uBio Project - Introduction

This can create problems in information retrieval because:

• One taxon can have many names.

• The same name can refer to many taxa.

uBio is working on tools for providers of biological information that address these problems.

The uBio Taxonomic Name Server acts as a name thesaurus.

Names have many different classes of relationships that can be used to organize and retrieve information that is annotated with names. These classes are divided into two inter-connected services.

NameBank is a repository of millions of recorded biological names and facts that link those names together. [more]

ClassificationBank stores multiple classifications and taxonomic concepts that are the result of expert opinions. It extends the functionality of NameBank. [more]

All data within these components are linked to mechanisms that provide credit and attribution to experts who provide name and linkage information within the TNS. [more]

Lastly, NameBank promotes the emergence of a layered biological informatics infrastructure that allows different expert systems to share common information. This conserves scarce resources and enhances the means to support continued expert work. [more]