Author: Craig Stancl, Scott Bauer, Cory Endle
Email: Stancl.craig@mayo.edu, bauer.scott@mayo.edu, endle.cory@mayo.edu
Team: LexEVS
Contract: S13-500 MOD4
Client: NCI CBIIT
National Institutes of Heath
US Department of Health and Human Services

The purpose of this document is to collect, analyze, and define high-level needs for and designed features of the National Cancer Institute Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (NCI CBIIT) LexEVS Release 6.4.

The focus is on the functionalities proposed by the stakeholders and target users to make a better product.

Design Scope and Requirements

The LexEVS 6.4 Scope Document can be found here: LexEVS 6.4 Scope Document

Detailed Design

The following sections specify how the design will satisfy the requirements for the Lucene search upgrade.  This design reflects the wide ranging changes that will be necessary to LexEVS to fully update over three full releases of Lucene.  Since Lucene is the heart of the search mechanism that powers efficient searches in LexEVS these changes are necessarily extensive.  The focus of these changes can be broken down, to some extent, into three areas. 

Some classes are called out to indicate the extent of the changes and to document some of the details of intended adjustments.

Code Decoupling

LexEVS Code Decoupling

Multi-Index Searches

LexEVS Multi-index Lucene Implementation

Changing the Relational Representation in Lucene

LexEVS Lucene Relational Representation

Per-segment Search

LexEVS Per-segment Search Implementation

Hit Collector to Collector Updates

Analyzer Updates

Index Code Refactor: Removing the Indexer Project

Audit of Text Matching Use Cases

Consideration of Build Impacts

Index Compatibility with Previous Index Versions

This update will be to Lucene 5.0.  This version of Lucene has some backwards compatibility with Lucene 4.0 indexes.  However it is completely incompatible with indexes versions 3.x and earlier.  While LexEVS API's will maintain backwards compatibilities, any indexes from previous installed will have to be re-indexed in the latest implementation. 

Pagination in Lucene

Lazy loading pagination is a broad concept in LexEVS and can encompass both graph and node set capabilities.  Because this scope is large we are going to consider this out of scope for this project unless we can define a fairly narrow definition of what we want to do with Lucene's version of this.  Currently some lazy loading occurs under the covers in the iterators returned by the coded node set implementation.  We also have  node graph pagination.  In either case we may not need a reimplementation in order to update our Lucene implementation.  We are suggesting this become a possible priority for a later implementation and won't fully describe how this might be done here. 

Impacts to Existing Users / Applications

Minimal impact overall expected with increased performance and maintenance efficiency expected. 

Impact DescriptionReference to documented impact
Text Matching Algorithm Changes. Support for a wide ranging text matching capability creates potential for heavy maintenance. We have attempted to characterize the similarities between some term matching implementations with an eye towards exclusion or combination. This exclusion and combination only affects end users if we remove labels as algorithm switches. Not specifically impact documentation but a background document: LexEVS Text Match Algorithm Audit
Index File System Changes. Index files will exist per coding scheme. This creates the opportunity for unmerged terminology indexes that should improve maintenance efficiency through quicker load times and the ability to identify and remove broken indexes without having to reindex the entire service. This will change the appearance of the file system but should not cause any issues for end users. The API will remain the same.

Background:

LexEVS Multi-index Lucene Implementation

Faster Query Performance on at Least Some Queries. The goal is to at least make queries no slower than current queries. The use of Block Join Queries has a reputation for being faster. This implementation has some opportunity to provide small indexes if we can properly capitalize during implementation.

Background:

LexEVS Lucene Relational Representation

Index Optimization Function Will Go Away. Index optimization no longer serves the purpose originally intended in Lucene. The optimization function should be deprecated and the implementation changed to output a message that indexes no longer need optimizing. 

Decision Points - Approval Needed

Pagination in Lucene - DEFERRED

Reference: LexEVS 6.4 Software Design Document

Sign off

Date

Role

CBIIT or Stakeholder Organization

Approver's Comments (If disapproved indicate specific areas for improvement.)

Larry Wright4/24/2015Govt Project Manager

CBIIT EVS

---

Sherri de Coronado

4/30/2015

Govt Sponsor

CBIIT EVS

Kumar Kuntipuram

4/30/2015

TPM

Leidos Biomed

 

Reduction of Text Matching Algorithms 

Reference: LexEVS Text Match Algorithm Audit

Text Matching Algorithms to be continued:  This list to be provided when the development team begins to work on these algorithms.  

 

Sign off

Date

Role

CBIIT or Stakeholder Organization

Approver's Comments (If disapproved indicate specific areas for improvement.)

Larry Wright

4/24/2015

Govt Project Manager

CBIIT EVS

---

Sherri de Coronado

4/30/2015

Govt Sponsor

CBIIT EVS

Kumar Kuntipuram

4/30/2015

TPM

Leidos Biomed

 

Lucene Code Decoupling - DEFERRED

Reference: LexEVS Code Decoupling

Sign off

Date

Role

CBIIT or Stakeholder Organization

Approver's Comments (If disapproved indicate specific areas for improvement.)

Larry Wright

4/24/2015

Govt Project Manager

CBIIT EVS

---

Sherri de Coronado

4/30/2015

Govt Sponsor

CBIIT EVS

Kumar Kuntipuran

4/30/2015

TPM

Leidos Biomed

Relevant JIRA Items

Detailed Design - Provide the architecture and design for the new Lucene feature.

The following JIRA items are all part of LEXEVS-724.