XML News Desk

(August 22, 2002) - Tarius Interactive, a pharmaceutical knowledge management system based on XML architecture, has introduced the next generation of its Tarius Interactive search engine, which enables database users to search for phrases, synonyms, and keywords in an even more user-friendly way than before.

Here's a quick rundown of the new features:

• Phrase matching: Pharmaceutical legislation and guidelines are full of frequently used phrases, such as "Good laboratory practice", "Adverse reaction", etc. Tarius will support searches for exact matches of these phrases.
• Search for acronyms and full expression: When searching for acronyms, users will also want to access documents that use the full expression instead of the acronym. For example a search for 'EA' will automatically include documents dealing with 'Environmental assessment'.
• Extended support for different US/British spellings: British and American English have a lot of common words spelled differently. Tarius will support the automatic combination of US and British spelling in one search.
• Extended support for US/British vocabularies: The major differences between British and American English lie in the choice of vocabulary, for example: "antenatal" vs "prenatal" and "attorney" vs "lawyer". This is relevant not only in daily language but also for searching among pharmaceutical documents. Tarius will automatically support the inclusion of British as well as American words in one search.

The Tarius search engine is so efficient because the XML-formatted content of the database is well structured and carefully full-word pre-indexed. This is why the Tarius search engine is faster, more sophisticated, and more user-friendly than the search engines used by other regulatory databases.

More than 70 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide have chosen Tarius to meet their needs for legal and regulatory information and knowledge management. For more information, please visit www.tarius.com