Jason M. Lohrey’s research while affiliated with University of Melbourne and other places

Modern science increasingly involves managing and processing large amounts of distributed data accessed by global teams of researchers. To do this, we need systems that combine data, meta-data and workflows into a single system. This paper discusses such a system, built from a number of existing technologies. We demonstrate the effectiveness on a case study that analyses MRI data.

A framework that integrates an object model, research methods (workflows), the capture of experimental data sets and the provenance of those data sets for subject-centric research is presented. The design of the Framework object model draws on and extends pre-existing object models in the public domain. In particular the Framework tracks the state and life cycle of a subject during an experimental method, provides for reusable subjects, primary, derived and recursive data sets of arbitrary content types, and defines a user-friendly and practical scheme for citably identifying information in a distributed environment. The Framework is currently used to manage neuroscience Magnetic Resonance and microscopy imaging data sets in both clinical and basic neuroscience research environments. The Framework facilitates multi-disciplinary and collaborative subject-based research, and extends earlier object models used in the research imaging domain. Whilst the Framework has been explicitly validated for neuroimaging research applications, it has broader application to other fields of subject-centric research.