‘No data model survives contact with reality’ – Me, Cosener’s House Workshop 29 February 2008 This flippant comment was in response to (I think) Paolo Missier asking me ‘what the data model is’ for our experiments.

Cameron Neylon

> *'No data model survives contact with reality'* -- Me, Cosener's House
> Workshop 29 February 2008

This flippant comment was in response to (I think) Paolo Missier asking
me 'what the data model is' for our experiments. We were talking about
how we might automate various parts of the blog system but the point I
was making was that we can't have a data model with any degree of
specificity because we very quickly find the situation where they don't
fit. However, having spent some time thinking about machine readability
and the possibility of converting a set of LaBLog posts to RDF, as well
as the issues raised by the problems we have with tables, I think we do
need some sort of data model. These are my initial thoughts on what that
might look like.

**What do I mean by a data model?**

What I'm suggesting is a standard format to describe experiments; a
default format for online notebooks. The object is to do a number of
things. Firstly identify the page(s) as being an online laboratory
notebook so that they can be aggregated or auto-processed as
appropriate. Secondly to make rich metadata available in a human
readable and machine processable form making mashups and other things
possible using tools such as Yahoo! Pipes, Dapper, and the growing range
of other interesting tools, but not to impose any unnecessary
limitations on what that metadata might look like. Finally it should
ideally make the input and connection of data easier.

This comes with a health warning. The technical side of this is well
beyon my expertise so I will probably be unclear and use the wrong
terms. Such an object will be an XML wrapper with a minimal number of
required attributes. There will need to be an agreed vocabulary for a
few relationships but it will need to be kept to an absolute minimum.

**The need for a data model**

Several recent things have convinced me that we have a need for some
sort of data model. The first is the general issues of getting more rich
metadata into our feeds. This can be achieved in our system from the
existing metadata but there are some things that might benefit from a
complete re-think. I have thought for a while that the metadata should
be exposed through either microformats (easy enough) or RDF (not so
easy, where is the vocabulary going to go, what would it include). By
incorporating some of this directly into the data model we may
circumvent some problem.

Another issue is the tables. My original thinking was that if we had a
data model for tables then most of our problems would go away. If there
was a bit of codethat could be used to describe the columns and rows
then this would enable both the presentation of a table to input data as
well as the rendering of the table once complete. This would reduce the
'time suck' associated with data entry. However there are problems with
this data model being associated with the *rendering* of the table. Some
people like tables going one way, some another. There are may different
possible formats for representing the same information and some are
better for some purposes than another. Therefore the data model for the
table should encode the meaning behind the table, usually input
materials (or data), amounts, and products (materials or data).

Thinking about the table issue also lead me to realise something about
our LaBLog system, and in particular the 'one item-one post' approach.
We encode the relationship between inputs, outputs, and procedures
through links. When I think about this I have in mind a set of inputs
coming from the left and a set of outputs going tot he right. However
our current 'data model' cannot distinguish between inputs and outputs.
To achieve this we absolutely need to encode information into the link
(this is obviously a more general problem that just for us).

However the argument against still stands. Anything that requires a
fixed vocabulary is going to break. So how can we structure something
simple enough, yet not so simple that it is useless. The following is
some ideas, not based on any experience of building such things, but
coming from the coal face as it were. Its probably structurally wrong in
detail but my question is a) whether the overall structure is sound and
b) whether it could be built.

**Proposed data model**

Overall an experiment has inputs and outputs. These may be data or
material objects. Procedures take inputs and generate outputs. Some
procedures can be encapsulated in simple agreed descriptions, some of
which have existing vocabularies such as CML. Some are much more free
form and may be contingent on what happens earler in the procedure.

Data should be on the cloud somewhere, in a form that can be pointed at.
Material objects need to have a post or item somewhere that describes
what they are. In our LaBLog system we create a blog post for each
object to give it a presence in the system. More generally these could
be described elsewhere in someone else's system or lab book. The
material objects require a URI. Ideally we would like our data model to
work *even if the associated data or placeholder does not conform*.

Broadly speaking there seem to be three types of item; material objects
, data, and procedures (possibly also comments). For each of these we
require a provenance (author), and a date (last modified, I am assuiming
a Wiki like history system in the backend somewhere). For material
objects and for data there are a wide range of other metadata which may
or may not be relevant or even appropriate. This would be associated
with the items themselves in any case so do not necessarily matter to
the present discussion.

