Shabash Merops

Time and dates

Calendar dates

Merops can ensure dates are presented in consistent form and sequence. For example, Sept. 24, 1978 can be automatically standardized to 24th September 1978.

Merops can ensure consistency in the presentation of AD, BC and BP, as well as centuries (e.g. Nineteenth Century not C19) and decades (e.g. the 60s not The 1960’s).

Times of day

Merops can standardize the presentation of times of day e.g.:

• 4pm ↔ 16.00 hours
• 4pm ↔ 4 p.m.

Numbers

Punctuation and spacing

Merops can automatically standardize the punctuation and spacing of:

• large numbers (e.g. 1,234,567)
• ratios
• number grouping after decimal point (0.000 01)

Characters

Merops can automatically standardize characters such as:

• decimal point character
• en rule/hyphen in ranges
• minus sign in negative numbers

Words vs figures

Merops can convert between words and figures in different contexts, for example, enforcing words at the beginning of sentences, or with numbers one to nine, but figures for numbers 10 or higher.

Context

Many of these rules are context-specific. For example, the number 1000 in general text, but 1 000 in tables. Also, Merops is clever enough to avoid making changes to numbers that are not counts or ranges (e.g. telephone numbers).

Mathematics

In technical documents it is critical that mathematical terms are presented consistently. Merops contains rules to correct author discrepancies, and converts between alternative math formats.

Symbols

Merops standardizes symbols such as Greek letters and operators, e.g.:

• 20 +/- 12 → 20 ± 12
• 2 X 4 → 2 × 4

Formatting and spacing

Merops standardizes the formatting of functions. variables and operators:

• ln(sin x_max²) → ln(sin χ_max²)
• a+b =c → a + b = c

Statistics

Merops can standardize the presentation of statistical variables. For example:

• Student t test → Student’s t-test
• F(1, 24) = 2.36 → F_1,24 = 2.36
• Anova → ANOVA
• p >0.01 → P > .01

Currency

Merops can standardize the presentation of currency.

For example:

• Standardization of words/figures (ten pounds sterling ↔ £10)
• Standardization of ranges ($4–6 ↔ $4–$6)
• Alerts on the potentially ambiguous use of $ or 'dollar'

Units

Merops identifies and standardizes all SI and Imperial units of measurement, and can be used to automate conversions between unit standards.

Specific preferences

Merops can standardize representations of percentages, either using words or the % symbol depending on predefined style.

Merops identifies various abbreviations for years, months, days, hours and seconds so that a standard can be applied.

Example

Corrections below have been made to the punctuation, spacing, presentation of compound unit style, and ISO convention for mL.

40-100ug/ml → 40-100 µg mL^-1

Conversions

Merops can automatically convert units from Imperial to metric, or Fahrenheit to Celsius, or vice versa.