U.S. patent application number 14/828378 was filed with the patent office on 2016-08-11 for categorization and filtering of scientific data.
The applicant listed for this patent is NextBio. Invention is credited to Satnam Alag, Ilya Kupershmidt, Qingdi Liu, Qiaojuan Jane Su, Suman Sundaresh.
Application Number | 20160232224 14/828378 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 41056359 |
Filed Date | 2016-08-11 |
United States Patent
Application |
20160232224 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Kupershmidt; Ilya ; et
al. |
August 11, 2016 |
CATEGORIZATION AND FILTERING OF SCIENTIFIC DATA
Abstract
The present invention relates to methods, systems and apparatus
for capturing, integrating, organizing, navigating and querying
large-scale data from high-throughput biological and chemical assay
platforms. It provides a highly efficient meta-analysis
infrastructure for performing research queries across a large
number of studies and experiments from different biological and
chemical assays, data types and organisms, as well as systems to
build and add to such an infrastructure. According to various
embodiments, methods, systems and interfaces for associating
experimental data, features and groups of data related by structure
and/or function with chemical, medical and/or biological terms in
an ontology or taxonomy are provided. According to various
embodiments, methods, systems and interfaces for filtering data by
data source information are provided, allowing dynamic navigation
through large amounts of data to find the most relevant results for
a particular query.
Inventors: |
Kupershmidt; Ilya; (San
Francisco, CA) ; Su; Qiaojuan Jane; (San Jose,
CA) ; Liu; Qingdi; (San Jose, CA) ; Alag;
Satnam; (Santa Clara, CA) ; Sundaresh; Suman;
(Cupertino, CA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
NextBio |
Santa Clara |
CA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
41056359 |
Appl. No.: |
14/828378 |
Filed: |
August 17, 2015 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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12398107 |
Mar 4, 2009 |
9141913 |
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14828378 |
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11641539 |
Dec 18, 2006 |
8275737 |
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12398107 |
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61033673 |
Mar 4, 2008 |
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61089834 |
Aug 18, 2008 |
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60750829 |
Dec 16, 2005 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06N 20/00 20190101;
G16B 20/00 20190201; G06F 16/285 20190101; G16B 50/00 20190201;
G06F 16/2246 20190101; G16B 30/00 20190201; G06F 16/24578
20190101 |
International
Class: |
G06F 17/30 20060101
G06F017/30; G06F 19/28 20060101 G06F019/28 |
Claims
1. A computer-implemented method of correlating chemical or
biological categories with other information in a database, said
method comprising: obtaining from the database a taxonomy of
biological or chemical categories arranged in a hierarchical
structure comprising at least one top-level category having at
least one child category; obtaining from the database a plurality
of feature sets or feature groups, each feature set comprising two
or more features of chemical or biological entities and statistical
information associated with each of the two or more features and
each feature group comprising a list of inter-related features of
chemical or biological entities, wherein at least some features of
the feature sets or feature groups have different names and are
associated with each other and the feature sets or feature groups
are obtained from across different experiments, platforms, or
organisms; obtaining from the database a plurality of globally
unique mapping identifiers; identifying, for each globally unique
mapping identifier, one or more features associated with the
globally unique mapping identifier; mapping, for each globally
unique mapping identifier, the identified one or more features to
the globally unique mapping identifier, wherein at least some
features having different names and being associated with each
other are mapped to a same globally unique mapping identifier;
identifying, for each of a plurality of the categories in the
taxonomy, contributing feature sets that contribute to scoring a
category under consideration by identifying feature sets among the
plurality of feature sets that are associated with the category
under consideration or its child categories; using the contributing
feature sets of the category under consideration and globally
unique mapping identifiers mapped to features of the contributing
feature sets to calculate a correlation score indicating a
correlation between the category under consideration and a feature,
a feature set, or a feature group in the database; and storing the
correlation score in the database.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying contributing feature
sets that contribute to scoring the category under consideration
further comprises filtering the identified contributing feature
sets to remove some feature sets.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the correlation score is
calculated using pre-computed correlation scores indicating the
correlation between the contributing feature sets and at least some
of the other feature sets in the database.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the correlation score is
calculated using pre-computed correlation scores indicating the
correlation between the contributing feature sets and at least some
of the feature groups in the database.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the correlation score is
calculated using normalized ranks of at least some of the features
in the contributing feature sets.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the correlation score is
calculated using pre-computed correlation scores indicating the
correlation between the contributing feature sets of the category
under consideration and contributing feature sets of at least some
of the other categories in the database.
7. The computer implemented method of claim 1 comprising generating
one or more feature sets from raw data from one or more samples,
wherein the raw data includes information on one or more features
with indications of one or more of: differential expression of said
features, abundance of said features, responses of said features to
a treatment or stimulus, and effects of said features on biological
systems.
8. The method of claim 1 further comprising importing the one or
more generated feature sets into the database.
9. (canceled)
10. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory machine
readable medium on which is provided program instructions for
correlating chemical or biological categories with other
information in a database, said program instructions comprising:
code for obtaining from the database a taxonomy of biological or
chemical categories arranged in a hierarchical structure comprising
at least one top-level category having at least one child category;
code for obtaining from the database a plurality of feature sets or
feature groups, each feature set comprising two or more features of
chemical or biological entities and statistical information
associated with each of the two or more features and each feature
group comprising a list of inter-related features of chemical or
biological entities, wherein at least some features of the feature
sets or feature groups have different names and are associated with
each other and the feature sets or feature groups are obtained from
across different experiments, platforms, or organisms; code for
obtaining from the database a plurality of globally unique mapping
identifiers; code for identifying, for each globally unique mapping
identifier, one or more features associated with the globally
unique mapping identifier; code for mapping, for each globally
unique mapping identifier, the identified one or more features to
the globally unique mapping identifier, wherein at least some
features having different names and being associated with each
other are mapped to a same globally unique mapping identifier; code
for identifying, for each of a plurality of the categories in the
taxonomy, contributing feature sets that contribute to scoring a
category under consideration by identifying feature sets among the
plurality of feature sets that are associated with the category
under consideration or its child categories; code for using the
contributing feature sets of the category under consideration and
globally unique mapping identifiers mapped to features of the
contributing feature sets to calculate a correlation score
indicating a correlation between the category under consideration
and a feature, a feature set, or a feature group in the database;
and code for storing the correlation score in the database.
11. A system for correlating chemical or biological categories with
other information in a database, said system comprising: a memory;
one or more processors in communication with the memory; and one or
more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon
computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or
more processors, cause the system to: obtain from the database a
taxonomy of biological or chemical categories arranged in a
hierarchical structure comprising at least one top-level category
having at least one child category; obtain from the database a
plurality of feature sets or feature groups, each feature set
comprising two or more features of chemical or biological entities
and statistical information associated with each of the two or more
features and each feature group comprising a list of inter-related
features of chemical or biological entities, wherein at least some
features of the feature sets or feature groups have different names
and are associated with each other and the feature sets or feature
groups are obtained from across different experiments, platforms,
or organisms; obtain from the database a plurality of globally
unique mapping identifiers; identify, for each globally unique
mapping identifier, one or more features associated with the
globally unique mapping identifier; map, for each globally unique
mapping identifier, the identified one or more features to the
globally unique mapping identifier, wherein at least some features
having different names and being associated with each other are
mapped to a same globally unique mapping identifier; identify, for
each of a plurality of the categories in the taxonomy, contributing
feature sets that contribute to scoring a category under
consideration by identifying feature sets among the plurality of
feature sets that are associated with the category under
consideration and/or its child categories; use the contributing
feature sets of the category under consideration and globally
unique mapping identifiers mapped to features of the contributing
feature sets to calculate a correlation score indicating a
correlation between the category under consideration and a feature,
a feature set, or a feature group in the database; and store the
correlation score in the database.
12-36. (canceled)
37. The method of claim 1, wherein the correlation score indicates
a correlation between the category under consideration and a
feature set under consideration.
38. The method of claim 37, wherein calculating the correlation
score comprises: computing contributing correlation scores between
the contributing feature sets and the feature set under
consideration using associated statistical information of the
contributing feature sets and the globally unique mapping
identifiers mapped to the features of the contributing feature
sets; and combining the contributing correlation scores to obtain
the correlation score indicating a correlation between the category
under consideration and the feature set under consideration.
39. The method of claim 38, wherein computing the contributing
correlation scores comprises associating features of a contributing
feature set with features of the feature set under consideration,
wherein two associated features are mapped to a same globally
unique mapping identifier.
40. The method of claim 1, wherein the correlation score indicates
a correlation between the category under consideration and a
feature group under consideration.
41. The method of claim 40, wherein calculating the correlation
score comprises: computing contributing correlation scores between
the contributing feature sets and the feature group under
consideration using the globally unique mapping identifiers mapped
to the features of the contributing feature sets; and combining the
contributing correlation scores to obtain the correlation score
indicating a correlation between the category under consideration
and the feature group under consideration.
42. The method of claim 41, wherein computing the contributing
correlation scores comprises associating features of a contributing
feature set with features of the feature group under consideration,
wherein two associated features are mapped to a same globally
unique mapping identifier.
43. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the correlation
score comprises: obtaining feature scores of all features in the
contributing feature sets that are mapped to the globally unique
mapping identifier under consideration; identifying a feature
mapped to a globally unique mapping identifier under consideration
as the feature under consideration; and obtaining the correlation
score from the feature scores, wherein the correlation score
indicates a correlation between the category under consideration
and the feature under consideration.
44. The method of claim 43, wherein the feature scores are feature
ranks, each feature rank indicating the importance of a feature in
an experiment.
45. The method of claim 1, wherein the database comprises a
plurality of collections of data stored on a plurality of storage
devices.
46. The method of claim 2, wherein the category under consideration
comprises a disease, and the removed feature sets are obtained from
cell lines that are not affected by the disease.
Description
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of and claims priority to
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/3498,107, titled
"CATEGORIZATION AND FILTERING OF SCIENTIFIC DATA," filed Mar. 4,
2009, which claims benefit under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.119(e) of U.S.
Provisional Patent Application No. 61/033,673, titled
"META-ANALYSIS AND CLUSTERING OF SEARCH RESULTS IN SYSTEMS AND
METHODS FOR SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT," filed
Mar. 4, 2008, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.
61/089,834, titled "CATEGORIZATION AND FILTERING OF SCIENTIFIC DATA
BY DATA SOURCE," filed Aug. 18, 2008; U.S. patent application Ser.
No. 12/398,107 is also a continuation-in-part of and claims
priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/641,539, titled
"SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT," filed Dec. 18, 2006, which claims benefit under 35
U.S.C. .sctn.119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application
60/750,829, filed Dec. 16, 2005; all of the above applications are
incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention relates generally to methods, systems
and apparatus for storing and retrieving biological, chemical and
medical information. Research in these fields has increasingly
shifted from the laboratory bench to computer-based methods. Public
sources such as NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology
Information), for example, provide databases with genetic and
molecular data. Between these and private sources, an enormous
amount of data is available to the researcher from various assay
platforms, organisms, data types, etc. As the amount of biomedical
information disseminated grows, researchers need fast and efficient
tools to quickly assimilate new information and integrate it with
pre-existing information across different platforms, organisms,
etc. Researchers also need tools to quickly navigate through and
analyze diverse types of information.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0003] The present invention relates to methods, systems and
apparatus for capturing, integrating, organizing, navigating and
querying large-scale data from high-throughput biological and
chemical assay platforms. It provides a highly efficient
meta-analysis infrastructure for performing research queries across
a large number of studies and experiments from different biological
and chemical assays, data types and organisms, as well as systems
to build and add to such an infrastructure. Embodiments of the
invention provide methods, systems and interfaces for associating
experimental data, features and groups of data related by structure
and/or function with chemical, medical and/or biological terms in
an ontology or taxonomy. Embodiments of the invention also provide
methods, systems and interfaces for filtering data by data source
information, allowing dynamic navigation through large amounts of
data to find the most relevant results for a particular query.
[0004] Embodiments of the invention provide methods for associating
experimental data, features and groups of data related by structure
and/or function with chemical, medical and/or biological terms in
an ontology or taxonomy. Provided are methods of efficiently
correlating various types of data (e.g., a gene, a compound, an
experimental study, a group of genes, or other features associated
by structure and/or function) with tags (also referred to as
concepts) to identify the most relevant tags for that piece of
data. In certain embodiments, the data analyzed by the methods
described are typically noisy and imperfect. The methods filter out
noisy tags to make the predictions. Also provided are methods of
querying various types of data in a database (including features,
feature sets, feature groups, and tags or concepts) to produce a
list of the most relevant or significant concepts in the database
in response to the query.
[0005] Embodiments of the invention provide methods of filtering
data by data source information, allowing dynamic navigation
through large amounts of data to find the most relevant results for
a particular query. Also provided are methods of determining and
presenting data authority levels for a particular query. In certain
embodiments, the methods assign authority levels based on other
data in a Knowledge Base of scientific information.
