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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 2999–3004Cite as

Query Languages for the Life Sciences

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Synonyms

Biological data retrieval, integration, and transformation; Biological query Languages; Scientific query Languages

Definition

A scientific query language is a query language that expresses the data retrieval, analysis, and transformation tasks involved in the dataflow pertaining to a scientific protocol (or equivalently workflow, dataflow, pipeline). Scientific query languages typically extend traditional database query languages and offer a variety of operators expressing scientific tasks such as ranking, clustering, and comparing in addition to operators specific to a category of scientific objects (e.g., biological sequences).

Historical Background

A scientific query may involve data retrieval tasks from multiple heterogeneous resources and perform a variety of analysis, transformation, and publication tasks. Existing approaches used by scientists include hard coded scripts, data warehouses, link-based federations, database mediation systems, and workflow systems. Hard...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Zoé Lacroix

Authors
  1. Zoé Lacroix
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zoé Lacroix .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Louiqa Raschid

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Lacroix, Z. (2018). Query Languages for the Life Sciences. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_1437

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