Unfortunately, there are not always clear and consistant definitions for the fields I am involved in. To clarify my research interests, I will provide the definitions I typically accept.
Computer science: The study of the theory of information and computation and techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems. I feel that today many programs, including UWF's computer science department, have missed the mark that computer science is primarily a theoretical field, not an application field.
Scientific computing: Also called computational science, the study of the creation, implementation, and application of mathematical models, algorithms, and software to solve scientific and engineering problems. It is a distinct field from computer science, but generally requires interdisciplinary knowledge depending on the target domain.
Computational biology: The study to address biological problems by applying computer science, mathematics, and statistics. I consider computational biology to be a subfield of scientific computing.
Biomedical informatics: A broad term often used to encompass many fields, including bioinformatics, medical informatics, public health informatics and others. I do not consider this term to be a field; rather, a term to include a wide range of fields. The term is needed because scientists of computing involved tend to be involved in multiple fields.
Medical informatics: The study of the application of information technology and computer science to health care. Today, the field tends to focus on subjects such as clinical decision support systems, electronic health records, e-prescribing, and standards for information exchange.
Bioinformatics: The study of the application of information technology to biology, usually molecular biology. Today, the field tends to focus on subjects such as sequence and protein struture alignment, sequence and protein structure prediction, prediction of gene expression and protein interactions, and the evolution modeling. I believe that in the future, bioinformatics and medical informatics will intersect, for better or for worse, as genetic profiles become an integrated part of the electronic medical record. The definition of bioinformatics is contested. Some believe that bioinformatics is a broader term. I tend to accept the definition that focuses on molecular biology and use the term biomedical informatics for the broader term.
As far as downloadable items, I do not have much to contribute. The following are projects and research I have been involved in.
Summer 2009, I voluntarily worked on DNA annotation of Drosophila mojavensis. Infomation on this project cannot be posted here.
Genomics Education Partnership
To complete my masters degree, I completed a year-long marine bioinformatics project to create an application for the purpose of detecting ball bearing in x-rays of sting rays. The purpose was the measure the passage time through the digestive tract at varying temperatures to determine the effects to metabolic processes. A full description can be found in the Classes page. Below are the publications and applications from this project. The applications are released under GPLv2.
An Application for Automated Image Processing of Stingray Digestion X-Rays: This was the set of slides that I had on my poster for the 2009 Scholars of Engineering, Applied Sciences, & Technology Annual Research Symposium at UWF. See my vitae for a citation.
Automated Image Processing of X-Radiographics of Digestion in Stingrays: This is the paper I wrote about my project for the 2009 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence. See my vitae for a citation.
And here is the StingRay application:
View source: StingRay.rc
View source: StingRay.c
View source: process.c
View source: StingRayGui.java
View License
Download Executables and Source
Course Website: This is the course website I had to develop for BSC5459 at UWF. I am not sure if it is of any value, and I think it is pretty tacky; however, there is code and information on it. UWF's web server runs using ColdFusion, which my current web server does not have (I'm not complaining, since I detest ColdFusion). Since this server does not have ColdFusion and the paths are different, many of the pages do not function. Still, here they are. Any source code here can be considered Public Domain.
UWF–Department of Computer Science
The department where I studied at the bachelors and masters level.
UWF–School of Allied Health and Life Sciences
The school where I studied for my medical informatics certificate.
UWF–Medical Informatics Certificate Program
The medical informatics program which I completed.
UWF–Medical Informatics Resource Site
A collection of resources to accompany the medical informatics program.
Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics
An excellent introductory textbook.
National Center for Biotechnology Information
Genomics Education Partnership
Research I will be involved in this summer.
Biohealthmatics.com
A career building and job search website for biomedical informatics.
