How Large Is the Metabolome? A Critical Analysis of Data Exchange Practices in Chemistry
Figure 3
Data loss occurs during conversion of digital data in the lab to analog data in a publication.
Later analog information from a publication including structures and molecular spectra are converted back to digital information (hamburger-to-cow algorithm). Such name to structure and OCR-optical chemical structure recognition algorithms are error prone and information loss is even higher for complex molecular spectra. Direct electronic submission of chemical structures and spectral data is recommended.