Bioinformatics Organization

From GEN’s “Best of the Web”, Jan. 15, 2014, there is a glowing review of http://www.bioinformatics.org  which makes available an assortment of resources for everyone, from beginners to experts.  There is introductory information, databases, software development projects, and analytical tools, such as PrimerX, which automate the design of mutagenic PCR primers.

GenEngNews – http://gen.epubxp.com/t/13060/2

BioTorrents — easier, faster exchange of science-related open-access software and datasets

The goal of BioTorrents is to allow easier and faster exchange of science-related open-access software and datasets.
BioTorrents allows scientists to rapidly share their results, datasets, and software using the popular BitTorrent file sharing technology.   (The BioTorrents website)

From Alain Borel (Bibliotheque Scientifique, Lausanne) on the CHMINF Listserv, 1/18/10,  in response to the introduction of the subject by Egon Willighagen at Uppsala Univ.:

 
"The distributed nature of BitTorrents sounds nice (it doesn’t matter that zillions of users start downloading stuff, since they rapidly all become data sources themselves). However, I wonder how the updates will be treated? OAI-PMH feels like a much better protocol from this point of view. Maybe OAI-PMH could be used as a wrapper for publishing and harvesting BitTorrent seeds (one seed par article)?" (A.B.)
 
From the website:
"The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a low-barrier mechanism for repository interoperability. Data Providers are repositories that expose structured metadata via OAI-PMH. Service Providers then make OAI-PMH service requests to harvest that metadata. OAI-PMH is a set of six verbs or services that are invoked within HTTP."
…offering Interoperability through Metadata Exchange

VADLO — a search engine for the Life Sciences

VADLO search engine, developed by 2 biologists, caters to all branches of biomedicine and life sciences. Searchers may delve within five categories: Protocols, Online Tools, Seminars, Databases and Software.

"Protocols category will let you search for methods, techniques, assays, procedures, reagent recipes, plasmid maps, etc. Online Tools will cater calculators, servers, prediction tools, sequence alignment and manipulation tools, primer design etc. Seminars are essentially powerpoint files for presentations, lectures and talks. Databases will take you to, well, databases, resources, compilations, lists etc. It is here that you can also search for your favorite genes and proteins. Software category is for bioinformatics experts who are looking for codes, scripts, algorithms, executables, downloadable programs and collaborations"

Direct to VADLO

Taken from the VADLO site, and reproduced in the latest ResourceShelf Newsletter, No. 397.