[0006] One aspect of the invention relates to methods for
correlating chemical and/or biological concepts with other
information in a knowledge base, said knowledge base comprising 1)
a taxonomy of biological and/or chemical concepts arranged in a
hierarchical structure comprising at least one top-level category,
2) a plurality of feature sets and/or feature groups, each feature
set comprising at least one feature of chemical or biological
information and associated statistical information and each feature
group comprising a list of related features wherein at least some
of said feature sets and feature groups are associated with one or
more concepts in the taxonomy, wherein the methods involve: for
each of a plurality or all of the concepts in the taxonomy,
identifying feature sets that contribute to scoring the concept
under consideration by identifying all feature sets associated with
the concept under consideration and/or its child concepts;
receiving pre-computed correlation scores and/or rank scores
between the contributing feature sets and other information in the
knowledge base; and calculating a score indicating correlation
between the concept under consideration and other information in
the knowledge base based on the precomputed correlations and/or
rank scores. In certain embodiments, computer program products and
computer systems for implementing the methods are also
provided.
[0007] In certain embodiments, identifying feature sets that
contribute to scoring the concept under consideration further
comprises filtering the identified feature sets to remove at least
some less relevant feature sets. The methods may also involve
receiving pre-computed correlation scores and/or rank scores
between the contributing feature sets and other information in the
knowledge base comprises receiving pre-computed correlation scores
indicating the correlation between the contributing feature sets
and all or at least some of the other feature sets in the knowledge
base. In certain embodiments, receiving pre-computed correlation
scores and/or rank scores between the contributing feature sets and
other information in the knowledge base comprises receiving
pre-computed correlation scores indicating the correlation between
the contributing feature sets and all or at least some of the
feature groups in the knowledge base. In certain embodiments,
receiving pre-computed correlation scores and/or rank scores
between the contributing feature sets and other information in the
knowledge base comprises receiving normalized ranks of all or at
least some of the features in the contributing feature sets. In
certain embodiments, receiving pre-computed correlation scores
and/or rank scores between the contributing feature sets and other
information in the knowledge base comprises receiving pre-computed
correlation scores indicating the correlation between the
contributing feature sets and feature sets that contribute to the
scoring of all or at least some of the other concepts in the
knowledge base. Also In certain embodiments, the methods further
comprise generating one or more feature sets from raw data from one
or more samples, wherein the raw data includes information on one
or more features with indications of one or more of: differential
expression, abundance of said features, responses of said features
to a treatment or stimulus, and effects of said features on
biological systems. In certain embodiments, the methods further
involve importing the one or more generated feature sets into the
knowledge base. According to various embodiments, the methods
further involve displaying to a user a list of concepts relevant to
identified information in the knowledge base.
[0008] Another aspect of the invention relates to
computer-implemented methods of correlating chemical and/or
biological concepts in a knowledge base, said knowledge base
comprising 1) a taxonomy of biological and/or chemical concepts
arranged in a hierarchical structure comprising at least one
top-level category, 2) a plurality of feature sets each comprising
at least one feature of chemical or biological information and
associated statistical information wherein at least some of said
feature sets and feature groups are associated with one or more
concepts in the taxonomy, said method involving: for each of a
plurality or all of the concepts in the taxonomy, identifying
feature sets that contribute to scoring the concept under
consideration by identifying all feature sets associated with the
concept under consideration and/or its child concepts; and for all
or a plurality of unique concept pairs in the knowledge base,
receiving correlation scores indicating the pair-wise correlations
of the feature sets that contribute to the concept under
consideration with the feature sets of at least one or other
concept in the knowledge base and calculating a score indicating
the correlation between the concepts in the pair based on the
pair-wise correlation scores.
[0009] Another aspect of the invention relates to a
computer-implemented method of conducting a query in a knowledge
base of chemical and/or biological information and comprising a
plurality of feature sets and/or feature groups and a taxonomy,
each feature set comprising at least one feature of chemical or
biological information and associated statistical information, each
feature group comprising a list of related features, and the
taxonomy comprising chemical and/or biological concepts arranged in
a hierarchical structure having at least one top level category;
the method involving receiving a query identifying one or more of
said feature sets or feature groups, wherein the query is received
from a user input to a computer system; using precomputed scores
between the one or more feature sets or feature groups and concepts
in the taxonomy to determine the most relevant concepts in response
to said query; and presenting the user with a ranked list of
concepts as determined by using the precomputed scores.
[0010] In certain embodiments, the at least one top level category
comprises at least one of the group consisting of tissues or
organs, diseases, and treatments. In certain embodiments,
presenting the user with a ranked list of concepts comprises
presenting the user with a ranked list of concepts for each top
level category.
[0011] Another aspect of the invention relates to a
computer-implemented method of conducting a query in a knowledge
base of chemical and/or biological information and comprising a
plurality of feature sets and a taxonomy, each feature set
comprising at least one feature of chemical or biological
information and associated statistical information and the taxonomy
comprising chemical and/or biological concepts arranged in a
hierarchical structure having at least one top level category; the
method comprising receiving a query identifying one or more of said
features, wherein the query is received from a user input to a
computer system; using normalized ranks of features in feature sets
associated with concepts in the taxonomy to determine the most
relevant concepts in response to said query; and presenting the
user with a ranked list of concepts as determined by using the
normalized ranks.
[0012] In certain embodiments, the at least one top level category
comprises at least one of the group consisting of tissues or
organs, diseases, and treatments. In certain embodiments,
presenting the user with a ranked list of concepts comprises
presenting the user with a ranked list of concepts for each top
level category.
[0013] Another aspect of the invention relates to a method of
conducting a query in a knowledge base of chemical and/or
biological information and comprising a plurality of feature sets
and a taxonomy, each feature set comprising at least one feature of
chemical or biological information and associated statistical
information and the taxonomy comprising chemical and/or biological
concepts arranged in a hierarchical structure having at least one
top level category; the method comprising: receiving a query
identifying one or more of said concepts, wherein the query is
received from a user input to a computer system; using pre-computed
scores indicating the correlation between concepts in the taxonomy
to determine the most relevant concepts in response to said query;
and presenting the user with a ranked list of concepts as
determined by using the pre-computed scores.
[0014] Another aspect of the invention relates to a
computer-implemented method of correlating chemical and/or
biological concepts with other information in a knowledge base,
said knowledge base comprising 1) a taxonomy of biological and/or
chemical concepts arranged in a hierarchical structure comprising
at least one top-level category, 2) a plurality of feature sets
and/or feature groups, each feature set comprising at least one
feature of chemical or biological information and associated
statistical information and each feature group comprising a list of
related features wherein at least some of said feature sets and
feature groups are associated with one or more concepts in the
taxonomy, said method comprising: for each of a plurality or all of
the concepts in the taxonomy, identifying feature sets that
contribute to scoring the concept under consideration by
identifying all feature sets associated with the concept under
consideration and/or its child concepts; receiving pre-computed
correlation scores and/or rank scores between the contributing
feature sets and other information in the knowledge base; and
calculating a score indicating correlation between the concept
under consideration and other information in the knowledge base
based on the precomputed correlations and/or rank scores.
[0015] Another aspect of the invention relates to a knowledge base
for storing, managing, organizing and querying data comprising
scientific experiment information, said knowledge base comprising:
a plurality of feature sets, each feature set comprising at least
one feature and associated statistical information; a taxonomy
comprising a list of tags arranged in a hierarchical structure; and
a concept scoring table comprising information about the
correlation between at least some of the tags in the taxonomy and
at least some the feature and/or feature sets.
[0016] In certain embodiments, knowledge base includes one or more
feature groups, each feature group comprising a list of features
related by a common biological property. In certain embodiments,
the concept scoring table further comprises information about the
correlation between at least some of the tags in the taxonomy and
at least some the feature groups. In certain embodiments, the
concept scoring table further comprises information about the
correlation between at least some of the concepts in the taxonomy.
According to various embodiments, the concept scoring table is
partitioned by at least one of data type, organism of origin and
data authority level.
[0017] Another aspect of the invention relates to
computer-implemented methods of conducting a query in a knowledge
base of chemical and/or biological information and comprising a
plurality of feature sets and/or feature groups, each feature set
comprising at least one feature of chemical or biological
information and associated statistical information as derived from
chemical or biological experimental data and each feature group
comprising a list of related features, the method comprising:
receiving a query identifying one or more of said feature sets or
feature groups, wherein the query is received from a user input to
a computer system; determining correlations between the identified
feature sets or feature groups and other content in the knowledge
base; presenting the user with results comprising a ranked list of
feature sets, wherein a ranking of a resulting feature set
indicates the degree of correlation to the identified feature sets
or feature groups; and presenting the user with an indication of
data sources of the experimental data associated with the resulting
feature sets. According to various embodiments, the data sources
are selected from at least one of data type, organism of origin and
authority level.
[0018] Another aspect of the invention relates to
computer-implemented methods of providing data to a knowledge base
of scientific information, said knowledge base comprising 1) a
taxonomy of biological and/or chemical concepts arranged in a
hierarchical structure comprising at least one top-level category,
2) a plurality of feature sets and/or feature groups, each feature
set comprising at least one feature of chemical or biological
information and associated statistical information and each feature
group comprising a list of related features wherein at least some
of said feature sets and feature groups are associated with one or
more concepts in the taxonomy, the method involving one or more of:
(a) receiving raw data from one or more samples, wherein the raw
data includes information on one or more features with indications
of one or more of: differential expression, abundance of said
features, responses of said features to a treatment or stimulus,
and effects of said features on biological systems; (b) producing
an input feature set from the raw data; (c) correlating the input
feature set against a plurality or all of the pre-existing feature
sets in the knowledge base; (d) correlating the input feature set
against a plurality or all of the concepts in the taxonomy; and (e)
assigning a data authority level to a given concept-input feature
set combination based on corroboration within the knowledge base
that the given concept is significant to the experimental data
represented by the input feature set.
[0019] Computer program products and computer systems for
implementing any of the above methods are provided. These and other
aspects of the invention are described further below with reference
to the drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0020] FIG. 1 is a representation of various elements in the
Knowledge Base of scientific information according to various
embodiments of the invention.
[0021] FIG. 2 is a representative schematic diagram of an ontology
according to various embodiments of the invention.
[0022] FIG. 3 is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
of methods of determining the most relevant concepts for features
according to certain embodiments.
[0023] FIG. 4 is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
of methods of determining the most relevant concepts for Feature
Sets according to certain embodiments.
[0024] FIG. 5 is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
of methods of determining the most relevant concepts for Feature
Groups according to certain embodiments.
[0025] FIG. 6A is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
in a query identifying a feature in accordance with certain
embodiments.
[0026] FIG. 6B is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
in a query identifying a Feature Group in accordance with certain
embodiments.
[0027] FIG. 6C is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
in a query identifying a Feature Set in accordance with certain
embodiments.
[0028] FIG. 7 presents a screen shot of a user interface window
displaying results of a feature query.
[0029] FIG. 8 presents a screen shot of a user interface window
displaying results of a Feature Group query.
[0030] FIG. 9 is a diagrammatic representation of a computer system
that can be used with the methods and apparatus described
herein.
[0031] FIG. 10A is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
in querying a concept to find the features most relevant the
concept in accordance with certain embodiments.
[0032] FIG. 10B is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
in querying a concept to find the Feature Groups most relevant the
concept in accordance with certain embodiments.
[0033] FIG. 11 is a graphical depiction of a feature-concept
scoring table in accordance with certain embodiments.
[0034] FIG. 12 presents a screen shot of a user interface window
displaying results of a concept query.
[0035] FIG. 13 is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
in a query methodology for querying specific concepts against other
concepts in accordance with certain embodiments.
[0036] FIG. 14A is a screen shot of a user interface window
displaying results of a feature query.
[0037] FIG. 14B is a screen shot of a user interface window
displaying results of the feature query shown in FIG. 14A as
filtered by the organism "human."
[0038] FIG. 14C is a screen shot of user interface window
displaying the results of the query shown in FIG. 14A, as filtered
by the organism "mouse" and the data type "gene expression."
[0039] FIG. 15A is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
of a method for determining the most relevance of concepts for
feature, Feature Set and Feature Group queries according to certain
embodiments.
[0040] FIG. 15B shows a graphical representation of the resulting
unfiltered and filtered concept relevance information in the form
of concept scoring tables according to certain embodiments.
[0041] FIG. 16 is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
of a method for determining concept-feature scores for each
organism according to certain embodiments.
[0042] FIG. 17A is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
of a method of employing authority levels according to various
embodiments.
[0043] FIG. 17B shows a flow diagram depicting some operations in a
method of assigning an authority level to a concept for a feature
according to various embodiments.
[0044] FIG. 18A shows an example of a process flow that may be
employed to assign an authority level to a feature, Feature Set or
Feature Group according to certain embodiments.
[0045] FIG. 18B is a schematic representation of authority level
(V, HC and E) assignments to each concept for each feature, Feature
Set and Feature Group.
[0046] FIG. 19-21 are process flow diagrams depicting some
operations in methods of determining contributing Feature Sets for
an authority level analysis according to various embodiments.
[0047] FIG. 22 is a process flow diagram depicting some operations
of methods of concept-feature scoring for authority level filtering
according to various embodiments.
[0048] FIG. 23 is an example of a process flow that may be used to
present data source information according to various
embodiments.
