[BiO BB] database design question

[Aditi Kolachala]

I have used MS Access in the past and the software can really get to you, if 
you don't have a grasp of the heirarchial and structural relationship 
between different entities. The Conolly book on Database design and entity 
relationship might help elicit several details on such relationships.

AK


>
>Database design is a big field!
>
>It is unlikely that you can find an 'out of the box' solution for what you
>want, but it is a good idea to search. Many books on data modeling (a way
>of fitting data to a particular design concept) exist, but many are based
>on principals of good design strategy rather than a particular design
>formula. I don't advise reading more than a few articles on database
>design (biological database design if you can find them).
>
>The best way I know is make one table for each concept in your data, so
>you have genes, give them a table - you mention synonyms, so make a
>synonym table, protocols = protocols table, results = results table. If
>each protocol has a special results set, then create a separate table for
>the results of each protocol. An implicit concept is that of an experiment
>which links a gene to a protocol and a set of results.
>
>as you develope the datbase I advise you constantly try to use it, and
>through an itterative process of design and use you converge on an optimal
>solution for your requirements.
>
>This is just my way of working, people will always argue different ways
>which suit them (or their aims) better.
>
>Cheers,
>Dan.
>
>On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Rowland, John G A wrote:
>
> > I am currently in the process of building a small database in MS
> > Access for the purposes of storing (in a computationally searchable
> > format) protocol and results data from published and unpublished
> > material.
> >
> > I would like to be able to search this database for a particular
> > gene/protein and see all instances of its occurrence, regardless of
> > the use of synonyms and not restrictiong it to only pulling out a
> > specific Accession number.
> >
> > Unfortunately I am unsure of the best table/relationship setup to
> > acheive this!
> >
> > Can anyone offer any insight into this problem? (I have googled and
> > googled for about 6 months...)
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > John
> >
>
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