Meva (MEDLINE Evaluator) is a free MEDLINE postprocessor, a medico-scientific data mining web service analyzing bibliographic data returned by an inquiry to PubMed1. Meva is not a MEDLINE portal, but a tool for the post-evaluation of MEDLINE search results - hence the term MEDLINE postprocessor.
How do I work with Meva? Quite simple. Search in PubMed as usual and and save your result as MEDLINE format2 to a file on your computer. In Meva, lay down which bibliographic fields you want to analyze and submit its form. Meva will provide you then with a graphical result (see below).
How does it work? Meva condenses the endless list of a MEDLINE retrieval outcome into a well-structured result, showing a graphical representation of counts and relations of the MEDLINE fields by using frequency distributions, contingency tables and detailed sorted lists. A MeSH tree may be listed analysing MeSH terms and MeSH codes. Users can specify filters or minimal frequencies to restrict the search radius. Analysis may be limited to first authors or last authors. Results can be delivered as HTML or in a delimited format to import into any database.
A click on the red colored symbols in the following flow chart will bring you to related documents:
Why was this tool developed? The idea to Meva was born in the Institute for Medical Statistics and Epidemiology of the Technical University of Munich. The objective was to facilitate the evaluation of PubMed search results. "Which colleagues have published about that topic?" "What are the therapeutic approaches for this disease?"
A long article list from PubMed is hard to analyze, field relations are invisible. But this list is more informative than what you would expect!
First steps. The result help will give you a first impression of what a Meva result looks like. The form help will assist you with advanced analysis features. Finally consult Meva on your own.
Additional information. The Field Help tells you more about all field types usable in PubMed and Meva. A FAQ will answer common questions on Meva. A Glossary explains some important terms related to medical searching. The History will give a survey of Meva's development.
Inquiries or comments welcome!
1 PubMed® provides access to the world's largest medical database, MEDLINE®, maintained by the NLM, USA.
2 In PubMed choose Display: MEDLINE, Send to: File, then press 'Send to' button.
