Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Research; Construction Management Research

• Try a keyword search in DragonSearch. Filter search results by 'Material Type-Book Chapters
  • Geotechnical engineering
  • Soil mechanics
  • Building design and construction
  • Construction Management
  • Wastewater management
  • Highway engineering
  • Earthquake and soil
  • Green buildings
  • Sustainable Buildings

• Explore 'Advanced Keyword searching'. 

Search in various electronic book collections about your research topic.

Try DragonSearch to find  peer reviewed research articles from scholarly journals. 

• Use relevant research keywords related to your topic. 
• For example, type ‘Structural Health Monitoring' and 'Internet of Things'  click on Search.
• Refine your search results by selecting options such as  'peer review' and 'Articles and more'.
• Explore your results, find and access papers you need. 

Use databases below to find scholarly journal articles about the topic of your research project.

• Air Now
  The U.S. EPA, NOAA, NPS, tribal, state, and local agencies developed the AIRNow Web site to provide the public with easy access to national air quality information
• Data and Statistics about the U.S.
• EarthExplorer - allows users to search, download, and order data held in USGS archives through a number of query options.
• Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) -The ESI is a composite index tracking a diverse set of socioeconomic, environmental, and institutional indicators that characterize and influence environmental sustainability at the national scale.
• Envirofacts -Envirofacts is a single point of access to select U.S. EPA environmental data. This website provides access to several EPA databases to provide you with information about environmental activities that may affect air, water, and land anywhere in the United States. With Envirofacts, you can learn more about these environmental activities in your area or you can generate maps of environmental information.
• EPA's National Geospatial Program 
• EPA: Water Data and Tools  See also: Water related information.
• ESRI Community Analyst - Web-based tool from the geographic information system market leader ESRI, offering the ability to create maps, infographics, or reports from business, crime, demographic, lifestyle, behavioral, consumer spending, and U.S. traffic data. Contains data and reports for more than 135 countries, enabling a greater understanding of communities from a policy or social issue perspective.
• Explore Renewable Energy Data - explore vital renewable energy investment and deployment decisions.
• Geospatial Data Science Data and Tools - explore data resources.
• National Renewable Energy Laboratory Data and Tools 
• Pennsylvania Special Data Access - Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA) is Pennsylvania's official public access open geospatial data portal.
• USGS: Data and Tools
• USGS Maps and Aerial Photo Images Online  
• USGS: the National Map 
• USGS Water Resources: Maps and GIS Data  

Patent Searching - Where do I start?

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
The USPTO offers web access to bibliographic and full-text patent databases. These databases provide full-text of patents from 1976 to the present and full page images from 1790 to the present.

See Patent Basics  and Patent FAQ

New to Patent Searching? See this important information about searching for patents:

How to Conduct a Preliminary U.S. Patent Search: A Step by Step Strategy - Web Based Tutorial (38 minutes)

• The Seven Step Strategy - Outlines a suggested procedure for patent searching

• A detailed handout of the Seven Step Strategy with examples and screen shots.

Patent Classification

Patent classification is a system for organizing all U.S. patent documents and other technical documents into specific technology groupings based on common subject matter. On January 1, 2013, the USPTO moved from using the United States Patent Classification (USPC) system to the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system, a jointly developed system with the European Patent Office (EPO). CPC has now been adopted by many countries throughout the world.

See 'Manual of Patent Classification'.

Other Tools:

Fresh Patents
Provides access to the latest published US patent applications each week BEFORE the USPTO decision to
grant/deny.

pat2pdf.org
Given a patent number, pat2pdf.org will return a free, pdf formated version of the patent.

The Google Patent Search covers the entire collection of patents made available by the USPTO—from patents issued in the 1790s to present.

What is a technical report? A technical report is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research, or the state of a technical or scientific research problem.

Knovel: Find Material Properties