Generating Database Technologies and Simulations for Branching Structure Applications
Yi-Ping Phoebe Chen1
1p.chen@qut.edu.au, Queensland University of Technology
This project covers an aspect of biological informatics, which is the marriage of information technology and biology, involving the study of real world phenomena using branching structure derived from L-systems simulation. L-systems were introduced in 1968 by Aristid Lindenmayer as a mathematical model of multicellular organisms. Plant architecture informatics using L-Systems is a very promising field of research with lots of potential practical benefits. So far, not much consideration has been given to the problem of persistent storage and query for simulations of such systems. The approach will exploit the major strengths of the relational model, its ability to express complex operations in a simple and effective way, and produce biologist-friendly database query languages.
This project further to achieve the idea of pre-computing attributes by capturing recursive structures in the original L-systems using compiler techniques. This will simplify the formalism of complex queries considerably. A method for establishing a correspondence between biologists' terms and compiler generated terms will be supplied. This environment will also include a visual query interface. Once a data model gets a specific L-systems production and its declarations, it can generate the specific schema for both simple correspondence terminology and also complex recursive attributes and relationships. The same correspondence applies to any L-systems using the same vocabulary and field data. Once established, it can be used to support an entire research program. This project will involve the method Data Model Tools for L-Systems. This approach allows representation of L-Systems objects as database structures by an automatic process.