Los Alamos Laboratory Selects Netrics for Complex, Real-Time, Scalable Database Searches Across 600 Million Record Dataset
Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the US Department of Energy’s premier research laboratories, has selected Netrics’ Intelligent Record Matching(TM) software to solve a longstanding problem of finding similar records across disparate bibliographic databases, despite variations and flaws in the data. Netrics’ technology uses advanced mathematics-based record-matching algorithms to tolerate inherent errors and link the database records across a very large, 600 million record dataset of bibliographic and citation records.
“Los Alamos has always attracted top-notch scientists that apply their energy and creativity to solve the nation’s most challenging problems,” stated Dr. Herbert Van de Sompel, leader of the Digital Library Research and Prototyping Team at Los Alamos. “Addressing these challenges requires state-of-the-art research support systems. To provide those, the Research Library collaborates with partners with unique capabilities, and that’s why we chose Netrics to solve this vexing search problem. Prior to using Netrics, despite employing high performance computing machines, every database refresh required a 60 day batch process. The Netrics software uses machine learning and world-class record matching algorithms to continually improve its performance. Netrics’ technology is really quite extraordinary. By using Netrics’ software, we eliminated the 60 day batch process, created a real-time, scalable search capability for our users and improved the accuracy of database searches.”
The research library at Los Alamos provides electronic library services to laboratory scientists and enhances scientific collaboration by offering other government laboratories and universities electronic access to scholarly information. The library licenses information contained across a variety of databases, which provides detailed bibliographic information for scholarly works. This data can be searched using data elements such as author name(s), title, year of publication, journal title, etc. The database is extraordinarily complex, due to the heterogeneous nature of the data, incremental data growth of approximately 30 million records each year and the sheer size of the data sets, which are well over 80 million records each, for a total of 600 million bibliographic and citation records. This makes database searches extremely challenging. Prior to using the Netrics software, it was very common for a search to find two or more different citations that describe the same scholarly work, which was time consuming and extremely frustrating to the user. Now, with the Netrics software, citation counts improved dramatically, despite variations in the underlying data.
“We own several patents for inexact matching and our software uses these advanced mathematical algorithms to determine if two records are alike or different,” explained Stefanos Damianakis, president and CEO, Netrics. “In addition, we employ machine learning methods which enable our software to learn over time and continually improve the matching process.”
“Our experience with Netrics has been very positive,” concluded Van de Sompel. “The engineering staff was very responsive. They really listened to our needs and took action quickly. In addition, the training that Netrics provided was very impressive.”
About Los Alamos
Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the U.S. Department of Energy and works in partnership with NNSA’s Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories to support NNSA in its mission.
Los Alamos enhances global security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health and national security concerns.
Los Alamos’ Research Library is the home of the Library Without Walls, internationally recognized as a pioneering, state-of-the-art, large-scale digital library.
About Netrics
Netrics specializes in intelligently matching and retrieving database records. The company’s Intelligent Record Matching(TM) technology solves the inevitable problems caused by the pervasive nature of data. Netrics’ products and services enable companies to manage rapidly growing data repositories, increase efficiency, reduce costs and deliver more value from enterprise data. Netrics’ software, based upon patented matching algorithms, leapfrogs earlier record matching solutions and delivers unparalleled accuracy and reliability in handling data that contains a wide range of errors, particularly for applications that involve searching databases, matching records and eliminating duplicate records.
The company is headquartered in Princeton, NJ. For additional information about Netrics and its products and services, visit www.netrics.com or email info@netrics.com .
