Information system for metabolic flux analysis using extensible markup language and operating method thereof

A method for operating an MFA information system capable of generating, editing, storing and visualizing an MFA model feature and an MFA object and editing, storing and visualizing the result obtained by performing MFA based on the MFA object, the method comprising the steps of:

• (a) the first step of generating a new MFA model feature or generating a DTD or schema file of XML after collecting and editing the corresponding existing MFA model feature;
• (b) the second step of generating a new MFA object with reference to the generated DTD or schema file of the XML or storing an MFA object in an XML file after editing the corresponding existing MFA object;
• (c) the third step of reading the DTD or schema file of the XML generated in the first step and the XML file stored in the second step to visualize the MFA object;
• and
• (d) the fourth step of carrying out MFA based on the MFA object visualized in the third step, editing, storing and visualizing the MFA result.

An operating method of an MFA model feature authoring tool used in an MFA information system, the method comprising:

• (a) the first step of generating the basic structure of a new DTD or schema for MFA or retrieving the existing DTD or schema;
• (b) the second step of inputting a new MFA model feature into the DTD or schema for MFA, editing or deleting the MFA model feature;
• (c) the third step of inputting, editing or deleting the attribute of each MFA model feature;
• (d) the fourth step of determining whether said each feature and corresponding attribute need to be stored after they are inputted or edited;
• and
• (e) the fifth step of storing the feature and attribute in a DTD or schema file for MFA when it is determined that they need to be stored but returning to the second step when it is determined that they do not need to be stored.

An operating method of an MFA object authoring tool used in an MFA information system, the method comprising:

• (a) the first step of generating a new MFA object primitive, inputting the name and type of the MFA object primitive, and determining whether the inputted values need to be stored or not;
• (b) the second step of returning to the first step when it is determined that the inputted values do not need to be stored but retrieving a DTD or schema for MFA, generated by an MFA model feature authoring tool, when it is determined that the inputted values need to be stored;
• (c) the third step of selecting a feature to be stored among the retrieved DTD or schema and inputting the external appearance of the selected feature to be visualized;
• (d) the fourth step of inputting an MFA object name and the attribute value of the MFA object according to definition by the DTD or schema for MFA;
• (e) the fifth step of determining whether information about the inputted MFA object needs to be stored or not;
• and
• (f) the sixth step of returning to the first step when it is determined that the information about the inputted MFA object does not need to be stored but storing the information in the XML when it is determined that it needs to be stored.

An operating method of an MFA object analysis browser used in an MFA information system, the method comprising:

• (a) the first step of inputting a DTD or schema (A) for MFA generated by an MFA model feature authoring tool and an XML file (B) generated by an MFA object authoring tool and performing file parsing;
• (b) the second step of constructing information about the parsed MFA object in a text or graph form for an internal data structure and visualization and determining whether MFA needs to be performed or not;
• (c) the third step of visualizing the MFA object information when it is determined that MFA does not need to be performed but carrying out MFA based on the information generated in the second step, inputting and visualizing MFA result information when it is determined that MFA needs to be performed;
• (d) the fourth step of determining whether the information needs to be stored;
• and
• (e) the fifth step of returning to the second step when it is determined that the information does not need to be stored but storing the information in XML when it is determined that it needs to be stored.

A computer readable recording medium storing a program for executing a method of operating an MFA information system, the program comprising:

• (a) defining a new MFA model feature name, types of metabolic network information, metabolic condition information, MFA result information and MFA visualization information, a data type and a storing method, collecting and editing related existing information to change an MFA model feature name, types of metabolic network information, metabolic condition information, MFA result information and MFA visualization information, a data type and a storing method, and storing the defined result and the changed result in a DTD or schema file of XML;
• (b) generating a new MFA object with reference to the generated DTD or schema file of the XML generated in said step (a) or editing the existing MFA object, storing the MFA object in an XML file, inputting a new MFA object name, metabolic network information, metabolic condition information, MFA result information and MFA visualization information, and changing the existing MFA model object name, metabolic network information, metabolic condition information, MFA result information and MFA visualization information;
• (c) storing the result inputted and the result changed in said step (b) in the XML file;
• (d) parsing the generated DTD or schema file of XML to obtain information about a data format and an MFA model feature and parsing the XML file to obtain information about the MFA object;
• (e) visualizing the information obtained in said step (d) in text and graph forms (node and edge) to output;
• and
• (f) performing MFA based on the information obtained in said step (d), and visualizing the MFA result in a text or graph form or visualizing by combining the MFA result with the existing information in a text or graph form to output.