Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A key issue in working with a DBMS is the use of metadata, or information about data contained in
the database. Views are one application of metadata— a collection of information about naming,
classification, structure, and use of data that reduces inconsistency and ambiguity. For example, as
shown in
Figure 2-16
, one way to think about the application of metadata is to consider the high-
level biomedical literature a means of simplifying and synthesizing the underlying complexity of
molecular disease, protein structure, protein alignment, and protein and DNA sequence data. From
this perspective, data are base pair identifiers derived from observation, experiment, or calculation,
information is data in context, such as the relationship of DNA sequences to protein structure, and
metadata is a descriptive summary of disease presentations that provides additional context to the
underlying information. The use of metadata as an organizational theme makes the centralized data-
management approach easier to maintain and control. For example, a simple file-server system
typically lacks the contextual framework and interrelatedness of information and data provided by a
database management system. As a result, there is no automated way to manage the contents of
individual files and folders that may be included on the file server.
Figure 2-16. Metadata, Information, and Data in Bioinformatics. Metadata
labels, simplifies, and provides context for underlying information and data.
