|
What is XML?
A markup language is a mechanism to identify structures in a document. The XML
specification defines a standard way to add markup to documents. In order to
appreciate XML, it is important to understand why it was created. XML was
created so that richly structured documents could be used over the web. The
only viable alternatives, HTML and SGML, are not practical for this purpose.
This is the 1st part of a technical introduction to XML.
Transcoding
DICOM to XML
Supplement 23 to DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications for Medicine),
Structured Reporting, is a specification that supports a semantically rich
representation of image and waveform content, enabling experts to share image
and related patient information. DICOM SR supports the representation of
textual and coded data linked to images and waveforms. Nevertheless, the
medical information technology community needs models that work as bridges
between the DICOM relational model and open object-oriented technologies. The
authors assert that representations of the DICOM Structured Reporting standard,
using object-oriented modeling languages such as the Unified Modeling Language,
can provide a high-level reference view of the semantically rich framework of
DICOM and its complex structures. They have produced an object-oriented model
to represent the DICOM SR standard and have derived XML-exchangeable
representations of this model using World Wide Web Consortium specifications.
They expect the model to benefit developers and system architects who are
interested in developing applications that are compliant with the DICOM SR
specification. [from Abstract] A distributed database course project on the
exchange of DICOM-compatible medical images using XML was done at the
University of Waterloo.
XML for Molecular Biology
A list of XML resources compiled by Paul Gordon that may be of use to the
bioinformatician.
Object Management Group (OMG)
The OMG was formed to create a component-based software marketplace by
hastening the introduction of standardized object software. The OMG's charter
includes the establishment of industry guidelines and detailed object
management specifications to provide a common framework for application
development. Conformance to these specifications will make it possible to
develop a heterogeneous computing environment across all major hardware
platforms and operating systems. The nearly 800 member companies of the Object
Management Group produce and maintain a suite of specifications that support
distributed, heterogeneous software development projects from analysis and
design through coding, deployment, runtime, and maintenance.
XML
- CORBA - DICOM
What Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) could look like in
common object request broker (CORBA) and extensible markup language (XML).
CDISC Operational Data Model
(ODM)
The final version 1.1 Specification for the Operational Data Model (ODM) was
released by CDISC on May 9, 2002. The XML-based Operational Data Model
"provides a format for representing the study metadata, study data, and
administrative data associated with a clinical trial. It represents only the
data that would be transferred among different software systems during a trial,
or archived after a trial. It need not represent any information internal to a
single system, for example, information about how the data would be stored in a
particular database." The version 1.1 release includes the text of the
specification, with XML DTDs and supporting documentation. ODM v1.1 Final
"represents the culmination of more than three years of effort by a
multi-disciplinary team of pharmaceutical and biotechnology sponsors and
technology vendors; the development team believes the CDISC 1.1 DTD is now
ready for widespread adoption among sponsors, vendors and CROs to facilitate
the interchange of clinical trial data.
DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML)
The World Wide Web (WWW) contains a large amount of information and is
expanding at a rapid rate. Most of that information is currently being
represented using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is designed to
allow web developers to display information in a way that is accessible to
humans for viewing via web browsers. While HTML allows us to visualize the
information on the web, it doesn't provide much capability to describe the
information in ways that facilitate the use of software programs to find or
interpret it. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed
the Extensible Markup Language (XML) which allows information to be more accurately described
using tags. As an example, the word Algol on a web site might represent a
computer language, a star or an oceanographic research ship. The use of XML to
provide metadata markup, such as Algol, makes the meaning of the work
unambiguous. However, XML has a limited capability to describe the
relationships (schemas or ontologies) with respect to objects. The use of
ontologies provides a very powerful way to describe objects and their
relationships to other objects. The DAML language is being developed as an
extension to XML and the
Resource Description Framework (RDF). The latest
release of the language (DAML+OIL) provides a rich set of constructs with which
to create ontologies and to markup information so that it is machine readable
and understandable.
XML
Multimedia Radiology Report
The clinical display of radiologic information as an interactive multimedia
report is accomplished using a multimedia report model based on Extensible
Markup Language (XML), rather than a traditional workstation model. XML does
not replace existing standards (i.e., Digital Imaging and Communications in
Medicine [DICOM], Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol [TCP/IP]).
Instead, it provides a powerful framework that is used in combination with
existing standards to allow system designers to modify display characteristics
based on user need. The application of XML to the clinical display of
radiologic information is described. [from Abstract]
Review/Tutorial
on Standards for Radiology Networks
Medical communication standards, i.e., HL 7, DICOM, and in the near future the
migration towards XML, support the interoperability between the IT subsystems
and pave the way to patient information systems with access to unified and
complete electronic medical records (EMR). Furthermore, with standardized
communication techniques, such as CORBAmed [PDF File], an object-oriented
design of Healthcare applications will be possible in the near future. [from
Abstract]
MIMOS:
A framework for exchanging medical image processing results
DICOM presently supports structured reporting of image studies, but does not
accommodate semantics in the image handling domain. This can impede the
exchange and the interpretation of processing results. To overcome this
limitation, a framework based on a formal grammar was developed, with documents
encoded using XML. [from Abstract]
< Previous | Next Section > Main |