[0049] FIG. 24 is an example of a process flow for filtering data
according to data source according to various embodiments.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0050] 1. Introduction and Relevant Terminology
[0051] The present invention relates to methods, systems and
apparatus for capturing, integrating, organizing, navigating and
querying large-scale data from high-throughput biological and
chemical assay platforms. It provides a highly efficient
meta-analysis infrastructure for performing research queries across
a large number of studies and experiments from different biological
and chemical assays, data types and organisms, as well as systems
to build and add to such an infrastructure.
[0052] While most of the description below is presented in terms of
systems, methods and apparatuses that integrate and allow
exploration of data from biological experiments and studies, the
invention is by no means so limited. For example, the invention
covers chemical and clinical data. In the following description,
numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a
thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be
apparent, however, that the present invention may be practiced
without limitation to some of the specific details presented
herein.
[0053] The following terms are used throughout the specification.
The descriptions are provided to assist in understanding the
specification, but do not necessarily limit the scope of the
invention.
[0054] Raw data--This is the data from one or more experiments that
provides information about one or more samples. Typically, raw data
is not yet processed to a point suitable for use in the databases
and systems of this invention. Subsequent manipulation reduces it
to the form of one or more "feature sets" suitable for use in such
databases and systems. The process of converting the raw data to
feature sets is sometimes referred to as curation.
[0055] Most of the examples presented herein concern biological
experiments in which a stimulus acts on a biological sample such as
a tissue or cell culture. Often the biological experiment will have
associated clinical parameters such as tumor stage, patient
history, etc. The invention is not however limited to biological
samples and may involve, for example, experiments on non-biological
samples such as chemical compounds, various types of synthetic and
natural materials, etc. and their effects on various types of
assays (e.g., cancer cell line progression).
[0056] Whether working with biological or non-biological samples,
the sample may be exposed to one or more stimuli or treatments to
produce test data. Control data may also be produced. The stimulus
is chosen as appropriate for the particular study undertaken.
Examples of stimuli that may be employed are exposure to particular
materials or compositions, radiation (including all manner of
electromagnetic and particle radiation), forces (including
mechanical (e.g., gravitational), electrical, magnetic, and
nuclear), fields, thermal energy, and the like. General examples of
materials that may be used as stimuli include organic and inorganic
chemical compounds, biological materials such as nucleic acids,
carbohydrates, proteins and peptides, lipids, various infectious
agents, mixtures of the foregoing, and the like. Other general
examples of stimuli include non-ambient temperature, non-ambient
pressure, acoustic energy, electromagnetic radiation of all
frequencies, the lack of a particular material (e.g., the lack of
oxygen as in ischemia), temporal factors, etc. As suggested, a
particularly important class of stimuli in the context of this
invention is exposure to therapeutic agents (including agents
suspected of being therapeutic but not yet proven to have this
property). Often the therapeutic agent is a chemical compound such
as a drug or drug candidate or a compound present in the
environment. The biological impact of chemical compounds is
manifest as a change in a feature such as a level of gene
expression or a phenotypic characteristic.
[0057] As suggested, the raw data will include "features" for which
relevant information is produced from the experiment. In many
examples the features are genes or genetic information from a
particular tissue or cell sample exposed to a particular
stimulus.
[0058] A typical biological experiment determines expression or
other information about a gene or other feature associated with a
particular cell type or tissue type. Other types of genetic
features for which experimental information may be collected in raw
data include SNP patterns (e.g., haplotype blocks), portions of
genes (e.g., exons/introns or regulatory motifs), regions of a
genome of chromosome spanning more than one gene, etc. Other types
of biological features include phenotypic features such as the
morphology of cells and cellular organelles such as nuclei, Golgi,
etc. Types of chemical features include compounds, metabolites,
etc.
[0059] The raw data may be generated from any of various types of
experiments using various types of platforms (e.g., any of a number
of microarray systems including gene microarrays, SNP microarrays
and protein microarrays, cell counting systems, High-Throughput
Screening ("HTS") platforms, etc.). For example, an oligonucleotide
microarray is also used in experiments to determine expression of
multiple genes in a particular cell type of a particular organism.
In another example, mass spectrometry is used to determine
abundance of proteins in samples.
[0060] Feature set--This refers to a data set derived from the "raw
data" taken from one or more experiments on one or more samples.
The feature set includes one or more features (typically a
plurality of features) and associated information about the impact
of the experiment(s) on those features. At some point, the features
of a feature set may be ranked (at least temporarily) based on
their relative levels of response to the stimulus or treatment in
the experiment(s) or based on their magnitude and direction of
change between different phenotypes, as well as their ability to
differentiate different phenotypic states (e.g., late tumor stage
versus early tumor stage).
[0061] For reasons of storage and computational efficiency, for
example, the feature set may include information about only a
subset of the features or responses contained in the raw data. As
indicated, a process such as curation converts raw data to feature
sets.
[0062] Typically the feature set pertains to raw data associated
with a particular question or issue (e.g., does a particular
chemical compound interact with proteins in a particular pathway).
Depending on the raw data and the study, the feature set may be
limited to a single cell type of a single organism. From the
perspective of a "Directory," a feature set belongs to a "Study."
In other words, a single study may include one or more feature
sets.
[0063] In many embodiments, the feature set is either a "bioset" or
a "chemset." A bioset typically contains data providing information
about the biological impact of a particular stimulus or treatment.
The features of a bioset are typically units of genetic or
phenotypic information as presented above. These are ranked based
on their level of response to the stimulus (e.g., a degree of up or
down regulation in expression), or based on their magnitude and
direction of change between different phenotypes, as well as their
ability to differentiate different phenotypic states (e.g., late
tumor stage versus early tumor stage). A chemset typically contains
data about a panel of chemical compounds and how they interact with
a sample, such as a biological sample. The features of a chemset
are typically individual chemical compounds or concentrations of
particular chemical compounds. The associated information about
these features may be EC50 values, IC50 values, or the like.
[0064] A feature set typically includes, in addition to the
identities of one or more features, statistical information about
each feature and possibly common names or other information about
each feature. A feature set may include still other pieces of
information for each feature such as associated description of key
features, user-based annotations, etc. The statistical information
may include p-values of data for features (from the data curation
stage), "fold change" data, and the like. A fold change indicates
the number of times (fold) that expression is increased or
decreased in the test or control experiment (e.g., a particular
gene's expression increased "4-fold" in response to a treatment). A
feature set may also contain features that represent a "normal
state", rather than an indication of change. For example, a feature
set may contain a set of genes that have "normal and uniform"
expression levels across a majority of human tissues. In this case,
the feature set would not necessarily indicate change, but rather a
lack thereof.
[0065] In certain embodiments, a rank is ascribed to each feature,
at least temporarily. This may be simply a measure of relative
response within the group of features in the feature set. As an
example, the rank may be a measure of the relative difference in
expression (up or down regulation) between the features of a
control and a test experiment. In certain embodiments, the rank is
independent of the absolute value of the feature response. Thus,
for example, one feature set may have a feature ranked number two
that has a 1.5 fold increase in response, while a different feature
set has the same feature ranked number ten that has a 5 fold
increase in response to a different stimulus.
[0066] Directional feature set--A directional feature set is a
feature set that contains information about the direction of change
in a feature relative to a control. Bi-directional feature sets,
for example, contain information about which features are
up-regulated and which features are down-regulated in response to a
control. One example of a bi-directional feature set is a gene
expression profile that contains information about up and down
regulated genes in a particular disease state relative to normal
state, or in a treated sample relative to non-treated. As used
herein, the terms "up-regulated" and "down-regulated" and similar
terms are not limited to gene or protein expression, but include
any differential impact or response of a feature. Examples include,
but are not limited to, biological impact of chemical compounds or
other stimulus as manifested as a change in a feature such as a
level of gene expression or a phenotypic characteristic.
[0067] Non-directional feature sets contain features without
indication of a direction of change of that feature. This includes
gene expression, as well as different biological measurements in
which some type of biological response is measured. For example, a
non-directional feature set may contain genes that are changed in
response to a stimulus, without an indication of the direction (up
or down) of that change. The non-directional feature set may
contain only up-regulated features, only down-regulated features,
or both up and down-regulated features, but without indication of
the direction of the change, so that all features are considered
based on the magnitude of change only.
[0068] Feature group--This refers to a group of features (e.g.,
genes) related to one another. As an example, the members of a
feature group may all belong to the same protein pathway in a
particular cell or they may share a common function or a common
structural feature. A feature group may also group compounds based
on their mechanism of action or their structural/binding
features.
[0069] Index set--The index set is a set in the knowledge base that
contains feature identifiers and mapping identifiers and is used to
map all features of the feature sets imported to feature sets and
feature groups already in the knowledge base. For example, the
index set may contain several million feature identifiers pointing
to several hundred thousand mapping identifiers. Each mapping
identifier (in some instances, also referred to as an address)
represents a unique feature, e.g., a unique gene in the mouse
genome. In certain embodiments, the index set may contain diverse
types of feature identifiers (e.g., genes, genetic regions, etc.),
each having a pointer to a unique identifier or address. The index
set may be added to or changed as new knowledge is acquired.
[0070] Knowledge base--This refers to a collection of data used to
analyze and respond to queries. In certain embodiments, it includes
one or more feature sets, feature groups, and metadata for
organizing the feature sets in a particular hierarchy or directory
(e.g., a hierarchy of studies and projects). In addition, a
knowledge base may include information correlating feature sets to
one another and to feature groups, a list of globally unique terms
or identifiers for genes or other features, such as lists of
features measured on different platforms (e.g., Affymetrix human
HG_U133A chip), total number of features in different organisms,
their corresponding transcripts, protein products and their
relationships. A knowledge base typically also contains a taxonomy
that contains a list of all tags (keywords) for different tissues,
disease states, compound types, phenotypes, cells, as well as their
relationships. For example, taxonomy defines relationships between
cancer and liver cancer, and also contains keywords associated with
each of these groups (e.g., a keyword "neoplasm" has the same
meaning as "cancer"). Typically, though not necessarily, at least
some of the data in the knowledge base is organized in a
database.
[0071] Curation--Curation is the process of converting raw data to
one or more feature sets (or feature groups). In some cases, it
greatly reduces the amount of data contained in the raw data from
an experiment. It removes the data for features that do not have
significance. In certain embodiments, this means that features that
do not increase or decrease significantly in expression between the
control and test experiments are not included in the feature sets.
The process of curation identifies such features and removes them
from the raw data. The curation process also identifies relevant
clinical questions in the raw data that are used to define feature
sets. Curation also provides the feature set in an appropriate
standardized format for use in the knowledge base.
[0072] Data import--Data import is the process of bringing feature
sets and feature groups into a knowledge base or other repository
in the system, and is an important operation in building a
knowledge base. A user interface may facilitate data input by
allowing the user to specify the experiment, its association with a
particular study and/or project, and an experimental platform
(e.g., an Affymetrix gene chip), and to identify key concepts with
which to tag the data. In certain embodiments, data import also
includes automated operations of tagging data, as well as mapping
the imported data to data already in the system. Subsequent
"preprocessing" (after the import) correlates the imported data
(e.g., imported feature sets and/or feature groups) to other
feature sets and feature groups.
[0073] Preprocessing--Preprocessing involves manipulating the
feature sets to identify and store statistical relationships
between pairs of feature sets in a knowledge base. Preprocessing
may also involve identifying and storing statistical relationships
between feature sets and feature groups in the knowledge base. In
certain embodiments, preprocessing involves correlating a newly
imported feature set against other feature sets and against feature
groups in the knowledge base. Typically, the statistical
relationships are pre-computed and stored for all pairs of
different feature sets and all combinations of feature sets and
feature groups, although the invention is not limited to this level
of complete correlation.
[0074] In one embodiment, the statistical correlations are made by
using rank-based enrichment statistics. For example, a rank-based
iterative algorithm that employs an exact test is used in certain
embodiments, although other types of relationships may be employed,
such as the magnitude of overlap between feature sets. Other
correlation methods known in the art may also be used.
[0075] As an example, a new feature set input into the knowledge
base is correlated with every other (or at least many) feature sets
already in the knowledge base. The correlation compares the new
feature set and the feature set under consideration on a
feature-by-feature basis by comparing the rank or other information
about matching genes. A rank-based iterative algorithm is used in
one embodiment to correlate the feature sets. The result of
correlating two feature sets is a "score." Scores are stored in the
knowledge base and used in responding to queries.
[0076] Study/Project/Library--This is a hierarchy of data
containers (like a directory) that may be employed in certain
embodiments. A study may include one or more feature sets obtained
in a focused set of experiments (e.g., experiments related to a
particular cardiovascular target). A Project includes one or more
Studies (e.g., the entire cardiovascular effort within a company).
The library is a collection of all projects in a knowledge base.
The end user has flexibility in defining the boundaries between the
various levels of the hierarchy.
[0077] Tag--A tag associates descriptive information about a
feature set with the feature set. This allows for the feature set
to be identified as a result when a query specifies or implicates a
particular tag. Often clinical parameters are used as tags.
Examples of tag categories include tumor stage, patient age, sample
phenotypic characteristics and tissue types. In certain
embodiments, tags may also be referred to as concepts.