Our data model centres on the procedure. This might look something like
this;

  
`<Open Notebook Experiment>`  
`<title> {Text} </title>`  
`<author> {Link} </author>`  
`<date> {Text} </date>`  
`[<location> </location>`  
`<metadata> {XML block} </metadata>`  
  
`<procedure>`  
`<input> {Link} </input> [<amount> </amount>]`  
`<input> {Link} </input> [<amount> </amount>]....`  
  
`<description> [reference to controlled vocabulary if appropriate]`  
`[Free text]`  
`</description>`  
  
`<output> {Link} </output>`  
`<output> {Link} </output>....`  
  
`</procedure> `

  
`<procedure>...`  
`</procedure>... `

  
`</Open Notebook Experiment>`

**Comments**

This overall structure can accomodate both many identical reactions in
parallel (all procedure blocks are the same) and sequential processing
types of experiments (output from one procedure is an input for the
next). The procedure descriptions can call out to external vocabularies
is these are available making it possible to structure this as much as
is desired (or possible). Metadata is completely arbitrary and can refer
to other vocabularies as appropriate. Again as I understand it, as long
as this is wrapped properly it shouldn't cause a problem. Metadate can
also be included in procedure blocks if appropriate.

This all assumes that the datafiles and material descriptions carry
sufficient metadata on their own to allow reasonable processing. Whether
or not this is true the bottom line to me is that if you are pointing at
external data you can't rely on it having certain metadata in general.
It will always be a case by case point. We can argue about a format for
descriptions of material objects or samples some other time :)

**How does this address user interface issues?**

Arguably this has the potential to complicate the user interface issues
even further. But I think that can be handled. It is important to
remember that this is the 'file' that is generated and presented to the
world. Not necessarily the file that the user generates. But in general
terms you can see how this might work with a user interface.

First thing we start with is what do you want to do? How many
reactions/samples do you want to run in parallel? How may things go into
each reaction/sample?

The system then generate a table for input (defined as per preferences
in a style sheet somewhere) where the user can then select the
appropriate links (or paste them in) and amounts where appropriate.
There may also be the option of putting in metadata, either arbitrary
tags or (via a widget) suggestions from a controlled vocabulary.

The procedure again can be either a free text description (which could
be grabbed from a blog or wiki feed or a word processor document as
appropriate). Conversely a widget may be available that helps the user
describe the experiment via a controlled vocab. The user may also
indicate where the analysis results might be found so the system can
keep an eye out for it on the appropriate feed or it might require the
user to come back afterwards and make sure the connections are ok. If a
product is a material object then the system should automatically
generate a post on the user request, possibly when a label is printed
for the object.

Finally the user is asked whether they want to continue the same
experiment (moving on to workup, doing the next step) or finish this one
up and move on.

Much of this can and would be made even quicker with templates for
commonly used procedures or types of analysis but even without the
interaction process can be reasonably simple. This still doesn't capture
the analysis process 'fiddle until it looks right' but I don't think we
ever will manage that. What is key is 'this was the input data, this was
the output data, this is converted one to the other'

**Conclusions**

None of the above is meant to be an argument against controlled
vocabularies, RDF, or agreeing data formats. These are all good things
and should be used where possible and practicable. However in many cases
it is impossible or even inappropriate to use or agree vocabularies or
formats. My object is to try and describe the simplest framework which
could work, which would allow automated systems to understand *as much
as they can* about our experiments while dealing with the practical
requirements of getting it done. I hope this makes some sense. I will
try to put together some pictures tomorrow to make it clearer.


This flippant comment was in response to (I think) Paolo Missier asking me ‘what the data model is’ for our experiments. We were talking about how we might automate various parts of the blog system but the point I was making was that we can’t have a data model with any degree of specificity because we very quickly find the situation where they don’t fit.

