PDE

PDE extracts structured data from full-text PDF documents to support systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses.

Key Features:

• Table Extraction: The pdf2table function extracts tables directly from PDF files and exports them into Excel sheets.
• Keyword Search and Data Extraction: Performs high-throughput keyword searches across full-text PDF articles to identify occurrences of search terms.
• Adaptability and Customization: Allows customization of analysis parameters using regular expressions and employs machine learning algorithms to detect abbreviations related to search terms.
• Automated Categorization: Automatically categorizes full-text articles by relevance to predefined criteria, demonstrating up to 35% reduction in manual screening volume with 100% sensitivity under standard parameters.
• Metadata Export: Exports document metadata for downstream organization and referencing.

Scientific Applications:

• Systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses: Extracts tabular data and keyword-based evidence from multiple publications to support quantitative and qualitative synthesis.
• Pre-screening and prioritization: Prioritizes and filters articles for downstream manual review and captures minor results and details across large document sets.

Methodology:

Uses the pdf2table function for table extraction and Excel export, high-throughput keyword searching, regular expressions for pattern matching, and machine learning for abbreviation detection and article categorization.