[0078] Mapping--Mapping takes a feature (e.g., a gene) in a feature
set and maps it to a globally unique mapping identifier in the
knowledge base. For example, two sets of experimental data used to
create two different feature sets may use different names for the
same gene. Often herein the knowledge base includes an encompassing
list of globally unique mapping identifiers in an index set.
Mapping uses the knowledge base's globally unique mapping
identifier for the feature to establish a connection between the
different feature names or IDs. In certain embodiments, a feature
may be mapped to a plurality of globally unique mapping
identifiers. In an example, a gene may also be mapped to a globally
unique mapping identifier for a particular genetic region. Mapping
allows diverse types of information (i.e., different features, from
different platforms, data types and organisms) to be associated
with each other. There are many ways to map and some of these will
be elaborated on below. One involves the search of synonyms of the
globally unique names of the genes. Another involves a spatial
overlap of the gene sequence. For example, the genomic or
chromosomal coordinate of the feature in a feature set may overlap
the coordinates of a mapped feature in an index set of the
knowledge base. Another type of mapping involves indirect mapping
of a gene in the feature set to the gene in the index set. For
example, the gene in an experiment may overlap in coordinates with
a regulatory sequence in the knowledge base. That regulatory
sequence in turn regulates a particular gene. Therefore, by
indirect mapping, the experimental sequence is indirectly mapped to
that gene in the knowledge base. Yet another form of indirect
mapping involves determining the proximity of a gene in the index
set to an experimental gene under consideration in the feature set.
For example, the experimental feature coordinates may be within 100
basepairs of a knowledge base gene and thereby be mapped to that
gene.
[0079] Correlation--As an example, a new feature set input into the
knowledge base is correlated with every other (or at least many)
feature sets already in the knowledge base. The correlation
compares the new feature set and the feature set under
consideration on a feature-by-feature basis comparing the rank or
other information about matching genes. A ranked based running
algorithm is used in one embodiment (to correlate the feature
sets). The result of correlating two feature sets is a "score."
Scores are stored in the knowledge base and used in responding to
queries about genes, clinical parameters, drug treatments, etc.
[0080] Correlation is also employed to correlate new feature sets
against all feature groups in the knowledge base. For example, a
feature group representing "growth" genes may be correlated to a
feature set representing a drug response, which in turn allows
correlation between the drug effect and growth genes to be
made.
[0081] 2. Knowledge Base
[0082] FIG. 1 shows a representation of various elements in the
Knowledge Base of scientific information according to various
embodiments of the invention. Examples of generation of or addition
to some of these elements (e.g., Feature Sets and a Feature Set
scoring table) are discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. No.
11/641,539 (published as U.S. Patent Publication 20070162411),
referenced above. The Knowledge Base may also include other
elements such as an index set, which is used to map features during
a data import process. In FIG. 1, element 104 indicates all the
Feature Sets in the Knowledge Base. As is described in the U.S.
Patent Publication 20070162411, after data importation, the Feature
Sets typically contain at least a Feature Set name and a feature
table. The feature table contains a list of features, each of which
is usually identified by an imported ID and/or a feature
identifier. Each feature has a normalized rank in the Feature Set,
as well as a mapping identifier. Mapping identifiers and ranks may
be determined during the import process, e.g., as described in U.S.
Patent Publication 20070162411 and then may be used to generate
correlation scores between Feature Sets and between Feature Sets
and Feature Groups. The feature table also typically contains
statistics associated with each feature, e.g., p-values and/or
fold-changes. One or more of these statistics can be used to
calculate the rank of each feature. In certain embodiments, the
ranks may be normalized. The Feature Sets may also contain an
associated study name and/or a list of tags. Feature Sets may be
generated from data taken from public or internal sources.
[0083] Element 106 indicates all the Feature Groups in the
Knowledge Base. Feature Groups contain a Feature Group name, and a
list of features (e.g., genes) related to one another. A Feature
Group typically represents a well-defined set of features generally
from public resources--e.g., a canonical signaling pathway, a
protein family, etc. Unlike Feature Sets, the Feature Groups do not
typically have associated statistics or ranks. The Feature Sets may
also contain an associated study name and/or a list of tags.
[0084] Element 108 indicates a scoring table, which contains a
measure of correlation between each Feature Set and each of the
other Feature Sets and between each Feature Set and each Feature
Group. In the figure, FS .sub.1-FS.sub.2 is a measure of
correlation between Feature Set 1 and Feature Set 2,
FS.sub.1-FG.sub.1 a measure of correlation between Feature Set 1
and Feature Group 1, etc. In certain embodiments, the measures are
p-values or rank scores derived from p-values.
[0085] Element 110 is a taxonomy or ontology that contains tags or
scientific terms for different tissues, disease states, compound
types, phenotypes, cells, and other standard biological, chemical
or medical concepts as well as their relationships. The tags are
typically organized into a hierarchical structure as schematically
shown in the figure. An example of such a structure is
Diseases/Classes of Diseases/Specific Diseases in each Class. The
Knowledge Base may also contain a list of all Feature Sets and
Feature Groups associated with each tag. The tags and the
categories and sub-categories in the hierarchical structure are
arranged in what may be referred to as concepts. A representative
schematic diagram of an ontology is shown in FIG. 2. In FIG. 2,
each node of the structure represents a medical, chemical or
biological concept. Node 202 represents a top-level category, with
children or sub-categories indicated by other nodes going down the
tree, until the bottom-level concepts as indicated by node 208. In
this manner, scientific concepts are categorized. For example, a
categorization of stage 2 breast cancer may be:
Diseases/Proliferative Diseases/Cancer/Breast Cancer/Stage 2 Breast
Cancer, with disease the top-level category. Each of
these--diseases, proliferative diseases, cancer, breast cancer and
stage 2 breast cancer--is a medical concept that may be used to tag
other information in the database. The taxonomy may be a publicly
available taxonomy, such as the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
taxonomy, Snomed, FMA (Foundation Model of Anatomy), PubChem
Features, privately built taxonomies, or some combination of these.
Examples of top-level categories include disease, tissues/organs,
treatments, gene alterations, and Feature Groups.
[0086] Element 112 is a concept scoring table, which contains
scores indicating the relevance of each concept or correlation of
each concept with the other information in the database, such as
features, Feature Sets and Feature Groups. In the embodiment
depicted in FIG. 1, scores indicating the relevance of each concept
in the taxonomy to each feature are shown at 114, scores indicating
the relevance of each concept in the taxonomy to each Feature Set
are shown at 116 and scores indicating the relevance of each
concept in the taxonomy to each Feature Group are shown at 118. (As
with the other elements represented in FIG. 1, the organizational
structure of the concept scoring is an example; other structures
may also be used to store or present the scoring.) In the figure,
F.sub.1-C.sub.1 is a measure of relevance of Concept 1 to Feature
1, FS.sub.1-C.sub.1 a measure of relevance to Concept 1 to Feature
Set 1; and FG.sub.1-C.sub.1 a measure of relevance to Concept 1 to
Feature Group 1, etc. In certain embodiments, the concept scoring
table includes information about the relevance or correlation of at
least some concepts with each of all or a plurality of other
concepts.
[0087] As discussed further below, the scores are stored for use in
user queries to the Knowledge Base. Concept scoring allows a
scientist querying the Knowledge Base to filter out the most
relevant conditions for a query of interest. Users can quickly
identify the top disease states, tissues, treatments and other
entities associated with a query of interest. Also, as discussed
below, concept scoring allows users to query concepts to find the
most relevant features, Feature Sets and Feature Groups associated
with the concept.
[0088] Generally, concept scoring involves i) identifying all
Feature Sets having the concept under consideration, and ii) using
the normalized rank of features within the identified Feature Sets
or the pre-computed correlation scores of other Feature Sets or
Feature Groups with the identified Feature Sets to determine a
score indicating the relevance of the concept under consideration
to each feature, Feature Set and Feature Group in the Knowledge
Base. The concept scores can then be used to quickly identify the
most relevant concepts for a particular feature, Feature Set or
Feature Group. In certain embodiments, less relevant Feature Sets
are removed prior to determining a score. For example, experiments
done in a cell line may have little to do with the original disease
tissue source for the cell line. Accordingly, in certain
embodiments, Feature Sets relating to experiments done on this cell
line may be excluded when computing scores for the disease
concept.
[0089] 2. Concept Scoring
[0090] FIGS. 3-5 are process flow diagrams depicting operations of
methods of determining the most relevant concepts for features
(FIG. 3), Feature Sets (FIG. 4) and Feature Groups (FIG. 5)
according to certain embodiments. These methods may be used, for
example, to populate concept scoring tables as represented in FIG.
1, or some other form of storing concept scores. As discussed
below, the stored scores may be used for response to user queries
about a feature, Feature Set or Feature Group. Although FIGS. 3-5
discuss concept scoring as being performed prior to user queries,
so that all Knowledge Base contains information about the most
relevant concepts for each feature, Feature Set and Feature Group
in the Knowledge Base, it will be apparent that the scoring may
also take place on the fly in response to a user query that
identifies one or more features, Feature Sets or Feature Groups.
Once determined, this information may be stored as indicated in
FIG. 1 for use in responding to future queries involving that
feature, etc., or discarded.
[0091] FIG. 3 depicts a method of determining the relevance of
concepts to individual features such as genes, compounds, etc., in
accordance with specific embodiments. As depicted, the process
begins at an operation 301 where the system identifies a "next"
concept in the taxonomy. Typically, the process will consider each
concept in the taxonomy. The process next identifies a "next"
feature in the Knowledge Base. See block 303. The process typically
considers each feature of the Knowledge Base. The process typically
determines a score for each possible pair of concept and feature,
and so iterates over all possible combinations, as indicated by the
two loops in FIG. 3. After setting the concept and feature for the
current iteration, the process next identifies all Feature Sets
that are tagged with 1) the current concept or 2) its' children
concepts. So, for example, referring to FIG. 2, if the concept
represented at node 206 is under consideration, all features sets
tagged with this concept and/or one or more of the concepts
represented at its child nodes 208a, 208b and 208c are identified.
In a specific example, a Feature Set tagged only with the concept
"stage 2 breast cancer," would be identified for the concept `stage
2 breast cancer` as well for its' parent concept, "breast
cancer."
[0092] As discussed further below, the identified Feature Sets are
filtered to remove (or in certain embodiments, reweight) Feature
Sets that are less relevant to the concept or that would skew the
results. After filtering the identified Feature Sets, the
normalized rank of the current feature is obtained for each of the
filtered Feature Sets, i.e., the Feature Sets remaining after
removing the less relevant Feature Sets. See block 309. As
described in U.S. Patent Publication 20070162411, features in a
Feature Set are typically ranked based on the relative effect on or
by the feature in the experiment(s) associated with the Feature
Set. See, e.g., the schematic of FIG. 1 in which Feature Set 104
contains rankings of its features. In certain embodiments,
obtaining the normalized ranks involves identifying, looking up, or
receiving the rank of the feature in each of the filtered Feature
Sets. So, for example, for a given feature F.sub.n and a given
concept C.sub.m, there may be 25 Feature Sets tagged with C.sub.m
and/or at least one of its children concepts. Ten of those
twenty-five Feature Sets may contain F.sub.n. The normalized rank
of F.sub.n in each of the Feature Sets is obtained: for example,
1/20, null, 4/8, etc., indicating a normalized rank of 1 of 20
features in the first filtered Feature Set, not present in the
second Filtered Feature Set, a normalized rank of 4/8 features in
the third filtered Feature Set, etc. (These are just examples of
normalized ranks: ranks may be normalized using several criteria
including Feature Set size, the number of features on a measurement
platform for that Feature Set and any other relevant criteria. Use
of normalized ranks allows the significance of a feature in one
Feature Set to be compared with the significance of that feature in
another Feature Set, regardless of the size of the relative size
and other differences of the Feature Sets.) After these scores are
obtained, an overall score F.sub.n-C.sub.m indicating the relevance
of the concept to the feature is obtained. See block 311. In
certain embodiments, the criteria used for computation of the final
feature-concept score includes the following attributes: normalized
rank of that feature in each Feature Set tagged with that concept
that passes "inclusion" criteria, the total number of Feature Sets
containing this feature that pass the "inclusion" criteria and the
total number of Feature Sets tagged with the concept.
[0093] The overall score F.sub.n-C.sub.m is then stored, e.g., in a
concept scoring table as shown in FIG. 1. Iteration over all
features is controlled as indicated at decision block 313 and
iteration over all concepts is controlled as indicated at decision
block 315. As can be seen, in the method shown in FIG. 3, either
iteration can be the inner or outer loop. The method shown in FIG.
3 iterates over all possible combination of concepts in the
taxonomy and features in the knowledge base; however, in other
embodiments, there may only be a subset of features and/or taxonomy
concepts for which a concept score is calculated.
[0094] FIG. 4 depicts a method of determining the relevance of
concepts to Feature Sets in accordance with specific embodiments.
