UNLABELLED: Workflow Information Storage Toolkit (WIST) is a set of application programming interfaces and web applications that allow for the rapid development of customized laboratory information management systems (LIMS). WIST provides common LIMS input components, and allows them to be arranged and configured using a flexible language that specifies each component's visual and semantic characteristics. WIST includes a complete set of web applications for adding, editing and viewing data, as well as a powerful setup tool that can build new LIMS modules by analyzing existing database schema. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: WIST is implemented in Perl and may be obtained from http://vimss.sf.net under the BSD license.

SUMMARY: StrBioLib is a library of Java classes useful for developing software for computational structural biology research. StrBioLib contains classes to represent and manipulate protein structures, biopolymer sequences, sets of biopolymer sequences, and alignments between biopolymers based on either sequence or structure. Interfaces are provided to interact with commonly used bioinformatics applications, including (psi)-blast, modeller, muscle and Primer3, and tools are provided to read and write many file formats used to represent bioinformatic data. The library includes a general-purpose neural network object with multiple training algorithms, the Hooke and Jeeves non-linear optimization algorithm, and tools for efficient C-style string parsing and formatting. StrBioLib is the basis for the Pred2ary secondary structure prediction program, is used to build the astral compendium for sequence and structure analysis, and has been extensively tested through use in many smaller projects. Examples and documentation are available at the site below. AVAILABILITY: StrBioLib may be obtained under the terms of the GNU LGPL license from http://strbio.sourceforge.net/

Summary: ANDY (seArch coordination aND analYsis) is a set ofPerl programs and modules for distributing large biological databasesearches, and in general any sequence of commands, across the nodes of aLinux computer cluster. ANDY is compatible with several commonly usedDistributed Resource Management (DRM) systems, and it can be easilyextended to new DRMs. A distinctive feature of ANDY is the choice ofeither dedicated or fair-use operation: ANDY is almost as efficient assingle-purpose tools that require a dedicated cluster, but it runs on ageneral-purpose cluster along with any other jobs scheduled by a DRM.Other features include communication through named pipes for performance,flexible customizable routines for error-checking and summarizingresults, and multiple fault-tolerance mechanisms. Availability: ANDY isfreely available and may be obtained fromhttp://compbio.berkeley.edu/proj/andy; this site also containssupplemental data and figures and amore detailed overview of thesoftware.

BACKGROUND: Protein domains have long been an ill-defined concept in biology. They are generally described as autonomous folding units with evolutionary and functional independence. Both structure-based and sequence-based domain definitions have been widely used. But whether these types of models alone can capture all essential features of domains is still an open question. METHODS: Here we provide insight on domain definitions through comparative mapping of two domain classification databases, one sequence-based (Pfam) and the other structure-based (SCOP). A mapping score is defined to indicate the significance of the mapping, and the properties of the mapping matrices are studied. RESULTS: The mapping results show a general agreement between the two databases, as well as many interesting areas of disagreement. In the cases of disagreement, the functional and evolutionary characteristics of the domains are examined to determine which domain definition is biologically more informative.