PhySH - Physics Subject Headings - is intended to be a classification scheme covering physics and related areas. PhySH is now being used for editorial handling and classification of papers.
As we refine and develop PhySH, we ask the community to help us by providing appropriate concepts (analogous to keywords) for new submissions. We also urge the community to provide us feedback on the content, structure, and user friendliness of PhySH.
Providing appropriately detailed concepts utilizing all applicable facets for submitted papers will help us improve the editorial handling of the manuscript, and if published, potentially enhance its visibility.
PhySH concepts are organized by facets. Under a given facet, concepts are organized hierarchically, with narrower concepts appearing lower in the hierarchy. Independently, concepts are also grouped by disciplines to help users browse the part of PhySH most relevant to a given subject area. A distinct feature of PhySH is that a concept can belong to multiple facets and/or disciplines.
Terms that characterize research areas, techniques, etc., used in a paper. Looking at the list of concepts should give an editor a rough idea of what the paper is about.
Broad groupings of concepts according to the role they serve in physics research. For a example Research Areas, Techniques, etc.
Broad subject areas. For example, Condensed Matter & Materials Physics or Particles & Fields.
Concepts that are related to each other by their physics context but do not appear under the same facet or discipline.
Example 1:, the concept Supergravity (appearing under the discipline Gravitation & Astrophysics) is a related concept of Quantum field theory (appearing under the discipline Particles & Fields).
Example 2: the concept Higgs bosons (appearing under the facet Physical Systems) is related to Spontaneous symmetry breaking (appearing under the facet Research Areas). Both concepts are under the Particles & Fields discipline.
It is not mandatory that all facets be used on a given submission. However, we ask authors to use all applicable facets when choosing concepts for their papers.
The selected concepts should provide information about the research areas the paper touches upon. In addition users should choose concepts relating to experimental, theoretical and computational techniques used in the paper. Further, if the paper is about particular properties of specific physical systems the concepts should carry that information as well. During internal testing we found that three to eight concepts were sufficient for characterizing most papers.
When possible please select more detailed (narrower) concepts instead of the corresponding broader (higher level) concept. For example, the narrower concept Fractional Brownian Motion is preferable over the broader Brownian Motion.
There is no maximum number of concepts and the minimum is one. During internal testing, three to eight concepts were found to be sufficient for most papers.
The primary concept should indicate what the paper is mainly about. Among other uses we will use primary concepts to help distribute papers among appropriate editors. Generally (but not always) primary concepts should be from the Research Areas facet.
Please return to the submission page and click on the “Add terms” link to open a widget. Choose the Disciplines appropriate for your paper (you can choose more than one). Submitting the choice of Disciplines will open a pop-up window (widget) with a search box and browsable menus. You can pick relevant concepts by using either:
Tool for authors to select concepts for their papers during the manuscript submission process.
Please start typing your guess for the appropriate concept. If it is contained in PhySH, the autofill feature of the search box will suggest a list of potential concepts. Clicking on any displayed concept in the suggested list will select it. Selected concepts will be displayed on the right hand side of the widget.
The browsable menu in the widget will display the parts of PhySH corresponding to the Disciplines you select after clicking on Add. You can edit the selection of Disciplines by using the `+’ button that appears next to the list of Disciplines displayed near the top of the widget. The Research Areas are displayed as the default in the menu. You can browse the other facets by clicking on them on the left. Clicking on any displayed concept in the menu will select them. Selected concepts will be displayed on the right hand side of the widget.
Use the browse page to browse the entirety of PhySH. If the more detailed concept you are looking for does not exist, please use the applicable broader concept. For example, if you are looking for Top quark and do not find it, please use the broader concept Quarks instead. If you have a concept that you feel should be in PhySH, but isn’t, please let us know by using the feedback link.
After your have chosen all the applicable concepts, mark one as the primary concept by clicking on the gray star that appears to its right. The star will become yellow indicating that it has been designated as the primary concept.
You can browse PhySH using the main PhySH Browse page. To narrow the browsing by Disciplines, please check the boxes next to the relevant Disciplines on the left of the browse page. Doing so will display the top level concepts for the selected facet (Research Areas is the default facet). Text in gray under the top level concepts (when it exists) indicates that there are further narrower concepts.
Clicking on the gray text will display the narrower concepts. To display all the narrower concepts and Related Concepts check the “Include all related concepts” and “Include all narrower concepts” boxes, respectively.
We will use your feedback and suggestions to improve PhySH. We hope to use your suggestions about missing concepts to make PhySH more comprehensive and complete. In addition, your suggestions or comments about the usability of PhySH will help us improve its design and functionality.