Similarly, to the feature concept scoring, the process begins at an
operation 401 where the system identifies a "next" concept in the
taxonomy. A "next" Feature Set is also identified at an operation
403. The process typically scores all possible Feature Set--concept
pairs. Features Sets tagged with the current concept (and/or its
children) are identified and filtered as discussed above with
respect to FIG. 3. See blocks 405 and 407. Scores indicating the
correlation between the current Feature Set (i.e., the Feature Set
identified in operation 403) and each of the tagged and filtered
Feature Sets are obtained. See block 409. In many embodiments,
these scores are the correlation scores calculated as described in
U.S. Patent Publication 20070162411. In many embodiments, they are
obtained from a correlation matrix or table scoring such as table
106 depicted in FIG. 1. An overall score FS.sub.n-C.sub.m
indicating the relevance of the current concept to the current
Feature Set is calculated based on the correlation scores obtained
in operation 409. In certain embodiments, the criteria used for
computation of the final feature set-concept score includes the
following attributes: correlation score between Feature Set under
study and each Feature Set tagged with a given concept that passes
"inclusion" criteria, the total number of Feature sets providing
non-zero correlation with the Feature Set of interest that pass the
"inclusion" criteria and the total number of Feature Sets tagged
with the concept. The overall score may then be stored for use in
responding to user queries. The Feature Set and concept iterations
are controlled by decision blocks 413 and 415.
[0095] FIG. 5 depicts a method of determining the relevance of
concepts to Feature Groups in accordance with certain embodiments
of the invention. The method mirrors that of concept scoring for
Feature Sets depicted in FIG. 4, iterating over Feature Groups
instead of Feature Sets. See blocks 501-515. Scores indicating the
correlation between the current Feature Group and the filtered
Feature Sets may be obtained from a correlation matrix or scoring
table as depicted in FIG. 1.
[0096] Concept scoring for features, Feature Sets and Feature
Groups all involve, for each concept, identifying the Feature Sets
that are tagged with the concept and filtering these Feature Sets
to remove certain Features Sets that are less relevant to the
concept or might skew the results. These operations may be
performed for each concept, with the desired feature, Feature Set
and/or Feature Group scoring then performed as shown in blocks 309
and 311, 409 and 411, and 509 and 511.
[0097] As described above, in certain embodiments, the methods
involve filtering the Feature Sets that are tagged with a
particular concept to exclude certain Feature Sets. For example,
for concepts relating to an organ such as liver, it may be desired
to exclude Feature Sets tagged with hepatitis and include only
Feature Sets relating to healthy or normal liver tissue. According
to various embodiments, the Feature Sets may be filtered based on
one or more of the following: [0098] Exclusion of Feature Sets
having tags in a particular taxonomy (e.g., excluding all Feature
Sets tagged with a Disease from contributing to the concept score
of an organ or tissue). [0099] Exclusion of Feature Sets having
tags in a particular branch of a given taxonomy or a specific
combination of tags [0100] Exclusion of certain categories from
categorization logic, e.g., because they are too general. For
example, a concept such as "Disease" is not particularly useful. A
"black list" of such concepts that should not show up in the
results may be generated and used to filter out categories.
[0101] As described above, in certain embodiments, top level
categories include all or some of the following: Diseases,
Treatments and Tissues/Organs. An individual Feature Set may have
tags from any or all of these categories. As an example, Feature
Sets having the following tag combinations may be filtered
according to the following logic:
TABLE-US-00001 Data Category Tag Combinations Diseases
Tissues/Organs Treatments Diseases Yes No No Diseases + Treatments
Yes No Yes Diseases + Tissues Yes No No Diseases + Tissues + Yes No
Yes Treatments Tissues No Yes No Tissues + Treatments No No Yes
Treatments No No Yes
[0102] The above logic excludes Feature Sets that have tags
categorized as either "Disease" or "Treatment" from contributing to
the concept score of a tissue/organ. As discussed above, this is so
that Feature Sets relating to diseases and/or treatments of these
organs do not contribute to the concept score.
[0103] The decision logic may be based on the type of experimental
data/model under consideration. As noted above, experiments done in
cell lines may have little to do with the original disease tissue
source for the cell line. Thus, a cell line Feature Set tagged with
the original disease concept may skew the statistics with effects
unrelated to the disease if allowed to contribute to the concept
score of that disease. For example, if there are several hundred
biosets (Feature Set) associated with MCF7 breast cancer cells
treated with various types of compounds, without filtering these
out, there be a significant "bias" when scores are computed for the
concept "breast cancer." In this case, filtering the Feature Sets
may require excluding certain branches of a taxonomy when a
particular disease concepts are scored.
[0104] 3. Queries
[0105] The description herein of methods, computational systems,
and user interfaces for creating and defining a Knowledge Base
provides a framework for describing an advanced categorization
querying methodology that may be employed with the present
invention. The querying methodology described herein is not however
limited to the specific architecture or content of the Knowledge
Base presented above. Generally, a query involves designating
specific content to generate a query result in which the concepts
most relevant to the designated content are provided. In certain
embodiments, these concepts are grouped by category (e.g., Disease,
Treatment, Tissue, Biogroup, Gene, etc.) so that the most relevant
concepts for the designated content in each category are shown. The
advance categorization or concept querying may be used in
conjunction with or apart from the querying methodology described
in U.S. Patent Publication 20070162411, in which specific content
is designated to be compared against other content in a field of
search.
[0106] As examples, the following discussion will focus on three
general types of queries: features (e.g., genes), Feature Sets and
Feature Groups. First, FIG. 6A shows an overview of query
identifying a feature. As illustrated, the process begins by
receiving the identity of a feature input (block 601) followed by
receiving a "Run Query" command (block 603). The query is run by
determining the most relevant concepts to the feature by comparing
the normalized ranks of the queried feature in all Feature Sets
that contribute to a concept score across all (or at least a
plurality of) concepts (block 605). As described above, concept
scoring is based on determining the Feature Sets that contribute to
a concept score (see, e.g., blocks 305 and 307 of FIG. 3).
Comparing the normalized ranks across all concepts to compute a
feature-concept score (F.sub.n-C.sub.m) according to certain
embodiments is discussed above with respect to FIG. 3. Note that if
the feature--concept scores are pre-computed as described above
with respect to FIG. 3, running the query may involve sorting the
pre-computed concept scores feature or otherwise obtaining the top
scoring concepts for the queried feature. The next operation in the
depicted query involves presenting to the user the ranked list of
concepts (i.e., the query result). See block 607. As in other
embodiments described herein, the resulting concepts may be
conveniently displayed as grouped by category. For example, the
results may show the top 10 concepts for each top-level category,
and/or designated sub-category in an ontology.
[0107] FIG. 7 presents a screen shot of a user interface window 701
displaying results of a feature query. In this specific example,
the Gata2 gene is queried as shown at 703. The results of the query
are shown at 705: the most significant or relevant concepts as
grouped by Tissues/Organs, Treatments and Diseases are listed in
descending order of relevance. The results may be expanded by the
user, e.g., by clicking on a concept, to show the Feature Sets that
1) contributed to the concept score and 2) contain the queried
feature. (In certain embodiements, these Feature Sets may be
displayed by study as discussed in U.S. Patent Publication
20070162411). The results may also be expanded to display more
concepts for each category. The screen shot depicted also shows the
results of a query comparing the gene to other content under the
heading "Individual Study Results," as described in U.S. Patent
Publication 20070162411. The results may be further expandable by
selecting one of these Feature Sets to display the feature(s) that
match the queried feature and their rank within the selected
Feature Set.
[0108] In certain embodiments, the results may also display, or be
expanded to display sub-concepts that may be relevant. For example,
a user clicking on a concept may expand the results to show a
ranked list of child concepts of the clicked-on concept. Also, in
certain embodiments, a list of Feature Sets that relevant to the
concept may be displayed. These Feature Sets may be arranged by
Study in certain embodiments. For example, with reference to FIG.
7, in certain embodiments, clicking or otherwise selecting a
concept changes the list of studies in the bottom part of the page
to a subset of the studies that are relevant to the concept. Thus,
clicking on cancer will return studies related to lung cancer,
breast cancer, etc., while selecting breast cancer would show the
list of studies relevant to breast cancer. FIG. 6B shows an
overview of a process of running a categorization or concept query
on a Feature Group. Operations 609-615 are similar to the process
described for a feature in FIG. 6A, except that running the query
involves comparing the Feature Group v. Feature Set correlations
for the queried Feature Group and all Feature Sets that contribute
to a concept score. The comparison is typically done across all
concepts. One implementation according to certain embodiments is
discussed above with respect to FIG. 5. As with the features, if
the Feature Group-concept scores are pre-computed, running the
query may involve obtaining or receiving the scores from a
pre-computed scoring table or matrix as shown at 118 in FIG. 1.
FIG. 8 presents a screen shot of a user interface window 801
displaying results of a Feature Group query. In this specific
example, the MAPK signaling pathway is queried. Significant concept
results are presented by category at 805, as grouped by category
and listed in descending order of significance.
[0109] FIG. 6C shows an overview of a categorization query on a
Feature Set. The process parallels that for a Feature Group, except
the correlations of the queried Feature Set with the Feature Sets
that contribute to a concept score compared across all concepts.
See blocks 617-623. Also shown is a screen shot showing an example
of results on a Feature Set query, in this specific example, the
bioset Myc overexpression_CHGN vs. Control.
[0110] In certain embodiments, a query may identify multiple
features, Feature Sets or Feature Groups. In these instances, the
most significant concepts for the query as a group are found by
averaging or otherwise factoring the concept scores for each of the
features, Feature Sets or Feature Groups identified in the
query.
[0111] In certain embodiments, a query methodology for querying
specific concepts against other content is provided. FIGS. 10a and
10b show methods of querying a concept to find the features and
Feature Groups, respectively, most relevant to the concept. In FIG.
10a, a concept is received as a query input. See block 1001. A run
query command is then received. See block 1003. A user may specify
a query and give a run query command by entering a concept in a
search box, clicking on a concept while browsing through a
taxonomy, etc. Features most relevant to the queried concept are
then determined by identifying the features in the Features Sets
that contribute to the concept score and comparing the normalized
ranks of the features in these Feature Sets across all features.
See block 1005. As discussed above, the Feature Sets that
contribute to the concept score are typically those Feature Sets
that are tagged with the concept or one of its children and, in
certain embodiments, also pass the category or other filters.
Pre-computing the feature-concept score F.sub.n-C.sub.m as
described above provides a convenient way to quickly identify the
most relevant features for a concept by sorting these scores to
find the top scoring features. This is schematically depicted in
FIG. 11, which shows a graphical depiction of a feature-concept
scoring table such as that shown at 114 in FIG. 1. A ranked list of
features is then presented to the user as a result of the query.
See block 1007.
[0112] In FIG. 10b, Feature Groups most relevant to the queried
concept are determined. Operations 1009-1015 parallel those in FIG.
10a. As discussed above with reference to FIG. 5, correlation or
relevance between a concept and a Feature Group may be determined
based on the correlation between a Feature Group and the Feature
Sets tagged with the concept. Again, pre-computing Feature
Group-concept score FG.sub.n-C.sub.m provides a convenient way to
find the top Feature Groups for a concept. FIG. 12 presents a
screen shot of a user interface window 1201 displaying results of a
concept query. In this specific example, rapamycin is queried. The
most significant genes (features) and biogroups (Feature Groups)
are listed at 1203 and 1205, respectively, in descending order of
relevance.
[0113] Also in certain embodiments, concept-concept queries may be
performed. For example, a user may identify a concept--by entering
it in a search box, identifying it by browsing through a taxonomy,
list of concepts, etc. A ranked list of concepts most significant
to the query may be returned. In certain embodiments, to find
related concepts for a concept all, or a subset of, the datasets
(Feature Sets) that have been tagged by each of the concepts may be
taken into consideration. The higher the overlap between these two
sets--with the value normalized to factor in the number of datasets
tagged with each of the concepts--the higher is the correlation
between the two concepts. In this manner, concepts that are similar
to a particular concept can be found.
[0114] In certain embodiments, concept-concept queries are
performed by obtaining scores indicating the correlation between
two concepts. These concept-concept scores may be computed by
computing a summary or similarity function between all Feature Sets
tagged with concept C1 (or its children) and Feature Sets tagged
with concept C2 (or its children). In this manner, the correlation
between each concept C1 and all other concepts may be obtained.
[0115] FIG. 13 is a flow diagram illustrating operations in a query
methodology for querying specific concepts against other concepts.
The method begins in an operation 1301 in which a concept to be
queried (C1 in the example in FIG. 13) is received. A command to
run the query is received in an operation 1303. The Feature Sets
that contribute to the concept score for C1 are identified as
described above, e.g., by identifying all Feature Sets that are
tagged with the concept or its children and in certain embodiments,
filtering those Feature Sets to remove less relevant ones. See
block 1305. A "next" concept Cn is then identified. See block 1307.
