XML for Bioinformatics aims to provide biologists, software engineers, and bioinformatics professionals with a comprehensive introduction to XML and current XML applications in bioinformatics. The book will assume no background in XML, and take readers from basic to intermediate XML concepts. Core topics will include: fundamentals of XML, creating XML grammars, web services via SOAP, and parsing XML documents in Perl and Java.

Autorentext
Ethan Cerami is Senior Software Engineer at the Computational Biology Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY. Since 1997 he has also been a member of the Adjunct Faculty in Computer Science at New York University.

Klappentext

XML, or Extensible Markup Language, is rapidly becoming a critical tool in bioinformatics and biological data exchange. XML is currently used to represent a diverse set of biological data, from nucleotide and protein sequences to protein-protein interactions and signal transduction pathways. XML is also used in a wide array of bioinformatics applications, including stand-alone applications, federated database systems, distributed applications, and web services.

The goal of XML for Bioinformatics is to provide a solid introduction to the emerging use of XML in the field of bioinformatics. It assumes no prior knowledge of XML, and illustrates all core concepts with specific bioinformatics examples and case studies. Core XML concepts include: fundamentals of XML, Document Type Definitions (DTDs), XML Namespaces, XML Schema, XML parsing in Perl and Java, web services and SOAP. Examples and case studies are drawn from a wide range of bioinformatics applications, including the Bioinformatic Sequence Markup Language (BSML), NCBI E-Fetch, the Distributed Annotation System (DAS), and the National Cancer Institute Cancer Bioinformatics Infrastructure Objects (caBIO) project.

A companion web site, available at: http://www.xmlbio.org/, provides complete access to all examples in the book.

Zusammenfassung
Introduction The goal of this book is to introduce XML to a bioinformatics audience. It does so by introducing the fundamentals of XML, Document Type De?nitions (DTDs), XML Namespaces, XML Schema, and XML parsing, and illustrating these concepts with speci?c bioinformatics case studies. The book does not assume any previous knowledge of XML and is geared toward those who want a solid introduction to fundamental XML concepts. The book is divided into nine chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction to XML for Bioinformatics. This chapter provides an introduction to XML and describes the use of XML in biological data exchange. A bird's-eye view of our ?rst case study, the Distributed Annotation System (DAS), is provided and we examine a sample DAS XML document. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the pros and cons of using XML in bioinformatic applications. Chapter 2: Fundamentals of XML and BSML. This chapter introduces the fundamental concepts of XML and the Bioinformatic Sequence Markup Language (BSML). We explore the origins of XML, de?ne basic rules for XML document structure, and introduce XML Na- spaces. We also explore several sample BSML documents and visualize these documents in the TM Rescentris Genomic Workspace Viewer.

Inhalt
to XML for Bioinformatics.- Fundamentals of XML and BSML.- DTDs for Bioinformatics.- XML Schemas for Bioinformatics.- Parsing NCBI XML in Perl.- The Distributed Annotation System (DAS).- Parsing DAS Data with SAX.- Parsing DAS Data with JDOM.- Web Services for Bioinformatics.