Abstract
This paper describes the capabilities of DISCO, an extensible approach that supports integrative Web-based information dissemination. DISCO is a component of the Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF), an NIH Neuroscience Blueprint initiative that facilitates integrated access to diverse neuroscience resources via the Internet. DISCO facilitates the automated maintenance of several distinct capabilities using a collection of files 1) that are maintained locally by the developers of participating neuroscience resources and 2) that are “harvested” on a regular basis by a central DISCO server. This approach allows central NIF capabilities to be updated as each resource’s content changes over time. DISCO currently supports the following capabilities: 1) resource descriptions, 2) “LinkOut” to a resource’s data items from NCBI Entrez resources such as PubMed, 3) Web-based interoperation with a resource, 4) sharing a resource’s lexicon and ontology, 5) sharing a resource’s database schema, and 6) participation by the resource in neuroscience-related RSS news dissemination. The developers of a resource are free to choose which DISCO capabilities their resource will participate in. Although DISCO is used by NIF to facilitate neuroscience data integration, its capabilities have general applicability to other areas of research.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported in part by NIH grants P01 DC04732 and R01 DA021253, by NIH Neuroscience Blueprint Contracts HHSN271200577531C and NIDA-SSSAB-2008-1 via NIDA, and by the Society for Neuroscience. In addition we appreciate the collaboration on implementing the DISCO approach by Mihail Bota at UCSD (Brain Architecture Management System), Willy WaiHo Wong and Maryann Martone (Cell Centered Database), Rolf Kotter (CocoDat), David Kennedy (Internet Brain Volume Database), Maryam Halavi and Giorgio Ascoli (Neuromorpho.org), and Daniel Gardner (Neurodatabase.org).
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All information and program code related to DISCO protocols are publicly available through the Web sites mentioned in this publication.
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Marenco, L., Wang, R., Shepherd, G.M. et al. The NIF DISCO Framework: Facilitating Automated Integration of Neuroscience Content on the Web. Neuroinform 8, 101–112 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12021-010-9068-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12021-010-9068-8