"J. Steinbachs" wrote: > > The data can be represented as a "WHAX tree", with the tag representing > the branches and the tag value representing the node. Additions to the > a subset of the data can be integrated into the larger database by > simple manipulations of WHAX trees. As a complete aside from the database issue, Loci needs to represent the Workflow Diagram / Graphical Script in XML. This is of course a tree structure. Perhaps we should look at how WHAX trees work for this purpose. Is this the URL? http://cbil.humgen.upenn.edu/epodb/epodb.html As Harry said, it's unresponsive. > Perhaps "bioinformatics" is currently too narrowly defined (organisms > have more characteristics about them than just their DNA). If we, the > community of manipulators of biological data, do come up with an open > standard for representing said data, that standard should be flexible > enough to encompass all the characteristics about the organisms. And, > in light of all the stupid patenting going on, perhaps an open standard > is needed before big bad multinational corporation patents it first. I couldn't have said it better. And how does the media define bioinformatics? "The use of computer databases to organize the huge amount of biological information obtained by sequencing the human genome [DNA]..." http://www.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=Coenz0bKbyta1nJu Cheers. Jeff -- +----------------------------------+ | J.W. Bizzaro | | | | http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff/ | | | | THE OPEN LAB | | Open Source Bioinformatics | | | | http://bioinformatics.org/ | +----------------------------------+