Proximity Operations
for WinSPIRS / WebSPIRS / MacSPIRS searching

Proximity operators require the terms to occur in the same part of the record or no more than a certain distance apart. They function similarly to the AND operator because retrieved records must contain all the search terms.

Venn Diagram

 Description
Near Diagram NEAR restricts both terms to the same sentence.

The NEAR operation retrieves a subset of records which would be retrieved by the AND Boolean operation.
Near 2 Diagram

Counting distances between words for the NEAR# operator:

Counting

the is one word from see (near1)
dog is two words from see (near2)
run is three words from see (near3)
fast is four words from see (near4)

 NEAR# (where # is a whole number > 0) requires terms to be no father apart than the number indicates; however, they may be closer together.

NEAR1 requires terms to be adjacent: calcium absorption

NEAR2 permits no more than one intervening word: absorption of calcium

Examples:

absorption near2 calcium will retrieve the phrases:
"calcium absorption"
"absorption of calcium"
absorption near1 calcium will only retrieve the phrase:
"calcium absorption"

WARNING:
NEAR1 is the default operator. If you don't combine terms with a Boolean or proximity operator, they must be adjacent.

For example searching patient information rather than patient AND information or patient NEAR information would not retrieve records containing these phrases:

"patient drug information"
"patient discharge information"

if the terms were not adjacent anywhere else in the record.

Other Proximity Operators

WITH The WITH operator restricts both terms to the same field. WITH is less restrictive than NEAR.
ADJ The ADJ operator requires terms to be adjacent in the order specified.