HCLSIG/Project Ideas/KB

Enhancements to the Knowledge Base

Project Proposal

The knowledge base is a collection of public resources that makes it possible to ask scientific questions that cross the original domain and database boundaries. There is currently a focus on neurological data.

Some possible enhancements to the knowledge base:

• Broaden the knowledge base to cover more of the related domains such as structural chemistry, cells, anatomy, physiology, behavior, protocols, and reagents.
• Dealing with distributed queries - Data to be queried is not required to be in a central location. The sources accessed by a query could eventually be spread across repositories in separate locations to demonstrate the ease of integrating distributed data sources with Semantic Web.
• Create dynamic visual interfaces that provide the user with the means to create and refine a query without requiring prerequisite knowledge of the data or query language. Query building support could include terminologies and entity name completion that would ease the task of query building.
• Make the knowledge base more sustainable: find strategies to keep RDF/OWL automatically up-to-date when original data sources change. Define processes to hand over authority about RDF/OWL to curators of original data sources when they are willing to maintain the RDF/OWL versions of their data themselves.