Subject: Call for new chemical MIME suggestions

From: [email-masked] (Rzepa, Henry) (Rzepa, Henry)
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 1994 07:32:23 +0000

CALL FOR CHEMICAL MIME TYPES

Since the original proposal to create a chemical MIME type, I
have had aproaches from  several camps about defining new secondary
chemical types. For example, the NMR community is discussing how
time and frequency domain data may be defined in a standard way.
A similar request came from the ESR community, and I have had
a general request for MIME types related to "physical chemistry".

We are seeking well defined data formats, ie those where a readily
available definition is available in some form in the literature
(as opposed to obscure technical manuals). If anyone know discussions
about such formats that are underway, please let me know.
Also, if anyone has used the "hierarchical data format", or HDF,
which is already a MIME standard, do let me know how it has
been applied to chemistry.

The current status of the chemical MIME proposal is that the Internet
draft expires in November. At this stage, if we wish to continue the
process, a more formal Internet RFC will have to be presented to
the Internet Engineering Task force. If this is accepted, it would then
become the formal  standard definition for the carriage of chemical
information on the Internet. Of course, further additions to this standard
could be subsequently proposed, but anyone wishing to be on the
"first" boat that leaves should strive to meet the above deadline. The
other alternative is that a second revised Internet draft replaces the
expired one, but this would only make sense if significant changes
had transpired to the first one.

Dr Henry Rzepa, Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AY.
Tel: +44 171 594 5809. Fax: +44 171 594 5804. E-mail: [email-masked]
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa.html. Sent via MacPPP/MacTCP using Eudora 2.02.