The LabFlow system for workflow management in large scale biology research laboratories

Proc Int Conf Intell Syst Mol Biol. 1998:6:69-77.

Abstract

LabFlow is a workflow management system designed for large scale biology research laboratories. It provides a workflow model in which objects flow from task to task under programmatic control. The model supports parallelism, meaning that an object can flow down several paths simultaneously, and sub-workflows which can be invoked subroutine-style from a task. The system allocates tasks to Unix processes to achieve requisite levels of multiprocessing. The system uses the LabBase data management system to store workflow-state and laboratory results. LabFlow provides a Per15 object-oriented framework for defining workflows, and an engine for executing these. The software is freely available.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Clinical Laboratory Information Systems*
  • Computer Simulation
  • Database Management Systems*
  • Expressed Sequence Tags
  • Research
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Software
  • Work