According to various embodiments, concept-concept scores indicating
the significance of every concept to C1 may be computed, or there
may be a subset of concepts for which C1 is queried against, e.g.,
the subset may be a certain taxonomy or branch thereof. For
example, a disease concept may be queried only against treatment
concepts. If the field of search is more limited than all concepts,
this may be performed automatically based on a certain protocol
and/or may be indicated via a user input. All Feature Sets that
contribute to concept Cn scoring are then identified as described
above. See block 1309. Correlation scores indicating the pair-wise
correlation of each Feature Set that contributes to C1 with each
Feature Set that contributes to Cn are obtained. See block 1311. As
discussed above, these correlation scores may be computed as
discussed in U.S. Patent Publication 20070162411, or retrieved from
a Scoring Table as depicted at 108 in FIG. 1. A summary or
similarity function is then applied to these scores to produce an
overall score C1-Cn indicating the correlation between these
concepts. See block 1313. In an example, three biosets (Feature
Sets) are tagged with C1: BS1, BS2 and BS3 and three biosets are
tagged with C2: BS4, BS5 and BS6.
TABLE-US-00002 Feature sets tagged with C1: Feature sets tagged
with C2: BS1 BS4 BS2 BS5 BS3 BS6
[0116] There are a total of nine scores representing pair-wise
correlations between feature sets in C1 and C2 (BS1-BS4, BS1-BS5,
BS1-BS6, BS2-BS4, etc.) To compute the correlation score between C1
and C2, a specialized summary function for all scores between all
feature sets in C1 and all feature sets in C2 is applied to these
nine scores. In performing the summary functions, attributes that
may be included include one or more of Feature Sets that produce
"positive scores" and total Feature Sets tagged with each concept.
Furthermore, the same "exclusion filter" can apply here for any
Feature Set tagged with a particular concept, i.e., in embodiments
where the Feature Sets are filtered, the Feature Sets BS 1, B2,
etc. are the ones that passed the filter in addition to being
tagged with the relevant concept.
[0117] Returning to FIG. 13, once a score indicating the
correlation between C1 and Cn is calculated, there is a check for
other concepts to be compared to or scored with C1. See block 1315.
If there are, operations indicated at 1307-1315 are repeated. If
not, the concepts most highly correlated to are determined from all
of the concept-concepts scores calculated. See block 1317. A ranked
list of concepts is then presented to the user as a result of the
query. See block 1319.
[0118] Various operations described in FIG. 13 may be performed
outside of a user query. For example, although FIG. 13 shows the
concept-concept scores calculated in response to a user query,
these scores may also be pre-computed in the same fashion as
described above for feature-concept scoring, etc. A concept scoring
table such as that represented in FIG. 1 may also include
concept-concept scores. In certain embodiments, concept-concept
correlation scoring may involve computing the correlation of each
concept with all or a subset of all other concepts, while querying
may involve a smaller subset of these concepts.
[0119] 4. Data Source Information
[0120] Another aspect of the invention relates to using data source
information to query and navigate knowledge in the Knowledge Base.
Data source information may be divided into data source groups,
with each group containing information about a particular aspect or
aspects of the data source, including quality. According to various
embodiments, data source information includes information relating
to organism the data was derived from (e.g., gene expression in
human cell lines, mouse cell lines exposed to a particular
compound, etc.), data type (e.g., gene expression, proteinomics,
diagnostic, therapeutic, etc.) and data authority level (e.g.,
experimental, high confidence, validated.)
[0121] Each Feature Set is typically associated with a single
organism, though there may be instances in which it is associated
with multiple organisms. The set of possible organism associations
may include all known organisms as well one or more synthetic
associations.
[0122] Each Feature Set may be associated with one or more data
types, though typically a Feature Set is associated with a singe
data type, e.g., gene expression, DNA mutation, SNP association,
etc.
[0123] Data type information may include information about what was
measured by the experiment (e.g., gene expression) as well as other
information about that characterizes the data such as diagnostic or
therapeutic. It may further include information about where the
experimental data was reported or obtained (e.g., literature,
clinical tests, etc.) or information about the quality or
reputation of the source. A non-inclusive list of data types
follows: diagnostic, therapeutic, phenotypic, genotyping, DNA
mutation, gene expression, DNA methylation, Protein-DNA Binding
(ChIP), proteomics, clinical trial and literature. Note that all of
these data types may be included and presented to user together or
may be separated into different data source groups (e.g., measured
quantity in one group, diagnostic vs. therapeutic in another group,
etc.).
[0124] Authority level refers to the extent the data has been
validated. There are at least two authority levels, e.g., validated
and non-validated. In certain embodiments, there are three
authority levels: experimental, high confidence and validated,
which in a particular embodiment is characterized by the following:
[0125] validated: validated refers to the high level of validation,
including results or data that are accepted in clinical practice,
or by authorities such as the Food and Drug Administration, e.g.,
mutation data from the cancer census, gene target data from a drug
bank [0126] high confidence: high confidence may include data or
results observed in phenotypes (e.g., mice knockout data), that is
well known (e.g., a known association between a gene mutation and a
disease), or that agrees with a large number of other studies
[0127] experimental: experimental data is the default association
for data or results that do not meet the requirements for high
confidence or validated. Typically data from individual experiments
(e.g., individual gene expression) have an authority level of
experimental.
[0128] In certain embodiments, Feature Sets in the Knowledge Base
are labeled with data source information labels, for example, in
one embodiment, each Feature Set may have an organism label, a data
source label and an authority label as part of a standardized
format for importation into the Knowledge Base. As is discussed
further below, these labels may be used to further filter query
results to dynamically navigate through the Knowledge Base.
[0129] Information about the breakdown of the experimental data in
the individual study results by data source may be presented to a
user. FIG. 14A-14C presents screen shots illustrating how data
source information may be used to display and navigate results of a
query. In FIG. 14A, user interface window 1401 displays results of
a feature query. In this specific example, the ESR1 gene is queried
as shown at 1403. Concepts results are shown at 1405, with the
color intensity of the square next to each concept indicating its
significance to the top-ranked concept. In addition to the concept
results shown at 1405, pie charts graphically depicting data source
information for the query as shown at 1407. At 1409, for example, a
pie chart depicting Feature Sets contributing to the query result
as divided by organism is displayed. In the example shown in FIG.
14A, the pie chart 1409 shows that data from human, mouse and rat
contributes to the results for the ESR1 query. Similarly, pie chart
1410 shows gene expression, phenotypic and therapeutic data
sources. In the example shown in FIG. 14B, the pie chart 1409 shows
that most of the Feature Sets in the query results are from human
sources, with rat, worm and fly data also present. Similarly, data
type information is displayed at 1410. The pie chart 1410 shows
that gene expression data is the largest data type, with genotyping
(SNP) and protenomics data also contributing. At 1411, a pie chart
displaying the breakdown by authority level of the query results
for ESR1 is shown.
[0130] These results may be navigated by selecting one or more of
the data sources to filter the results. FIG. 14C is a screen shot
of user interface window 1401 displaying the results of the query
shown in FIG. 14A, filtered by mouse and gene expression. Pie
charts 1413 and 1415 show only that data sources associated with
mouse and gene expression, respectively, are included in the
results. Filtering by mouse and gene expression updates all
results: the data source results are updated as are the most
significant concepts and the individual study results. For example,
if a user filters by mouse only, the pie chart 1415 shows the
breakdown of data source types associated with all the
mouse-specific experimental data contributing to the results.
Determining the category results for each data source-specific
(e.g., organism-specific, data type-specific, or authority
level-specific) filter is discussed below. Note that a user may
navigate by filtering by one data source group, or as in FIG. 14C,
by multiple groups.
[0131] In certain embodiments, a user may identify, e.g., by
clicking on any source to filter the results to that source. Any
concept may be identified the user, e.g., by clicking on it, to
filter the experiments (e.g., as indicated by study results) and
data sources for that concept.
[0132] A. Filtering by Organism or Data Type
[0133] According to various embodiments, filtering results by
organism or data type involves recalculating the most relevant
concepts for the particular feature, Feature Set or Feature Group
query as filtered by the organism or the data type. This may be
done during the preprocessing stage as discussed above with respect
to FIGS. 3-5. A concept scoring table is generated as described
with reference to FIGS. 3-5 for all knowledge in the Knowledge
Base; individual Concept-feature; Concept-Feature Set and
Concept-Feature Group tables are then partitioned by organism, data
type or other data source information group. FIG. 15A is a process
flow diagram representing operations of a method for determining
the most relevance of concepts for feature, Feature Set and Feature
Group queries according to certain embodiments. First, in an
operation 1501, an unfiltered concept scoring table is generated,
i.e., a scoring table for all data in the Knowledge Base. This may
be done as explained above with reference to FIGS. 3-5, with a
graphical representation of a concept scoring table shown at 112 in
FIG. 1. In an operation 1503, the data is then partitioned on a
per-organism basis to generate a scoring table for each organism.
Methods of generating an organism-specific scoring table are
discussed further below. In an operation 1505, the data is
partitioned on a per-data type basis to generate a scoring table
for each data type. Methods of generating organism-specific and
data type-specific scoring tables are discussed further below. In
an operation 1507, the data is partitioned on a per-authority level
basis to generate a scoring table for each authority level. This is
also discussed further below. While the method in FIG. 15A refers
to organism, data type and authority level, the method may be
performed using any data source information group described above
in addition to or instead of these groups. Filtered
concept-feature, concept-Feature Set and concept-Feature Group
information may also be stored in any appropriate format.
[0134] FIG. 15B shows a graphical representation of the resulting
unfiltered and filtered concept relevance information in the form
of concept scoring tables. At 1509, a concept scoring table for all
data is depicted; this table contains concept relevance information
for possible queries (e.g., feature, Feature Set and Feature Group)
across all organisms, data types, authority levels and other data
source groups. As shown at 112 in FIG. 1, in certain embodiments,
the table contains information about the relevance of each concept
to each feature, information about the relevance of concept to each
Feature Set and information about the relevance of each concept to
each Feature Group in the Knowledge Base. (As indicated above, in
certain embodiments, there may only be a subset of features and/or
taxonomy concepts for which a concept score is calculated and
stored). At 1511, concept scoring tables as filtered by organism
are depicted: a concept scoring table for each of m organisms, each
containing concept-feature scores, concept-Feature Set scores and
concept-Feature Group scores. Similarly, at 1513, concept scoring
tables for each of n data types are depicted. At 1515, concept
scoring tables for each authority level are depicted. (Three
authority levels are depicted in the example shown in FIG. 15B, but
there may be from two to any number of authority levels according
to various embodiments).
[0135] Calculating concept-feature, concept-Feature Set and
concept-Feature Group scores for organisms and data types generally
involves the same methodology employed for calculating the concept
scoring table for all data, described above with respect to FIGS.
3-5, with only Feature Sets labeled with the organism, data type or
other data source groups, considered. An example of determining
concept-feature scores for each organism is depicted in FIG.
16.
[0136] As depicted, the process begins at an operation 1600 where
the system identifies a "next" organism in the Knowledge Base. As
described above, the set of all organisms may include all known
actual and synthetic organisms. A concept and feature are set for
the current iteration. See blocks 1601 and 1603. The process next
identifies all Feature Sets that labeled with the current organism
and that are tagged with 1) the current concept or 2) its' children
concepts. See block 1605. The identified Feature Sets are filtered
to remove (or in certain embodiments, reweight) Feature Sets that
are less relevant to the concept or that would skew the results.
See block 1607. The normalized rank of the current feature is
obtained for each of the filtered Feature Sets, i.e., the Feature
Sets remaining after removing the less relevant Feature Sets. See
block 1609. After these ranks are obtained, an overall score
F.sub.n-C.sub.m indicating the relevance of the concept to the
feature is obtained. See block 1611. The overall score
F.sub.n-C.sub.m is then stored, e.g., in an organism-specific
concept scoring table (as shown in FIG. 15B) at 1611. Iteration
over all features is controlled as indicated at decision block
1613, iteration over all concepts is controlled as indicated at
decision block 1615, and iteration over all organisms is controlled
(as the outer loop) as indicated at decision block 1617. As
described, the process in FIG. 16 minors that of FIG. 3, with only
Feature Sets that are tagged with the relevant concepts and labeled
with the current organism considered. Similarly, the
concept-Feature Set scoring may be performed described in FIG. 4,
with only Feature Sets labeled with the current organism and tagged
with the current concept or its children identified in operation
405. Concept-Feature Group scoring may be performed as described in
FIG. 5, with only with only Feature Sets labeled with the current
organism and tagged with the current concept or its children
identified in operation 505. The organism-specific concept-feature,
concept-Feature Set and concept-Feature Group scores are stored for
later use, e.g., such as in the concept scoring tables represented
in FIG. 15B, allowing efficient dynamic navigation through the
query results. In the same manner, the data is partitioned by data
type to determine the most relevant or significant concepts for
each possible query as filtered by data type. Similarly, this
approach may be used to partition data based on any data source
group.
[0137] B. Filtering by Authority Level
[0138] As described above, filtering by organism, data type and
other data source groups is performed based on the data source
group labels associated with the Feature Sets. Filtering authority
level may also be performed in this manner. However, in certain
embodiments, filtering by authority level is based on corroboration
within the Knowledge Base that a given concept is significant to a
particular feature, Feature Set or Feature Group query. This allows
the authority level assigned to a particular query to reflect the
collective evidence of the Knowledge Base, and not just the
authority level or levels assigned to the individual experiments.
