Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

From Questions To Effective Answers: On The Utility Of Knowledge-Driven Querying Systems For Life Sciences Data, Amir H. Asiaee, Prashant Doshi, Todd Minning, Satya S. Sahoo, Priti Parikh, Amit P. Sheth, Rick L. Tarleton

Kno.e.sis Publications

We compare two distinct approaches for querying data in the context of the life sciences. The first approach utilizes conventional databases to store the data and provides intuitive form-based interfaces to facilitate querying of the data, commonly used by the life science researchers that we study. The second approach utilizes a large OWL ontology and the same datasets associated as RDF instances of the ontology. Both approaches are being used in parallel by a team of cell biologists in their daily research activities, with the objective of gradually replacing the conventional approach with the knowledge-driven one. We describe several benefits …