Software Tools for Interoperable Taxonomic Databases

来自七个生物信息学研究组织的一个合作者团队建议增强现有的软件工具，以创建基于万维网(WWW)的专家分类学资源，该资源将立即对国际病毒界产生价值，并将作为其他生物学学科的分类学数据资源的原型。在先前资助的NSF项目的基础上，该小组将完成软件基础设施的开发，以提供对国际病毒分类委员会数据库(ICTVDB)的实时访问。这个分类知识库将结合本地仓储数据文件的优点和建立与分布式数据形式的动态链接的能力，并将提供文件的即时更新。增强和修改Delta用于分类学研究和生物多样性研究的程序套件，将允许通过WWW对生物进行数据分析和识别。通过超文本标记语言和网络将ICTV数据与其他生物数据集，例如基因组数据、图形、储存库和参考数据联系起来，将能够进行基于遗传和表型数据分析的分类比较。使用Web/Genera和Sybase软件通过互联网实现对与Delta互操作的关系数据库的SQL查询和在线数据输入/更新，将为分类学家和其他研究人员提供多个访问点和数据管理能力，具体取决于他们的具体要求。拟议的数据资源将在数据建模、句法和语义方面符合规定的标准，从而促进加入生物数据库开发人员这一新兴的“联合会”。它还将作为一个实用程序来加强复杂生物系统的建模。

A team of collaborators from seven bioinformatics research organizations proposes to enhance existing software tools to create a World Wide Web (WWW) based expert taxonomic resource that will be immediately valuable for the international virology community and will serve as a prototype for taxonomic data resources in other biological disciplines. Expanding on previously funded NSF project, the team will complete development of the software infrastructure for providing real time access to the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses' database (ICTVdB). This taxonomic knowledge base will combine the advantages of local, warehoused datafiles with the ability to establish dynamic links to distributed forms of data and will provide for immediate updating of the files. Enhancement and modification of the DELTA suite of programs, used for taxonomic research and biodiversity studies, will permit data analysis and identification of organisms via the WWW. Linking of ICTV data with other biological datasets, e.g., genomic data, graphics, repository, and reference data via HTML and the web will enable taxonomic comparisons based on genetic and phenotypic data analysis. Use of the Web/Genera and Sybase software to enable SQL queries and online data entry/updates over the Internet to a relational database interoperating with DELTA will give taxonomists and other researchers multiple access points and data management capabilities, depending on their specific requirements. The proposed data resource will conform to prescribed standards in data modeling, syntax and semantics, thus facilitating membership in the emerging "federation" of biological database developers. It will also serve as a utility to enhance modeling of complex biological systems.