For example, an individual experiment may show a connection between
a particular feature (e.g., a gene) and breast cancer, with the
corresponding Feature Set labeled experimental. If there is enough
corroboration in the Knowledge Base, however, of the gene being
linked to breast cancer, then the gene in question may have a
higher authority level than experimental for the concept "Breast
Cancer."
[0139] FIG. 17A is a process flow diagram showing operations in a
method of employing authority levels according to various
embodiments. First, a single authority level is assigned to each
concept for each Feature, Feature Set and Feature Group relevant to
that concept. See block 1701. For example, the concept "Breast
Cancer" is assigned a single authority level (e.g., experimental,
high confidence or validated) for the ESR1 gene, a single authority
level for the RAP1A gene, etc. Similarly, the concept "Breast
Cancer" is assigned a single authority level for the Feature Set
"breast cancer basal-like CHGN vs. normal-like tumors," a single
authority level for the Feature Set "breast cancer chemotherapy
CHGN vs. non-treated patients," a single authority level for the
Feature Group "Cell Cycle," a single authority level for the
Feature Group "IGF-1 Pathway," etc. The assigned authority levels
may then be used to perform concept scoring for each authority
level, e.g., to populate concept scoring tables as shown at 1515 in
FIG. 15B. See block 1703.
[0140] FIG. 17B shows a flow diagram illustrating operations in a
method of assigning an authority level to a concept for a feature.
For each concept-feature pair, the Feature Sets that contribute to
the authority level analysis are determined in an operation 1751.
As discussed further below, the contributing Feature Sets are
selected based on the tagged concepts of each Feature Set and the
normalized ranks of the feature in the Feature Sets. An authority
level is then assigned in an operation 1753 based on 1) the default
(labeled) authority levels of each of the individual contributing
Feature Sets and/or 2) the level of corroboration of the
significance of that feature to the concept. Analogous methods may
be used to assign authority levels to a concept for Feature Sets
and Feature Groups, with the contributing Feature Sets chosen based
on pre-computed Feature Set-Feature Set scores and pre-computed
Feature Set-Feature Group scores, respectively.
[0141] FIG. 18A shows an example of a process flow that may be
employed to assign an authority level to a feature, Feature Set or
Feature Group according to certain embodiments. As depicted the
process begins at an operation 1801, in which two parameters are
set: Minimum Number of Contributing Feature Sets and the Minimum
Number of Contributing Studies. These parameters are chosen to
identify the minimum amount of corroborating data in the Knowledge
Base that supports assigning a concept a higher authority level for
a particular feature, Feature Set or Feature Groups. (A
contributing study is a study that contains a contributing Feature
Set). The parameters chosen in operation 1801 may be constant for
all concepts, features, Feature Sets and Feature Groups or may vary
depending on the concept type, query type, etc. In certain
embodiments, a user is able to assign default authority levels
during data importation. The system contains reasonable default
parameters, e.g., at least five related studies providing
supporting evidence.
[0142] As is described further below, the parameters set in
operation 1801 allow a higher authority level to be assigned to a
concept if there is enough evidence in the Knowledge Base that the
feature, Feature Set or Feature Group is significant to the concept
as revealed either by the number of Feature Sets or studies that
corroborate the significance. The process then identifies the
current Feature (Fm), Feature Set (FSm) or Feature Group (FGm) in
an operation 1803. The next concept Cn is then identified in an
operation 1805. (The process may involve an appropriate iteration
over all combinations of concepts and features, all combinations of
concepts and Feature Sets and all combinations of concepts and
Feature Groups, however, for simplicity only an iteration over all
concepts is shown for the identified feature, etc.) At this point,
a feature--concept (Fm-Cn), Feature Set--concept (FSm-Cn) or
Feature Group--concept (FGn-Cm) pair is identified. Contributing
Feature Sets may include Feature Sets correlated highly to the
feature, Feature Set or Feature Group in question and are tagged
with the appropriate concept. Further description of identifying
contributing Feature Sets is shown below with respect to FIGS.
19-21.
[0143] At decision block 1811, the system determines if any of the
contributing Feature Sets are labeled with the highest authority
level, in this example, `Validated.` See block 1810. If there are,
the concept is assigned to an authority level of `Validated` for
the current feature, Feature Set or Feature Group. If not, the
system determines if any of the contributing Feature Sets are
labeled with the next highest authority level, in this example,
`High Confidence,` at decision block 1811. If there are, the
concept is assigned an authority level of `High Confidence` for the
current feature, Feature Set or Feature Group. See block 1812. If
not, the system determines if the number of contributing Feature
Sets is greater than or equal to the minimum parameter or the
number of contributing studies is greater than or equal to the
minimum parameter. See blocks 1813 and 1815. If either decision
block 1813 or 1815 is answered in the affirmative, the concept is
assigned an authority level of `High Confidence` for the current
feature, Feature Set or Feature Group. See block 1812. If not, the
concept is assigned an authority level of `Experimental` for the
current feature, Feature Set or Feature Group. See block 1816.
Iteration over the concepts for the feature, Feature Set or Feature
Group in question is controlled by decision block 1817. Although
FIG. 18A shows a process flow for assigning one of three authority
levels, the process can be modified to assign two or more authority
levels depending on the embodiment.
[0144] Ultimately, an authority level is assigned to every concept
for every feature, Feature Set and Feature Group that is relevant
to the concept. This is represented schematically in FIG. 18B,
which shows authority level (V, HC and E) assignments to each
concept for each feature at 1851, authority level assignments to
each concept for each Feature Set at 1853, authority level
assignments to each concept for each Feature Group at 1855. (In
instances where there is no data relevant to the particular concept
and feature, Feature Set or Feature Group, i.e., there are no
contributing Feature Sets, a null value is shown.)
[0145] FIGS. 19-21 show process flows for implementing operation
1809, which determines contributing Feature Sets for the authority
level analysis described above. As discussed above, the authority
level analysis is used to identify if the collective evidence in
the Knowledge Base that shows a particular concept is highly
relevant to a particular feature, Feature Set or Feature Group; the
contributing Feature Sets are Feature Sets that indicate a
connection between the concept and the feature, Feature Set and
Feature Group.
[0146] FIG. 19 describes a process flow for identifying
contributing Feature Sets for features, FIG. 20 for Feature Sets
and FIG. 21 for Feature Groups. FIG. 19 is a process flow to
identify contributing Feature Sets for a feature and concept pair
Fn-Cm. As shown, the process begins by identifying Feature Sets
that are tagged with the concept or it children. See block 1901. In
certain embodiments, the identified Feature Sets are then filtered
according to concept category rules to remove less relevant Feature
Sets in an operation 1903, e.g., using one or more of the exclusion
rules described above with respect to concept scoring. The
remaining Feature Sets are then filtered to remove Feature Sets for
which the feature Fn is not significant in an operation 1905. In
general, this involves setting a parameter that specifies the
maximum normalized rank a feature must have within the Feature Set;
if the normalized rank of Fn within the Feature Set is higher than
this parameter, the Feature Set is removed from the group of
contributing Feature Sets. FIGS. 20 and 21 show similar process
flows for identifying contributing Feature Sets for Feature Set and
Feature Group queries, respectively. As with determining
contributing Feature Sets for feature queries, the processes for
Feature Sets and Feature Groups begin with identifying Feature Sets
that are tagged with the concept Cm or its children. See blocks
2001 and 2101. Similarly, the Feature Sets may be filtered to
remove less relevant Feature Sets or Feature Sets that may skew the
results in operations 2003 and 2103, respectively. The remaining
Feature Sets are then filtered to remove Feature Sets based on
pre-computed Feature Set vs. Feature Set rank scores for the
Feature Set queries (see block 2005 in FIG. 20) and on pre-computed
Feature Set vs. Feature Group rank scores for Feature Group queries
(see block 2105 in FIG. 21). As with feature queries, parameters
setting minimum Feature Set vs. Feature Set rank scores and Feature
Set vs. Feature Group rank scores may be set to determine which
Feature Sets correlate highly enough to be considered a
contributing Feature Set. In certain embodiments, a Feature Set may
also be included if its rank score with the query Feature Set is
among the top rank scores for all Feature Set vs. Feature Set
scores for the query Feature Set, e.g., against all Feature Sets
that satisfy the general category requirements applied in operation
2003. Contributing Feature Sets for a query Feature Group may also
be applied determined in this manner. As an example, Feature Sets
may be filtered according to the following logic (with the general
category requirement column providing examples of filtering logic
used in operations 1903, 2003 and 2103, and the filtering rule
providing examples of filtering logic used in operations 1905, 2005
and 2105).
TABLE-US-00003 Category Contributing Feature Set Requirement Query
Result General Type Type Category Filtering Rule Feature Tissue
Feature Set Feature Set should have the query belong to gene with
normalizedrank smaller Tissue than MAX_NORM_RANK Feature Disease
Feature Set belong to Disease and not belong to Treatment Feature
Treatment Feature Set belong to Treatment Feature Tissue Feature
Set Feature Set should have good Set belong to rankscore with the
query Feature Tissue Set: Feature Disease Feature Set 1) rankscore
> MIN_FEATURE Set belong to SET_SCORE Disease and 2) rankscore
is among top not belong to MIN_FEATURE SET_PERC Treatment
percentage of all Feature Set- Feature Treatment Feature Set
Feature Set scores for the Set belong to query Feature Set against
all Treatment Feature Sets satisfying the general category
requirement. Feature Tissue Feature Set Feature Set should have
good Group belong to rankscore with the query biogroup: Tissue 1)
rankscore > MIN_FEATURE Feature Disease Feature Set GROUP_SCORE
Group belong to 2) rankscore is among top Disease and MIN_FEATURE
GROUP_PERC not belong to percentage of all Feature Set- Treatment
biogroup scores for the query Feature Treatment Feature Set
biogroup against all Feature Sets Group belong to satisfying the
general category Treatment requirement.
[0147] Once assigned, the assigned authority levels may then be
used to perform authority level-specific concept scoring. FIG. 22
shows a process flow for doing so for concept-feature scoring for
authority level filtering. The process is similar to that described
above in FIG. 3, using the assigned authority levels for individual
feature-concept pairs. First in an operation 2200, the next
authority level ALn (e.g., experimental, high confidence or
validated) is identified. A next feature, Fn, is then identified in
an operation 2201, with the process typically iterating over all
features for the current authority level ALn. Assigned authority
level information is then used to identify the next concept in the
Knowledge Base that has an ALn assigned for the feature Fn in an
operation 2203. In this manner, only feature-concepts pairs having
the authority level in question are considered for the
concept-feature scoring. Concept scoring then is performed as
described in FIG. 3: all Feature Sets tagged with the concept or
its children are identified in an operation 2205; these Feature
Sets are then optionally filtered, e.g., based on tag or category
combinations in an operation 2207. In certain embodiments,
operations 2205 and 2207 may make use of identifying and filtering
operations performed during the authority level assignment
described above with reference to FIG. 19. The normalized rank of
the Fn for each of the filtered Feature Sets is then obtain in an
operation 2209 to perform a summary algorithm to calculate an
overall score for the current feature Fn and the current concept in
an operation 2211. This is then stored, e.g., in one of the
authority level concept scoring tables shown at 1515 in FIG. 15B.
Iteration over all concepts that have an authority level ALn for
the feature Fn is controlled by decision block 2213. Once all of
the concepts having the current authority level for feature Fn are
scored, iteration over all the features in the Knowledge Base is
controlled by a decision block 2215. After all of the features have
been scored, the concept scoring for that authority level is
complete (e.g., the feature-concept sub-table of one of the concept
scoring tables shown at 1515 is completely filled in). Iteration
over the remaining authority levels is controlled by a decision
block 2217. The process flows shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, for Feature
Set-concept scoring and Feature Group-concept scoring, may be
similarly modified to perform authority level-specific Feature
Set-concept scoring and Feature Group-concept scoring.
[0148] For a concept query (e.g., of the types Tissue, Disease, or
Treatment) the individual results under features or Feature Groups
do not need to be computed. Instead, the authority level may be
obtained from the one that is assigned to the reverse query. For
example, for the query of the type Disease `Breast Cancer`, under
its Gene categorization result, `ESR1` will get the same authority
level from the one that is computed for the query of the type Gene
`ESR 1`, under its Disease categorization result, `Breast
Cancer`.
[0149] The data source information may be employed with the
querying methodology described above, to further present
information regarding the data source in response to queries,
including feature, Feature Set, Feature Group and concept queries.
FIG. 23 is an example of a process flow that may be used to present
data source information. First, a query input is received. See
block 2301. Examples of query inputs include a feature, e.g., a
gene, a Feature Set, a Feature Group or a concept. A run command is
received in an operation 2303. In response to the query, the system
determines the most relevant concepts to the query. See block 2305.
(In other embodiments, the system may determine the most relevant
features, Feature Sets or Feature Groups instead of or in addition
to the most relevant concepts.) Information about the data sources
of the results is then presented to the user, e.g., in the form of
a pie chart organized by data source group or other format. See
block 2307. This information may be determined in various manners,
e.g., the number of Feature Sets or studies that contribute to a
particular category.
