET /admin/mysql/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5006 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:57 -0400] “GET /mysql-admin/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5006 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:57 -0400] “GET /phpmyadmin2/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5006 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:58 -0400] “GET /mysqladmin/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5005 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:58 -0400] “GET /mysql-admin/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5006 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:59 -0400] “GET /main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 4994 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:19:59 -0400] “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.4/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5011 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:20:00 -0400] “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.1/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5011 “-” “PMAFind”
h-69-3-143-228.nycmny83.covad.net – – [11/Oct/2005:08:20:08 -0400] “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.6/main.php HTTP/1.0” 404 5011 “-” “PMAFind”

This bot didn’t just hit my server once…it visited three times in the same day…from the same address.

Not much useful in Google about this beast. Just a couple of posts. The rest of Google’s results are just webserver usage statistics showing hits by the bot.

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Hockey is back!

NHL hockey is back, and now I can watch it on OLN now, instead of hoping for the smattering of games on ESPN. Better play by play commentary too. It’s no Hockey Night in Canada, but it’ll do. Now if only they could show more than two games a week…

This year there are a few new rules that I’m trying to decide if I like. The new shoot-out rule for tie games I think will make things interesting. I’ve always found shootouts to be exciting. Personally I’d like to see the NHL go to the wider rink size used in international hockey. I think the wider rink makes for more interesting play.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I think I’ll take out some of those frozen turkey bits from my grilled turkey and have them for dinner tonight.