The Sultanate of Oman has a rich biodiversity, particularly in medicinal plants, and plays a crucial role in traditional healthcare practices. However, the wealth of knowledge about these plants is scattered across various literature, making it challenging for researchers, practitioners, and the public to access comprehensive information. Therefore, the availability of a centralized, user-friendly online database to catalog Oman\'s medicinal plants is of great importance. PlantMedOman presented here, which currently holds 186 records helps to enhance academic research, support drug discovery studies, promote the conservation of medicinal plants, and foster greater awareness of Oman\'s ethnomedicinal heritage.

Created by the NIH in 2015, the Common Data Elements (CDE) Repository provides free online access to search and use Common Data Elements. This tool helps to ensure consistent data collection, saves time and resources, and ultimately improves the accuracy of and interoperability among datasets. The purpose of this column is to provide an overview of the database, discuss why it is important for researchers and relevant for health sciences librarians, and review the basic layout of the website, including sample searches that will demonstrate how it can be used.

Protein structure determination and prediction, active site detection, and protein sequence alignment techniques all exploit information about protein structure and structural relationships. For membrane proteins, however, there is limited agreement among available online tools for highlighting and mapping such structural similarities. Moreover, no available resource provides a systematic overview of quaternary and internal symmetries, and their orientation relative to the membrane, despite the fact that these properties can provide key insights into membrane protein function and evolution. Here, we describe the Encyclopedia of Membrane Proteins Analyzed by Structure and Symmetry (EncoMPASS), a database for relating integral membrane proteins of known structure from the points of view of sequence, structure, and symmetry. EncoMPASS is accessible through a web interface, and its contents can be easily downloaded. This allows the user not only to focus on specific proteins, but also to study general properties of the structure and evolution of membrane proteins.

The biochemical methane potential test is a standard method to determine the biodegradability of lignocellulosic wastes (LWs) during anaerobic digestion (AD) with disadvantages of long experiment duration and high operating expense. This paper developed a machine learning model to predict the cumulative methane yield (CMY) using the data of 157 LWs regarding physicochemical characteristics, digestion condition and methane yield, with the coefficient of determination equal to 0.869. Model interpretability analyses underscored lignin content, organic loading, and nitrogen content as pivotal attributes for CMY prediction. For the feedstocks with a cellulose content exceeding about 50%, the CMY in the early AD stage would be relatively lower than those with low cellulose content, but prolonging digestion time could promote methane production. Besides, lignin content in feedstock surpassing 15% would significantly inhibit methane production. This work contributes to valuable guidance for feedstock selection and operation optimization for AD plants.

For more than 25 years, the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence has operated VAWnet, a freely available, online network focused on violence against women and other forms of gender-based violence. This column will provide an overview of the resources available from VAWnet, including a sample search that demonstrates how to access the resources available within as well as a discussion of how to effectively browse the thousands of materials available on VAWnet that provide life-saving information on gender-based violence and related issues.

Chromosome numbers have been used in plant taxonomy, and they are still fundamental for taxon delimitation and genome evolution studies. South America is one of the most diverse continents in terms of plant species and there is a considerable number of species not yet analyzed. Accumulated knowledge about plant chromosome numbers has been compiled from online databases, and here we present an overview. The CCDB is one of the largest plant cytological databases and includes data for around 18% of known vascular plants in the world. In this work, we review the information contained in CCDB and in three databases with exclusive information for South America. At present, the three existing databases comprise information on around 1800 plant taxa related to specific regions, countries, or biomes. Efforts are necessary to expand cytological knowledge and to collect all the available information in a plant chromosome database for this continent.

Chromosome numbers and information on ploidy level are of great importance for better understanding of plant evolution and taxonomy but also for species identification. Technical developments in flow cytometry dramatically improved the measurement of genome size and triggered a renewed interest in chromosome numbers. Web-based portals make these kind of data accessible for a wide audience in both academia and citizen science. The specialised database of German plant chromosome counts and ploidy estimates comprises to date more than 14,000 records covering 52% of the German taxa. The database is accessed about 70 times per month and became an integral part of several more comprehensive initiatives. One example is the Rothmaler Flora of Germany, which now for the first time features chromosome data with verified origin from the region of interest. Another is the German plant information hub FloraWeb currently amended by several new data sources with the chromosome number database as a major component.

This column provides an overview of the Virtual Health Library (VHL) Regional Portal, a resource provided by Pan American Health Organization and others with the purpose of communicating and exchanging health experiences and information for Latin American and Caribbean countries. The content is organized in four sub-portals: the VHL Model, which describes health information and knowledge management to structures and guides; LILACS, the Latin American and Caribbean Index Health Science Literature; DeCS, Descriptors Health Sciences, a controlled vocabulary; and Training, which gathers and organizes information for librarians, developers, and users who are interested in construction and use of VHL methodologies. An overview of the resource and sample search is discussed.

Bookshelf is a database maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine that contains freely accessible online biomedical documents, including systematic reviews, technical reports, textbooks, and reference books. The database allows users to browse and search across all content and within individual books, and it is linked to other NCBI content. This article provides an overview of Bookshelf and demonstrates its usage in a sample search. The resources available in Bookshelf are useful for students, researchers, healthcare professionals, and librarians.

Antioxidants are widely used in the fields of food, medicine, nutraceuticals, and cosmetics. Given their important roles in promoting and maintaining human health, a large number of antioxidants have been reported. Some antioxidant-related databases have been developed; however, the annotation of antioxidants and related information stored in existing databases is incomplete and requires more efficient retrieval methods. This study aimed to develop a manually curated comprehensive antioxidant database (AODB). Currently, it stores 56,666 small molecules tested for antioxidant activity, 1480 antioxidant peptides, and 998 antioxidant proteins, including their structures, names, antioxidant assay records, computable physicochemical and ADMET properties, and sources. AODB supports text search and mining, 2D and 3D chemical structure search, and BLAST-based protein sequence search, enabling users to retrieve antioxidant data quickly and easily. AODB, as a one-stop antioxidant database, can facilitate the exploration of antioxidants and potential applications. AODB is publicly available and updated annually at https://aodb.idruglab.cn/.