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The Coordinating Unit is responsible for the creation of the software and informatics infrastructure for the consortium as well as facilitating the efforts of the mouse phenotyping centers. This page provides information about the infrastructure created for the consortium.

Lab Personnel

Mike Jasmine CoNesha
Mike Aufiero
Programmer Architect
Jasmine Jones
Data Curator
Co-Nesha Evans
Social Media Coordinator



Infrastructure Information
Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó IT Infrastructure
Our programming paradigm is to develop software systems based on an n-tier architecture, where we create the presentation layer, business logic and data layer into separate software systems. These systems have been developed to minimize maintenance, but provide a robust scalable model for future growth and interactions at the national level with other organism databases. These systems have been designed using the unified modeling language (UML) with the designs available to the general public. The two UML modeling tools we use are Rational Rose and Powerdesigner.

Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó Data Model
The core relational data model for the Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó was created using SQL Server 2000 and was based on a number of existing schemas containing our key subject areas: animal models, genotypes (including array experiment data), histopathology, and phenotype Assays. The Mouse Models of Human Cancer Consortium (MMHCC) and the Jackson Labs were particularly helpful, and shared several successful models. Currently Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó Data Model has been migrated to SQL Server 2005 and has been modified to include MMPC (National Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Centers) Data Schema. The current version of the database addresses several domains, including Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó - MMPC administration, models, strains, publications, external database references, experiments, phenotype assays, microarray data, histology, images and dataset persistence. Current data model has 250 tables, 55 functions, 994 stored procedures, 141 data views and a total of 9344 lines of code.

Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó Administration Data Model

Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó Science Data Model

* Note: Above links require Internet Explorer version 5.0 or above to view Data Model with Zoom capability. Also please make sure to accept ActiveX warning to start viewer. Viewer has links to different data schemas on Navigation Dropdown Box, you will need to click go Next to the Links to load different schema.

Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó Object Model
The Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó Object Model (Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó-OM) created for the consortium fully describes the activities of the Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó and provides an OOP API to access the data generated by the consortium. The Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó-OM was designed using Powerdesigner and UML, written in C# and compiled as a .NET DLL. The object model contains both administrative and domain specific classes. However, only the data centric classes are available to the public. The Domain classes provide both object specific classes (e.g. Model, Strain, Experiment, Protocol, etc.) as well as DataManager and SearchCriteria classes used to retrieve data from the system. These DataManager classes are specific for each of the data types maintained by Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó. For example, the StrainMgr class provides methods to retrieve strain specific data. The SearchCriteria classes are also datatype specific and are used by the DataManager classes to query the database using different type specific parameters. For example, the StrainSearchCriteria class provides queryable properties specific for the Strain data in the system.

Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó Object model base was modified to add MMPC (National Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Centers) schema. Currently common object model for both consortium contains classes to serve Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó and MMPC consortium web portals.

In order to provide the broadest access to the data, we are also creating a WebService that exposes specific portions fo the Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó-OM to the public. Specifically, the WebService will provide access to all the object specific classes as well as the DataManager and SearchCriteria classes. This provides a mechanisms for programmers to create local Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó-OM objects in other languages. The current version of the Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó-OM has 185 object classes.

Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó-Web Services
The Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó Web Services layer exposes classes and methods of the Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó object model which can be used by users to interact with the Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó object model using custom built web applications or even without a user interface. Details about the interfaces are provided to users through an XML document called a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) document. There are several tools available to read a WSDL file and generate the code required to communicate with an XML Web service including a very capable "Add Web Reference" tool used in Microsoft Visual Studio. Ö÷²¥ÓÕ»ó web services layer makes available public data search and retrieval methods for animals, strains, experiments, histology images, investigators, phenotype assays and publications. The exposed web service methods can be consumed through customized client ASP.NET applications using SOAP calls or through traditional HTTP GET/POST METHODS without the use of an API. The framework has been designed to be independent of any particular programming model and other implementation specific semantics. A complete documentation for each of the web service methods is available providing information about data return type, input parameters and exceptions thrown. In addition, users may choose to download a zipped Visual Studio 2008 solution file containing a sample ASP .NET client application and C# class library project.