This chapter introduces general caIntegrator procedures and how to obtain help to use caIntegrator.
Topics in this chapter include:
NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT) is developing a novel translational informatics platform called caIntegrator that allows researchers and bioinformaticians to access and analyze subject annotation and experimental data across multiple subject annotation trials and studies. The caIntegrator framework provides a mechanism for integrating and aggregating biomedical research data and provides access to a variety of data types (for example, immunohistochemistry (IHC), microarray-based gene expression, SNPs, subject annotation trials data, imaging data, etc.) in a cohesive fashion.
caIntegrator is a web based or locally installed portal that allows researchers and study managers to access the biomedical informatics infrastructure and data analysis tools established by caIntegrator from one common software platform. As a caIntegrator user, you can perform the following tasks:
To request a caIntegrator account, you must register as a new user, completing the following steps:
Enter the appropriate information. Fields with an asterisk are required.
Security Information | Entry | |
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Do you have an LDAP account? | An LDAP account is a user profile you may have with your institution or CBIIT. If you answer Yes, enter your username and password. This allows caIntegrator to verify that your credentials are correct.
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Username | Enter your LDAP user name. | |
LDAP Password | Enter your password. Your password is case-sensitive. | |
Requested role(s) | Select one or more of the roles, described in this table:. |
The registration workflow continues as follows.
You can log in to caIntegrator.
Once you register, you can continue to use caIntegrator without an account to browse and search publicly available data and download data while your account is being activated. |
When your account is registered, the UserID and password you are assigned determines your access rights for the data in the system. Access rights include roles for the application as well as instance level security; they are provisioned to your account by the system administrator.
For information about administering user accounts, see 7 - Administering User Accounts.
The caIntegrator Welcome workspace enables quick access to all caIntegrator functions and information before and after you login, before you open any studies.
If your local installation of caIntegrator is configured with single sign-on, when you click the login button, you are redirected to the single sign-on login page hosted by a separate SSO server. Once you enter your credentials there, you are logged into both caIntegrator and caArray. You can navigate between the two applications without being challenged to provide login credentials again.
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To access caIntegrator functions, use the options listed on the left sidebar of the workspace and described in the following table.
Sidebar Option | Function |
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[Study Name] | When you log in, one study displays in the left sidebar by default. Any study that you select in the My Studies drop-down list in the upper right of the page replaces this default selection. |
Home | Click this to return to the home page for the selected study. |
Search [Study Name] | Click this option to open the Search [Study Name] page from which you can launch queries into your selected study. For more information, see 4 - Searching a caIntegrator Study. |
Study Data | Click Saved Queries > My Queries to open the list of previous queries you saved. Click any item in the list to open the saved query, which displays on the Criteria, Columns and Sorting tabs. From those tabs, you can modify criteria and/or launch the query again. For more information, see Saving a Query. |
Analysis Tools | Click any of the listed options to open a page where you can launch an analysis of the data in the selected study.
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Study Management | Click either of the listed options to manage the selected study through editing or deleting it or by creating a new study.
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Application Management | Click Manage Platforms to identify, add or remove platforms that caIntegrator supports. For more information, see Managing Platforms. |
caIntegrator Menu |
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Help | Click the Help icon at the top of each page to open a context-sensitive topic. The help page displays information (from this user's guide) that corresponds to the page from which help was opened. |
In the My Studies drop-down list in the upper right of the page, select the study you want to use for your current session. (The list includes all studies to which you are subscribed as well as public studies.) As you do so, the following left sidebar contents change to reflect options relevant to your study selection:
A study summary including a status field should appear for the study you selected. If the status is not deployed, or if the study summary does not appear, then the study is not deployed and available for analysis.
When annotations are uploaded during the creation of the study, each field is defined by the study manager.
A link on a study home page, as shown by the arrow in the following screen shot, opens a data dictionary summary.
The Data Dictionary table, shown in the following figure, clarifies all annotations used in the study. It displays their field descriptors, descriptions, caDSR identifiers (if used), caDSR IDs and definitions, data type, and permissible settings. The Restrictions column indicates whether or not masks have been applied to numeric data in the study. For more information, see Assigning an Identifier or Annotation.
For more information about study details, see Creating or Editing a Study.
The study log which you can open by clicking the Study Log > View link on the study summary page lists the steps used to create a study. For more information, see Viewing or Editing a Log.
To log out of caIntegrator, click the logout link in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
The caIntegrator online help is in user's guide format. It explains how to use all of the features of the caIntegrator portal.
You can open the user's guide without being logged into caIntegrator. |
To access the user's guide in caIntegrator, click the Help icon/menu options available in the upper right corner of the user interface () and on the left sidebar under the caIntegrator Menu section. When you click the help icon, context sensitive topics relevant to the page open for your assistance.
Help and additional resource links remain fixed through all the user interface pages.