The BioPrompt-box: an ontology-based clustering tool for searching in biological databases

Background: High-throughput molecular biology provides new data at an incredible rate, so that the increase in the size of biological databanks is enormous and very rapid. This scenario generates severe problems not only at indexing time, where suitable algorithmic techniques for data indexing and retrieval are required, but also at query time, since a user query may produce such a large set of results that their browsing and "understanding" becomes humanly impractical. This problem is well known to the Web community, where a new generation of Web search engines is being developed, like Vivisimo. These tools organize on-the-fly the results of a user query in a hierarchy of labeled folders that ease their browsing and knowledge extraction. We investigate this approach on biological data, and propose the so called The BioPrompt-boxsoftware system which deploys ontology-driven clustering strategies for making the searching process of biologists more efficient and effective. Res...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Claudio Corsi, Paolo Ferragina, Roberto Marangoni
• Keywords: BMCBI 2007, Documents, Suitable Algorithmic Techniques, User Query