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Search Syntax

Terms

A query is broken up into terms and operators. There are two types of terms: Single Terms and Phrases.

A Single Term is a single word such as chestnut or tree.

A Phrase is a group of words surrounded by double quotes such as "chestnut tree".

Multiple terms can be combined together with Boolean operators to form a more complex query.

Fields

You can search any field by typing the field name followed by a colon ":" and then the term you are looking for.

The available fields are title, url, and content.

For example, if you want to search for a title containing "clean air", you would enter:

title:"clean air"

Field searches can also be combined with Boolean operators. For example:

title:"clean air" AND url:"nrs.fs.fed.us"

Wildcard Searches

The search supports single and multiple character wildcard searches within single terms, not within phrase queries).

To perform a single character wildcard search use the ? symbol.

To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the * symbol.

The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match that with the single character replaced. For example, to search for "test" or "text" you can use the search:

te?t

Multiple character wildcard searches looks for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for test, tests or tester, you can use the search:

test*

You can also use the wildcard searches in the middle of a term.

te*t

Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.

Fuzzy Searches

The search supports fuzzy searches based on the Levenshtein Distance, or Edit Distance algorithm. To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, ~, symbol at the end of a Single word Term. For example to search for a term similar in spelling to "roam" use the fuzzy search:

roam~

This search will find terms like foam and roams.

An optional parameter can specify the required similarity. The value is between 0 and 1. With a value closer to 1, only terms with a higher similarity will be matched. For example:

roam~0.8

The default that is used if the parameter is not given is 0.5.

Proximity Searches

The search supports finding words are a within a specific distance away. To do a proximity search use the tilde, ~, symbol at the end of a Phrase. For example to search for "forest" and "network" within 10 words of each other in a document use the search:

"forest network"~10

Range Searches

Range Queries allow one to match documents whose field(s) values are between the lower and upper bound specified by the Range Query. Sorting is done lexicographically.

title:{Air TO Forest}

This will find all documents whose titles are between Air and Forest, but not including Air and Forest.

Boosting a Term

The search provides the relevance level of matching documents based on the terms found. To boost a term use the caret, ^, symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.

Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a document by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for

forest network

and you want the term forest to be more relevant boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You would type:

forest^4 network

This will make documents with the term forest appear more relevant. You can also boost Phrase Terms as in the example:

"forest network"^4 "flux sensors"

By default, the boost factor is 1. Although the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 (e.g. 0.2).

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. The search supports AND, +, OR, NOT, and - as Boolean operators

Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).

The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms exist in a document. This is equivalent to a union using sets. The symbol || can be used in place of the word OR.

To search for documents that contain either forest network or just forest use the query:

"forest network" forest

or

"forest network" OR forest

AND

The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. This is equivalent to an intersection using sets. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND.

To search for documents that contain forest network and flux sensors use the query:

"forest network" AND "flux sensors"

+

The + or required operator requires that the term after the + symbol exist somewhere in a the field of a single document.

To search for documents that must contain forest and may contain sensor use the query:

+forest sensor

NOT

The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT. This is equivalent to a difference using sets. The symbol ! can be used in place of the word NOT.

To search for documents that contain forest network but not flux sensors use the query:

"forest network" NOT "flux sensors"

Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:

NOT "forest network"

-

The - or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the - symbol.

To search for documents that contain forest network but not flux sensors use the query:

"forest network" -"flux sensors"

Grouping

The search supports using parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the Boolean logic for a query.

To search for either forest or network and sensor use the query:

(forest OR network) AND sensor

This eliminates any confusion and makes sure you that sensor must exist and either term forest or network may exist.

Field Grouping

The search supports using parentheses to group multiple clauses to a single field.

To search for a title that contains both the term emissions and the phrase clean air use the query:

title:(+emissions +"clean air")

Escaping Special Characters

The search supports escaping special characters that are part of the query syntax. The current list special characters are

+ - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \

To escape these character use the \ before the character. For example to search for (1+1):2 use the query:

\(1\+1\)\:2

Sites Searched


National Sites
Research & Development National https://www.fs.fed.us/research/
Forest Inventory and Analysis FIA https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/
Treesearch Treesearch https://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us
Research Data Archive Archive https://www.fs.usda.gov/rds/archive/
Regions
Northern Research Station NRS https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us
Pacific Northwest Research Station PNW https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/
Pacific Southwest Research Station PSW https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/
Rocky Mountain Research Station RMRS https://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/
Southern Research Station SRS https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov
Forest Products Laboratory FPL https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us
International Institute of Tropical Forestry IITF https://www.fs.usda.gov/iitf/
Experimental Forests
Coweeta Long Term Ecological Research EFR https://coweeta.uga.edu
Fraser Experimental Forest EFR https://www.fs.usda.gov/main/fraser
H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest EFR https://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu
Long Valley Experimental Forest EFR https://www.fs.usda.gov/main/longvalley
Manitou Experimental Forest EFR https://www.fs.usda.gov/main/manitou
Other
Fire, Fuel, and Smoke Science Program RMRS https://www.firelab.org/
Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute RMRS https://leopold.wilderness.net/
Wildlife and Terrestrial Ecosystems RMRS https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/wildlife-terrestrial/
Moscow Forestry Sciences Laboratory RMRS https://forest.moscowfsl.wsu.edu/
Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center SRS https://www.forestthreats.org/
Urban Forestry South SRS https://www.urbanforestrysouth.org/
InterfaceSouth SRS https://www.interfacesouth.org/
Leaves of Change Weekly SRS https://leavesofchangeweekly.org/
ForWarn Satellite-Based Change Recognition and Tracking SRS https://forwarn.forestthreats.org/
International Institute of Tropical Forestry IITF https://tropicalforestryinstitute.org/
StreamChemDB PNW https://web.fsl.orst.edu/streamchem/
Climate and Hydrology Database Projects PNW https://climhy.lternet.edu/
Land Use and Natural Resource Economics Research Group PNW https://www.fsl.orst.edu/lulcd/
Digital Photo Series PNW https://depts.washington.edu/nwfire/dps/
Piled Fuels Biomass and Emissions Calculator PNW https://depts.washington.edu/nwfire/piles/
Pacific Northwest Interagency Natural Areas Network PNW https://www.fsl.orst.edu/rna/
Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center PNW https://www.fs.fed.us/wwetac/
Oregon State University Watershed Processes Group PNW https://www.fsl.orst.edu/wpg/index.htm
The U.S. Forest Service AirFire Research Team PNW https://www.airfire.org/
Wildland Fire Air Quality Tools PNW https://firesmoke.us/wfdss/
Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing in Ecology PNW https://lemma.forestry.oregonstate.edu
LandTrendr - Landsat based detection of trends in disturbance and recovery PNW https://landtrendr.forestry.oregonstate.edu/
The Forest Sector Carbon Calculator PNW https://landcarb.forestry.oregonstate.edu/
National Agroforestry Center NAC https://nac.unl.edu/
FireBuster Web Tool PSW https://45.25.216.103/firebuster/
Fire Science: Wildfire Monitoring and Prediction PSW https://www.fireimaging.com/homepage.html
Forest Atlas of the United States FIA https://forest-atlas.fs.fed.us/
https://www.fs.fed.us/research/search/help
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