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The meaning of content in the caDSR Repository is based on linkages to concept from curated concept systems.  Mostly, NCI prefers the use of the NCI Thesaurus (NCIt) for these annotations due to the breadth of concepts in NCIt, the ability to get new concepts added to meet the needs of NCI clinical trials.

Concepts can be linked directly to the following types of Administered Items:

• Property
• Object Class 
• Value Meaning
• Value Domain

These items are used in the construction of CDEs based on the ISO/IEC 11179 Metamodel for data specification. The structure of these linkages are as follows: 

A Data Element is composed of a Data Element Concept (DEC) and a Value Domain (VD). 

• A DEC is composed of an Object Class and a Property. 
• A VD can be enumerated or enumerated. When enumerated it is composed of one or more sets/pairs of Permissible Values (PV) and Value Meanings (VM).

Since Concept linkages can be found in the Property, Object Class or Value Meanings, it is possible to retrieve all caDSR content based on Concept information, most typically the concept unique identifier, which is stored in the Concept Preferred Name, or the Concept Name, stored in the Concept Long Name.

To find any content in caDSR based on a related concept, it is necessary to find the concept of interest and navigate the path to all its related caDSR items.

• Concept>>getComponentConceptCollection>>where PrimaryFlag = Yes>> getConceptDerivationRule >> Once the ConceptDerivationRule has been retrieved, you can get the ObjectClassCollection, PropertyCollection, ValueMeaningCollection.  There could be more than one of any of these collections.

NOTE: A deeper level query could query to find the caDSR item related to the directly annotated item. For example from a Value Meaning it is possible to find out what Value Domains the VM is included and then retrieve all the Data Elements that use the VD. Refer to 1. Examples for Data Elements.