title: Neuronal database integration: the Senselab EAV data model.
abstract: We discuss an approach towards integrating heterogeneous nervous system data using an augmented Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) schema design. This approach, widely used in implementing electronic patient record systems (EPRSs), allows the physical schema of the database to be relatively immune to changes in domain knowledge. This is because new kinds of facts are added as data (or as metadata) rather than hard-coded as the names of newly created tables or columns. Because the domain knowledge is stored as metadata, a framework developed in one scientific domain can be ported to another with only modest revision. We describe our progress in creating a code framework that handles browsing and hyperlinking of the different kinds of data.
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Informatics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Marenco
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nadkarni
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Skoufos
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Shepherd
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D019146:Hypermedia; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D020407:Internet; D009420:Nervous System; D018511:Systems Integration