Difference between revisions of "Template:Article of the week"

From LIMSWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
m (Spacing)
(Updated article of the week text.)
Line 1: Line 1:
<div style="float: left; margin: 0.5em 0.9em 0.4em 0em;">[[File:1FYT T-cell receptor and HLA class II complex.png|140px]]</div>
<div style="float: left; margin: 0.5em 0.9em 0.4em 0em;">[[File:Linux kernel API.svg|240px]]</div>
'''[[Immunoinformatics]]''' (sometimes referred to as '''computational immunology''') is a sub-branch of [[bioinformatics]] that focuses on the use of data management and computational tools to improve immunological research. The scope of immunoinformatics covers a wide variety of territory, from genomic and proteomic study of the immune system to molecular- and organism-level modeling, putting it in close ties with [[genome informatics]].
An '''[[application programming interface]]''' ('''API''') is a particular set of rules and specifications that software programs can follow to communicate with each other.  It serves as an interface between different software programs and facilitates their interaction, similar to the way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. An API can be created for applications, libraries, operating systems, etc. as a way of defining their "vocabularies" and resource request conventions (e.g. function-calling conventions). It may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and protocols used to communicate between the consumer program and the implementer program of the API.


Immunology researchers like Hans-Georg Rammensee trace the history of immunoinformatics back to the study of theoretical immunology. In June 1987, the Theoretical Immunology Workshop was hosted in Santa Fe, New Mexico to discuss "the topics of immune surveillance, mathematical models of HIV infection, complexities of antigen-antibody systems, immune suppression and tolerance, and idiotypie networks." One of the first immunoinformatics efforts to result in a long-term informatics solution was the construction of the IMGT information system in 1989 by the Laboratoire d'ImmunoGénétique Moléculaire (LIGM). Created to "standardize and manage the complexity of the immunogenetics data" coming out of the lab, the information system went on to become an international public reference for genetic and proteomic data related to immunology. ('''[[Immunoinformatics|Full article...]]''')<br />
An API can be generalized for many functions, appearing bundled in the libraries of a programming language, e.g. the Standard Template Library in C++ or the Java API. It can also be function-specific, meant to address a specific problem, e.g. the Google Maps API or the Java API for XML Web Services. Some APIs are language-dependent, meaning they can only use the syntax and elements of a particular language, which makes the API more convenient to use. Of course, an API may also be language-independent, written so that it can be called from several programming languages. This is a desirable feature for a service-oriented API that is not bound to a specific process or system and may be provided as remote procedure calls or web services. ('''[[Application programming interface|Full article...]]''')<br />


<br />
<br />
''Recently featured'': [[Life sciences industry]], [[Chemical industry]], [[Skilled nursing facility]]
''Recently featured'': [[Immunoinformatics]], [[Life sciences industry]], [[Chemical industry]]

Revision as of 17:15, 26 May 2015

Linux kernel API.svg

An application programming interface (API) is a particular set of rules and specifications that software programs can follow to communicate with each other. It serves as an interface between different software programs and facilitates their interaction, similar to the way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. An API can be created for applications, libraries, operating systems, etc. as a way of defining their "vocabularies" and resource request conventions (e.g. function-calling conventions). It may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and protocols used to communicate between the consumer program and the implementer program of the API.

An API can be generalized for many functions, appearing bundled in the libraries of a programming language, e.g. the Standard Template Library in C++ or the Java API. It can also be function-specific, meant to address a specific problem, e.g. the Google Maps API or the Java API for XML Web Services. Some APIs are language-dependent, meaning they can only use the syntax and elements of a particular language, which makes the API more convenient to use. Of course, an API may also be language-independent, written so that it can be called from several programming languages. This is a desirable feature for a service-oriented API that is not bound to a specific process or system and may be provided as remote procedure calls or web services. (Full article...)


Recently featured: Immunoinformatics, Life sciences industry, Chemical industry

Retrieved from "https://www.limswiki.org/index.php?title=Template:Article_of_the_week&oldid=21639"