--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Nina Jeliazkova <nina at acad.bg> wrote:
> 
> I hope I didn't forgot to send you yesterday the link where
> OpenTox
> resources are defined: 
> http://opentox.org/dev/apis/api-1.0/?searchterm=API .

Nina, thanks - that helps. I missed the API link.

Still, I'm not clear on how these resource relate to one another. For example:

- When using a Compound resource, what subordinate or neighboring Resources should I expect to have access to?
- What's the entry point into the system?
- What's the most highly-connected resource (and therefor the central concept) in the system?

I'm not looking for specific answers to these questions. Instead, I'm looking for tools the OpenTox team can offer or has offered to developers and domain experts to answer these questions for themselves. To stimulate discussion, make sure the right things have been taken into account, and create consensus.

An association diagram is not the only game in town, but still helpful. For example:

http://chemcaster.com/rest/resources

Notice how quickly you can: (a) "see" all of the important domain concepts; (b) find the most important concepts by looking for the most connected resource (Registry); (c) discover that you can make Archives from Registries, and Images from Substances.

I'm wondering what possibilities the OpenTox team have explored for doing something like this with OpenTox. In your meetings to hammer out API 1.0, for example, what methods did you use to aid communication and promote consensus about the most important concepts/resources in the toxicity prediction problem domain?

Best,
Rich
___________________________________

Richard L. Apodaca

http://depth-first.com      Blog
http://metamolecular.com    Company