Alex's BMW Database Schema

After looking at the several database scheme suggested by both Amandas and Jacob, I found myself confused and/or unhappy. By studying the three schemes mentioned above, one can conclude the following: They all take into consideration important and relevant aspects. However, we can also conclude the following about each of them:

- Amanda A.: The proposed schema reflects the organization already implemented in the Web pages for BMW. Since the BMW Web hierarchy was built based on the needs to store at least 7 brain models (as far as I remember), it contains several neat and useful ideas. For example, it was from the experience of placing the models out there that the need for example runs together with a step-by-step tutorial became obvious. As we can see from Amanda A.'s diagram, this is an important branch of her schema.

- Amanda B.: The proposed schema is hard to read, since it was thought of in a time where we used to think of having the bibliographical data inside BMW. By taking the reference part out, we are left with few tables that actually reflect the core of what should be our BMW schema. However, once more, these tables are hard to read, since they have several bibliographical pointers.

- Jacob: This schema appears to be quite complete, however the relations between the core tables are hard to follow. The "Link" table, in my point of view, complicates the connectivity of the proposed schema. From another perspective, Jacob's schema provides a low-level view of Amanda B.'s schema. As we can see, in all three scheme, the core tables are almost the same: Model, Simulation/Experiment, Module/Computer Model.

With this in mind, I decided to provide a cleaner and better schema, based on all the above scheme. By doing so, I come up with the schema depicted in below. If it is cleaner or better than the already proposed scheme, it is left for the future. However, I agree that it is not complete and definitive. I just want to highlight important aspects that we all have been considering. I also do not explicitly consider low level information such as postscript versions, cell types, etc.

The yellow balls in the end of the links mean a 1 to Many relationship. For instance, a model can relate to several other models.

As it can be seen, pointers to references are left blank. The idea represented in the diagram above trys to explain data related solely to BMW and not to an assumed existing bibliographical database.

For a better understanding of the proposed schema. I will try to explain it next in a few words.

I considered that the core BMW tables would be: Simulation, Model, and Module (more less according to a hand-written document I had from one of our previous meetings, probably compiled by one of the Amandas).

Simulation: describes a particular simulation/experiment with a particular model. In this case, Simulation has to address the following data:

Model: describes the overall model

Module: part of a model (as pointed out by one of the Amandas, it may be subunits of code, e.g., java classes, or a whole program, e.g., genesis), together with its documentation.

Below, I will try to apply the schema depicted above to chapter 5 of Crowley's thesis. Again, I leave to you the judgement of how well I did it. I should remind you all that I don't consider myself a database expert (I hope this can be used as a disclaimer). I also want to point out that the data pertaining to "Related Model" and "Experimental Data" the way it is represented below needs more work to be conformant to the schema provided above.

Enjoy!

Alex

Table SIMULATION:

Table SIMULATION:

    (a)

    (b)

    (a)

    (b)




    Gap

    Saccade Latency

    0

    200

    25

    180

    50

    162.5

    75

    147.5

    100

    135

    125

    127.5

    150

    117.5

    175

    110

    200

    107.5

    225

    105

    250

    105

Table SIMULATION:

    (a)

      (b)


      Figure 5.3.5

      FEF (a)and SC saccade-related neuronal firing (b) for simple saccade with no fixation

      (a) and (b) show the firing profile for FEF and SC saccade-related burst neurons, respectively. (c) show saccade velocity.

      (c)

      Table: MODEL