Integrating Order and Distance Relationships from Heterogeneous Maps

There is no automatic mechanism to integrate information between heterogeneous genome maps. Currently, integration is a difficult, manual process. We have developed a process for knowledge base design, and we use this to integrate order and distance relationships between genetic linkage, radiation hybrid, and physical maps. Until now, the only way to develop a persistent, knowledge-intensive application was to either develop a new knowledge base from scratch or coerce the application to fit an existing knowledge base. This was not from lack of interest by the knowledge base or database community, but merely from a lack of theoretical tools powerful enough to tackle the problem. We import formalisms from knowledge representation, natural language semantics, programming language research, and databases. These form a strong, theoretical foundation for knowledge base design upon which we have implemented the knowledge base design tool called WEAVE.