Data Integration Solution for Organ-Specific Studies: An Application for Oral Biology - Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - page 383

resource for salivary diagnostic processes of protein biomarker studies of health and
disease based on the analysis of saliva samples.
For information retrieval from Oralome, we decided to use Hibernate, an object-
relational mapping tool for Java. This architecture is illustrated in the following dia-
gram (Fig. 3). OralCard frontend was developed using Stripes, a web framework that
makes the development of Java web applications easier, by introducing some useful
tools. Stripes enabled us to take full control over URLs, easing the task of accessing
an entity by only knowing its id. For instance, researchers can have direct access to
the protein P22894 (Neutrophil collagenase), introducing the address

http://bioinformatics.ua.pt/oralcard/proteins/view/P22894 .
By using the Stripes framework, we were able to improve the user interface, intro-
ducing frameworks such as jQuery and jQueryUI. These tools contributed to present-
ing information in a more user-friendly way, taking control over tables and AJAX
interactions.
Finally, the OralCard web application takes advantage of the CSS benefits. It is de-
signed to separate the document content written in JSP from the document presenta-
tion, including elements such as page layout, colours and fonts used.

4 Results

4.1 Oralome Functionalities

The web interface feature provided by Oralome reflects data contained in the data-
base. It is available online at http://bioinformatics.ua.pt/oralome .
Both oral cavity researchers and developers can use this tool. Oralome provides
two distinct entry points, each matching a particular user type needs.

Fig. 3. OralCard web application architecture