$re = '/(?<=atitle=).*?(?=&)/';
$str = 'ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Focoins.info%3Agenerator&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Parliamentarism Rationalized&rft.title=East European Constitutional Review&rft.stitle=E. Eur. Const. Rev.&rft.date=1993&rft.volume=2&rft.spage=33&rft.au=Tanchev, Evgeni&rft_id=http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle%3Dhein.journals/eeurcr2%26id%3D33%26div%3D%26collection%3D
';
$subst = "";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php