Dataset Information

BIFI: a Taverna plugin for a simplified and user-friendly workflow platform.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Heterogeneity in the features, input-output behaviour and user interface for available bioinformatics tools and services is still a bottleneck for both expert and non-expert users. Advancement in providing common interfaces over such tools and services are gaining interest among researchers. However, the lack of (meta-) information about input-output data and parameter prevents to provide automated and standardized solutions, which can assist users in setting the appropriate parameters. These limitations must be resolved especially in the workflow-based solution in order to ease the integration of software. FINDINGS: We report a Taverna Workbench plugin: the XworX BIFI (Beautiful Interfaces for Inputs) implemented as a solution for the aforementioned issues. BIFI provides a Graphical User Interface (GUI) definition language used to layout the user interface and to define parameter options for Taverna workflows. BIFI is also able to submit GUI Definition Files (GDF) directly or discover appropriate instances from a configured repository. In the absence of a GDF, BIFI generates a default interface. CONCLUSION: The Taverna Workbench is an open source software providing the ability to combine various services within a workflow. Nevertheless, users can supply input data to the workflow via a simple user interface providing only a text area to enter the input in text form. The workflow may contain meta-information in human readable form such as description text for the port and an example value. However, not all workflow ports are documented so well or have all the required information.BIFI uses custom user interface components for ports which give users feedback on the parameter data type or structure to be used for service execution and enables client-side data validations. Moreover, BIFI offers user interfaces that allow users to interactively construct workflow views and share them with the community, thus significantly increasing usability of heterogeneous, distributed service consumption.

SUBMITTER: Yildiz A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4228112 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

BIFI: a Taverna plugin for a simplified and user-friendly workflow platform.

Yildiz Ahmet A Dilaveroglu Erkan E Visne Ilhami I Günay Bilal B Sefer Emrah E Weinhausel Andreas A Rattay Frank F Goble Carole A CA Pandey Ram Vinay RV Kriegner Albert A

BMC research notes 20141020

<h4>Background</h4>Heterogeneity in the features, input-output behaviour and user interface for available bioinformatics tools and services is still a bottleneck for both expert and non-expert users. Advancement in providing common interfaces over such tools and services are gaining interest among researchers. However, the lack of (meta-) information about input-output data and parameter prevents to provide automated and standardized solutions, which can assist users in setting the appropriate p ...[more]

PMID: 25332013

Similar Datasets

Project description:Computer-assisted drug design (CADD) methods have greatly contributed to the development of new drugs. Among CADD methodologies, virtual screening (VS) can enrich the compound collection with molecules that have the desired physicochemical and pharmacophoric characteristics that are needed to become drugs. Many free tools are available for this purpose, but they are difficult to use and do not have a graphical user interface. Furthermore, several free tools must be used to carry out the entire VS process, requiring the user to process the results of one software program so that they can be used in another program, adding a potential source of human error. Moreover, some software programs require knowledge of advanced computational skills, such as programming languages. This context has motivated us to develop Molecular Architect (MolAr). MolAr is a workflow with a simple and intuitive interface that acts in an integrated and automated form to perform the entire VS process, from protein preparation (homology modeling and protonation state) to virtual screening. MolAr carries out VS through AutoDock Vina, DOCK 6, or a consensus of the two. Two case studies were conducted to demonstrate the performance of MolAr. In the first study, the feasibility of using MolAr for DNA-ligand systems was assessed. Both AutoDock Vina and DOCK 6 showed good results in performing VS in DNA-ligand systems. However, the use of consensus virtual screening was able to enrich the results. According to the area under the ROC curve and the enrichment factors, consensus VS was better able to predict the positions of the active ligands. The second case study was performed on 8 targets from the DUD-E database and 10 active ligands for each target. The results demonstrated that using the final ligand conformation provided by AutoDock Vina as an input for DOCK 6 improved the DOCK 6 ROC curves by up to 42% in VS. These case studies demonstrated that MolAr is capable conducting the VS process and is an easy-to-use and effective tool. MolAr is available for download free of charge at http: //www.drugdiscovery.com.br/software/.

Project description:In biological and medical domain, the use of web services made the data and computation functionality accessible in a unified manner, which helped automate the data pipeline that was previously performed manually. Workflow technology is widely used in the orchestration of multiple services to facilitate in-silico research. Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) is an information network enabling the sharing of cancer research related resources and caGrid is its underlying service-based computation infrastructure. CaBIG requires that services are composed and orchestrated in a given sequence to realize data pipelines, which are often called scientific workflows.CaGrid selected Taverna as its workflow execution system of choice due to its integration with web service technology and support for a wide range of web services, plug-in architecture to cater for easy integration of third party extensions, etc. The caGrid Workflow Toolkit (or the toolkit for short), an extension to the Taverna workflow system, is designed and implemented to ease building and running caGrid workflows. It provides users with support for various phases in using workflows: service discovery, composition and orchestration, data access, and secure service invocation, which have been identified by the caGrid community as challenging in a multi-institutional and cross-discipline domain.By extending the Taverna Workbench, caGrid Workflow Toolkit provided a comprehensive solution to compose and coordinate services in caGrid, which would otherwise remain isolated and disconnected from each other. Using it users can access more than 140 services and are offered with a rich set of features including discovery of data and analytical services, query and transfer of data, security protections for service invocations, state management in service interactions, and sharing of workflows, experiences and best practices. The proposed solution is general enough to be applicable and reusable within other service-computing infrastructures that leverage similar technology stack.

Dataset Information

BIFI: a Taverna plugin for a simplified and user-friendly workflow platform.

Publications

BIFI: a Taverna plugin for a simplified and user-friendly workflow platform.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets