Our proposed work seeks to design a query language adapted to scientists by combining additional scientific tasks such as mining, analyzing, searching, and browsing with traditional data manipulation tasks in a computational infrastructure that uses XML-based Web technology and database/mediation technology. This infrastructure will enable a user to express queries against multiple sources without explicit user knowledge of source-specific details including location, data structure, and computational interfaces and capabilities. The same infrastructure that enables the user to pose and execute such queries will also facilitate users to apply their expertise to filter, rank, and resolve inconsistencies in the query results. In the pilot phase, we achieve these objectives through the following research aims:
Aim 1 : Design a user-friendly query language adapted to scientific tasks.
Aim 2 : Design a system that integrates scientific resources: data and applications to support scientific queries. The pilot phase will identify and resolve specific problems to scientific querying focusing on biological queries. Should the pilot phase be funded, the investigator will seek continuing support for development through a research project grant R01.
The aims of the continuing support will be the development of the mediation platform designed at the pilot phase. It will include: XML Enabled Wrapper Generation, incorporation of XML wrappers into a mediation platform, and testing and evaluation. A team of computer scientists, biologists and physicians will be constituted for the research project grant R01.
| Cohen-Boulakia, Sarah; Davidson, Susan; Froidevaux, Christine et al. (2006) Path-based systems to guide scientists in the maze of biological data sources. J Bioinform Comput Biol 4:1069-95 |