Proposing a data model for Open Notebooks

admin

There were lots of helpful comments on my [previous
post](http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2007/12/17/the-problem-with-data/)
as well as some
[commiseration](http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PetermrsBlog/~3/201906826/)
from Peter Murray-Rust. Also Jean-Claude Bradley's group is starting to
face some similar issues with the combi-Ugi project ramping up. All in
the week that the Science Commons [Open Data protocol is
launched](http://sciencecommons.org/projects/publishing/open-access-data-protocol/).
I just wanted to bring out a few quick points:

The ease with which new data types can be incorporated into UsefulChem,
such as the [recent incorporation of a crystal
structure](http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com/Exp150) (see also JC's [Blog
Post](http://usefulchem.blogspot.com/2007/12/x-ray-crystallography-collaborator.html)),
shows the flexibility and ease provided by an open ended and free form
system in the context of the Wiki. The theory is that our slightly more
structured approach provides more implicit metadata, but I am conscious
that we have yet to demonstrate the extraction of the metadata back out
in a useful form.

Bill comments:

> ...I think perhaps the very first goal is just getting the data out
> there with metadata all over it saying â€œhere I am, come get meâ€?.

I agree that the first thing is to simply get the data up there but the
next question out of this comment must be how good is our metadata in
practise? So for instance, can anyone make any sense out of
[this](http://chemtools.chem.soton.ac.uk/projects/blog/blogs.php/bit_id/5416)
in isolation? Remember you will need to track back through links to the
post where this was 'made'. Nonetheless I think we need to see this
process through to its end. The comparison with UsefulChem is helpful
because we can decide whether the benefits of our system outweigh the
extra fiddling invovled, or conversely how much do we have to make the
fiddling less challenging to make it worthwhile. At the end of the day,
these are experiments in the best approaches to doing ONS.

Things that do make our life easier are an automatic catalogue of input
materials. This, and the ability to label things precisely for storage
is making a contribution to the way the lab is running. In principal
something similar can be achieved for data files. The main distinction
at the moment is that we generate a lot more data files than samples so
handling them is more logistically difficult.

Jean-Claude and Jeremiah have [commented further on Jeremiah's
Blog](http://blog-di-j.blogspot.com/2007/12/role-of-bioinformatics-in-open-notebook.html)
on some of the fault lines between computational and experimental
scientists. I just wanted to bring up a comment made by Jeremiah;

> It would be easier to understand however, if you used more common
> command-based plotting programs like gnuplot, R, and matlab.

This is quite a common perception. 'If you just used a command line
system you could simply export the text file'. The thing is that, and I
think I speak for a lot of wet biologists and indeed chemists, that we
simply can't be bothered. It is too much work to learn these packages
and fighting with command lines isn't generally something we are
interested in doing -- we'd rather be in the lab.

One of the very nice things about the data analysis package I use, [Igor
Pro](http://www.wavemetrics.com), is that it has a GUI built but it also
translates menu choices and mouse actions into a command line at the
bottom of the screen. What is more it has a quite powerful programming
language which uses exactly the same commands. You start using it by
playing with the mouse, you become more adept at repeating actions by
cutting and pasting stuff in the command line and then you can (almost)
write a procedure by pasting a bunch of lines into a procedure file. It
is, in my view, the outstanding example of a user interface that not
only provides functionality for the novice and expert user in a easily
accesible way, it also guides the novice into becoming a power user.

But for most applications we can't be bothered (or more charitably don't
have the time) to learn MatLab or Perl or R or GnuPlot (and certainly
not Tex!). Perhaps the fault line lies on the division between those who
*prefer* to use Word rather than Tex. One consequence of this is that we
use programs that have an irritating tendency to have proprietary file
systems. Usually we can export a text file or something a bit more open.
But sometimes this is not possible. It is almost always an extra step,
an extra file to upload, so even more work. Open document formats are
definitely a great step forward and XML file types are even better. But
we are a bit stuck in the middle of slowly changing process.

None of this is to say that I think we shouldn't put the effort in, but
more to say, that from the perspective of those of us who really don't
like to code, and particularly those of us generating data from 'beige
box' instruments the challenge of 'No insider information' is even
harder. As [Peter M-R
says](http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PetermrsBlog/~3/201906826/), the
glueware is both critical, and the hardest bit to get right. The problem
is, I can't write glueware, at least not without sticking my fingers to
each other.


There were lots of helpful comments on my previous post as well as some commiseration from Peter Murray-Rust. Also Jean-Claude Bradley’s group is starting to face some similar issues with the combi-Ugi project ramping up. All in the week that the Science Commons Open Data protocol is launched.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Proposing a data model for Open Notebooks

Following up on data storage issues