[0150] Also as described above, methods of filtering data according
to data source are also provided. FIG. 24 shows an example of a
process flow. First, in an operation 2401, a particular data source
is received as input to filter a query. A user may click on or
select a type of organism (e.g., rat), data type (e.g.,
proteomics), authority level (e.g., validated), or other data
source as described above with reference to FIG. 14A.
Alternatively, a user may enter a data source, either before or
after the initial query is run to filter the results of that query.
A run command is received. See block 2403. The concepts most
relevant to that query, as filtered by the data source, are then
determined as described above with reference to FIGS. 6A-6C, 10a,
10b and 11, using the data source-specific concept scores generated
as described above with reference to FIGS. 15-22. See block 2405. A
ranked list of concepts is then presented to the user. See block
2407. Note that the data source information presented to the user
also changes reflecting the filtered results.
[0151] In certain embodiments, a user may select more than one data
source (e.g., two organisms, or one organism and a data type, etc.)
to filter the results. In these instances, concept scoring
information from each of the multiple data sources is used in a
summary algorithm to find the most relevant concepts.
[0152] 5. Example Embodiments
[0153] The methods, computational systems, and user interfaces
described herein may be used with a wide variety of raw data
sources and platforms. For example, microarray platforms including
RNA and miRNA expression, SNP genotyping, protein expression,
protein-DNA interaction and methylation data and
amplification/deletion of chromosomal regions platforms may be used
in the methods described herein. Microarray generally include
hundreds or thousands of different capture agents, including DNA
oligonucleotides, miRNAs, proteins, chemical compounds etc.,
arrayed by affixation to a substrate, localization in nanowells,
etc. to assay an analyte solution. Platforms include arrays of DNA
oligonucleotides, miRNA (MMChips), antibodies, peptides, aptamers,
cell-interacting materials including lipids, antibodies and
proteins, chemical compounds, tissues, etc. Further examples of raw
data sources include quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR)
gene expression platforms, identified novel genetic variants,
copy-number variation (CNV) detection platforms, detecting
chromosomal aberrations (amplifications/deletions) and whole genome
sequencing. QPCR platforms typically include a thermocycler in
which nucleotide template, polymerase and other reagents are cycled
to amplify DNA or RNA, which is then quantified. Copy number
variation can be discovered by techniques including fluorescent in
situ hybridization, comparative genomic hybridization, array
comparative genomic hybridization, and large-scale SNP genotyping.
For example, fluorescent probes and fluorescent microscopes may be
employed to detect the presence or absence of specific DNA
sequences on chromosomes.
[0154] In certain embodiments, high-content and high throughput
compound screening data including screening compound effects on
cells, screening compound effects on animal tissues and screening
interaction between compounds, DNA and proteins, is used in
accordance with the methods and systems described herein. High
throughput screening uses robots, liquid handling devices and
automated processes to conduct millions of biochemical, genetic or
pharmacological tests. In certain HTS screenings, compounds in
wells on a microtitre plate are filled with an analyte, such as a
protein, cells or an embryo. After an incubation periods,
measurements are taken across the plates wells to determine the
differential impact of the compound on the analyte. The resulting
measurements may then be formed into Feature Sets for importation
and use in the Knowledge Base. High content screening may use
automated digital microscopes in combination with flow cytometers
and computer systems to acquire image information and analyze
it.
[0155] The methods, computational systems, and user interfaces
described herein may be used in a variety of research, drug
development, pre-clinical and clinical research applications. For
example, by querying a concept such as a disease, highly relevant
genes and biological pathways may be displayed. Such genes or
pathways may in turn be queried against compounds to find possible
drug treatment candidates. Without the methods and systems
described herein, these research paths are unavailable. Much more
complex progressions and connections are enabled as well.
Non-limiting examples of such applications include identifying
genes linked to a disease, pathways linked to a disease and
environmental effects linked to a disease, understanding mechanisms
of development and disease progression, studying species diversity
and cross-species comparison, identifying novel drug targets,
identifying disease and treatment response biomarkers, identifying
alternative indications for existing compounds, predicting drug
toxicity, identifying a drug's mechanism of action, and identifying
amplification or deletion of chromosomal regions.
[0156] Additional examples of pre-clinical and clinical research
enabled by the methods and systems described herein include
absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion
(ADME)--predicting a patient's drug response and drug metabolism,
patient stratification into disease categories, e.g., determining
more precisely patient stratification a patient's disease stage,
identifying early disease biomarkers to enable early disease
detection and preventive medicine, and using a patient's genetic
profile to estimate the likelihood of disease, drug response or
other phenotype. For example, in certain embodiments, a clinician
uses a microarray to obtain genetic profile information. The
genetic profile information may be imported into the Knowledge Base
as a Feature Set. The methods and systems further include instant
correlation of that Feature Set to all of the other knowledge in
the Knowledge Base, and querying for relevant concepts as described
above. Query results may then be navigated and expanded, also as
described above.
[0157] 6. Computer Hardware
[0158] As should be apparent, certain embodiments of the invention
employ processes acting under control of instructions and/or data
stored in or transferred through one or more computer systems.
Certain embodiments also relate to an apparatus for performing
these operations. This apparatus may be specially designed and/or
constructed for the required purposes, or it may be a
general-purpose computer selectively configured by one or more
computer programs and/or data structures stored in or otherwise
made available to the computer. The processes presented herein are
not inherently related to any particular computer or other
apparatus. In particular, various general-purpose machines may be
used with programs written in accordance with the teachings herein,
or it may be more convenient to construct a more specialized
apparatus to perform the required method steps. A particular
structure for a variety of these machines is shown and described
below.
[0159] In addition, certain embodiments relate to computer readable
media or computer program products that include program
instructions and/or data (including data structures) for performing
various computer-implemented operations associated with at least
the following tasks: (1) obtaining raw data from instrumentation,
databases (private or public (e.g., NCBI), and other sources, (2)
curating raw data to provide Feature Sets, (3) importing Feature
Sets and other data to a repository such as database or Knowledge
Base, (4) mapping Features from imported data to pre-defined
Feature references in an index, (5) generating a pre-defined
feature index, (6) generating correlations or other scoring between
Feature Sets and Feature Sets and between Feature Sets and Feature
Groups, (7) creating Feature Groups, (8) generating concept scores
or other measures of concepts relevant to features, Feature Sets
and Feature Groups, (9) determining authority levels to be assigned
to a concept for every feature, Feature Set and Feature Group that
is relevant to the concept, (10) filtering by data source,
organism, authority level or other category, (11) receiving queries
from users (including, optionally, query input content and/or query
field of search limitations), (12) running queries using features,
Feature Groups, Feature Sets, Studies, concepts, taxonomy groups,
and the like, and (13) presenting query results to a user
(optionally in a manner allowing the user to navigate through
related content perform related queries). The invention also
pertains to computational apparatus executing instructions to
perform any or all of these tasks. It also pertains to
computational apparatus including computer readable media encoded
with instructions for performing such tasks.
[0160] Further the invention pertains to useful data structures
stored on computer readable media. Such data structures include,
for example, Feature Sets, Feature Groups, taxonomy hierarchies,
feature indexes, Score Tables, and any of the other logical data
groupings presented herein. Certain embodiments also provide
functionality (e.g., code and processes) for storing any of the
results (e.g., query results) or data structures generated as
described herein. Such results or data structures are typically
stored, at least temporarily, on a computer readable medium such as
those presented in the following discussion. The results or data
structures may also be output in any of various manners such as
displaying, printing, and the like.
[0161] Examples of displays suitable for interfacing with a user in
accordance with the invention include but are not limited to
cathode ray tube displays, liquid crystal displays, plasma
displays, touch screen displays, video projection displays,
light-emitting diode and organic light-emitting diode displays,
surface-conduction electron-emitter displays and the like. Examples
of printers include toner-based printers, liquid inkjet printers,
solid ink printers, dye-sublimation printers as well as inkless
printers such as thermal printers. Printing may be to a tangible
medium such as paper or transparencies.
[0162] Examples of tangible computer-readable media suitable for
use computer program products and computational apparatus of this
invention include, but are not limited to, magnetic media such as
hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as
CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical media; semiconductor memory devices
(e.g., flash memory), and hardware devices that are specially
configured to store and perform program instructions, such as
read-only memory devices (ROM) and random access memory (RAM) and
sometimes application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs),
programmable logic devices (PLDs) and signal transmission media for
delivering computer-readable instructions, such as local area
networks, wide area networks, and the Internet. The data and
program instructions provided herein may also be embodied on a
carrier wave or other transport medium (including electronic or
optically conductive pathways). The data and program instructions
of this invention may also be embodied on a carrier wave or other
transport medium (e.g., optical lines, electrical lines, and/or
airwaves).
[0163] Examples of program instructions include low-level code,
such as that produced by a compiler, as well as higher-level code
that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter. Further,
the program instructions may be machine code, source code and/or
any other code that directly or indirectly controls operation of a
computing machine. The code may specify input, output,
calculations, conditionals, branches, iterative loops, etc.
[0164] FIG. 9 illustrates, in simple block format, a typical
computer system that, when appropriately configured or designed,
can serve as a computational apparatus according to certain
embodiments. The computer system 900 includes any number of
processors 902 (also referred to as central processing units, or
CPUs) that are coupled to storage devices including primary storage
906 (typically a random access memory, or RAM), primary storage 904
(typically a read only memory, or ROM). CPU 902 may be of various
types including microcontrollers and microprocessors such as
programmable devices (e.g., CPLDs and FPGAs) and non-programmable
devices such as gate array ASICs or general-purpose
microprocessors. In the depicted embodiment, primary storage 904
acts to transfer data and instructions uni-directionally to the CPU
and primary storage 906 is used typically to transfer data and
instructions in a bi-directional manner. Both of these primary
storage devices may include any suitable computer-readable media
such as those described above. A mass storage device 908 is also
coupled bi-directionally to primary storage 906 and provides
additional data storage capacity and may include any of the
computer-readable media described above. Mass storage device 908
may be used to store programs, data and the like and is typically a
secondary storage medium such as a hard disk. Frequently, such
programs, data and the like are temporarily copied to primary
memory 906 for execution on CPU 902. It will be appreciated that
the information retained within the mass storage device 908, may,
in appropriate cases, be incorporated in standard fashion as part
of primary storage 904. A specific mass storage device such as a
CD-ROM 914 may also pass data uni-directionally to the CPU or
primary storage.
[0165] CPU 902 is also coupled to an interface 910 that connects to
one or more input/output devices such as such as video monitors,
track balls, mice, keyboards, microphones, touch-sensitive
displays, transducer card readers, magnetic or paper tape readers,
tablets, styluses, voice or handwriting recognition peripherals,
USB ports, or other well-known input devices such as, of course,
other computers. Finally, CPU 902 optionally may be coupled to an
external device such as a database or a computer or
telecommunications network using an external connection as shown
generally at 912. With such a connection, it is contemplated that
the CPU might receive information from the network, or might output
information to the network in the course of performing the method
steps described herein.
[0166] In one embodiment, a system such as computer system 900 is
used as a data import, data correlation, and querying system
capable of performing some or all of the tasks described herein.
System 900 may also serve as various other tools associated with
Knowledge Bases and querying such as a data capture tool.
Information and programs, including data files can be provided via
a network connection 912 for access or downloading by a researcher.
Alternatively, such information, programs and files can be provided
to the researcher on a storage device.
[0167] In a specific embodiment, the computer system 900 is
directly coupled to a data acquisition system such as a microarray
or high-throughput screening system that captures data from
samples. Data from such systems are provided via interface 910 for
analysis by system 900. Alternatively, the data processed by system
900 are provided from a data storage source such as a database or
other repository of relevant data. Once in apparatus 900, a memory
device such as primary storage 906 or mass storage 908 buffers or
stores, at least temporarily, relevant data. The memory may also
store various routines and/or programs for importing, analyzing and
presenting the data, including importing Feature Sets, correlating
Feature Sets with one another and with Feature Groups, generating
and running queries, etc.
[0168] In certain embodiments user terminals may include any type
of computer (e.g., desktop, laptop, tablet, etc.), media computing
platforms (e.g., cable, satellite set top boxes, digital video
recorders, etc.), handheld computing devices (e.g., PDAs, e-mail
clients, etc.), cell phones or any other type of computing or
communication platforms. A server system in communication with a
user terminal may include a server device or decentralized server
devices, and may include mainframe computers, mini computers, super
computers, personal computers, or combinations thereof. A plurality
of server systems may also be used without departing from the scope
of the present invention. User terminals and a server system may
communicate with each other through a network. The network may
comprise, e.g., wired networks such as LANs (local area networks),
WANs (wide area networks), MANs (metropolitan area networks), ISDNs
(Intergrated Service Digital Networks), etc. as well as wireless
networks such as wireless LANs, CDMA, Bluetooth, and satellite
communication networks, etc. without limiting the scope of the
present invention.
[0169] Although the foregoing invention has been described in some
detail for purposes of clarity of understanding, it will be
apparent that certain changes and modifications may be practiced
within the scope of the invention. It should be noted that there
are many alternative ways of implementing the processes and
databases of the present invention. Accordingly, the present
embodiments are to be considered as illustrative and not
restrictive, and the invention is not to be limited to the details
given herein.
* * * * *