SemanticBits

We have assisted clients designing solutions that utilize the caGrid infrastructure for the exchange of data with a solid semantic foundation. caGrid is middleware designed to facilitate secure and federated access to information and analytical resources in a multi-institutional environment. For example, a research project may require integrative analysis of microarray, imaging, and clinical data. These datasets may be collected by different entities (such as shared resources and medical information warehouses) and may not be stored in a centralized system. caGrid can be used to create a "virtually centralized" data warehouse of such datasets. Each dataset is managed by the respective owner, but is integrated as a virtually centralized data warehouse using caGrid service interfaces and tools, so that a researcher can access data from any of those datasets through a common interface.

SemanticBits has extensive experience developing projects that leverage semantic infrastructure. Over time, we have templatized our development approach so that ramp-up time on client projects is reduced to almost nothing. We leverage automation heavily in our development approach, which allows us to compile and test our code continuously - even when a single line of code changes. Furthermore, we leverage integration-style automated testing, which is essential in projects that have a critical semantic component that relies on external vocabularies. Over time, we have pieced together libraries into a cohesive development kit that we dynamically include in our semantic projects using sophisticated dependency management and build tools such as Ivy.

We have developed rich user interfaces using Spring and GWT that leverage the semantics that underly data that is presented to users. This approach greatly enhances the user experience by providing contextual information that helps users better understand the data that they are working with. We accomplish this by using distributed vocabulary and ontology services, such as LexBIG (http://informatics.mayo.edu/LexGrid) to integrate semantic concepts and data definitions into web applications. We combine this with Web 2.0 technologies, such as AJAX and Prototype, to deliver this information in the most user friendly manner possible.