Lyttleton Oliver, Wright Alexander, Treanor Darren, Lewis Paul
Institute of Life Science, School of Medicine, Swansea University, SA2 8PP, U.K.
J Pathol Inform. 2011;2:40. doi: 10.4103/2153-3539.84233. Epub 2011 Aug 24.
The Tissue Microarray Data Exchange Specification (TMA DES) is an XML specification for encoding TMA experiment data. While TMA DES data is encoded in XML, the files that describe its syntax, structure, and semantics are not. The DTD format is used to describe the syntax and structure of TMA DES, and the ISO 11179 format is used to define the semantics of TMA DES. However, XML Schema can be used in place of DTDs, and another XML encoded format, RDF, can be used in place of ISO 11179. Encoding all TMA DES data and metadata in XML would simplify the development and usage of programs which validate and parse TMA DES data. XML Schema has advantages over DTDs such as support for data types, and a more powerful means of specifying constraints on data values. An advantage of RDF encoded in XML over ISO 11179 is that XML defines rules for encoding data, whereas ISO 11179 does not.
We created an XML Schema version of the TMA DES DTD. We wrote a program that converted ISO 11179 definitions to RDF encoded in XML, and used it to convert the TMA DES ISO 11179 definitions to RDF.
We validated a sample TMA DES XML file that was supplied with the publication that originally specified TMA DES using our XML Schema. We successfully validated the RDF produced by our ISO 11179 converter with the W3C RDF validation service.
All TMA DES data could be encoded using XML, which simplifies its processing. XML Schema allows datatypes and valid value ranges to be specified for CDEs, which enables a wider range of error checking to be performed using XML Schemas than could be performed using DTDs.
组织微阵列数据交换规范（TMA DES）是一种用于编码TMA实验数据的XML规范。虽然TMA DES数据采用XML编码，但其描述语法、结构和语义的文件并非如此。DTD格式用于描述TMA DES的语法和结构，ISO 11179格式用于定义TMA DES的语义。然而，XML模式可用于替代DTD，另一种XML编码格式RDF可用于替代ISO 11179。将所有TMA DES数据和元数据编码为XML将简化验证和解析TMA DES数据的程序的开发和使用。XML模式相对于DTD具有诸如支持数据类型以及对数据值指定约束的更强大手段等优势。与ISO 11179相比，XML编码的RDF的一个优势在于XML定义了数据编码规则，而ISO 11179没有。
我们创建了TMA DES DTD的XML模式版本。我们编写了一个程序，将ISO 11179定义转换为XML编码的RDF，并使用它将TMA DES的ISO 11179定义转换为RDF。
我们使用我们的XML模式验证了最初指定TMA DES的出版物中提供的一个示例TMA DES XML文件。我们使用W3C RDF验证服务成功验证了我们的ISO 11179转换器生成的RDF。
所有TMA DES数据都可以使用XML进行编码，这简化了其处理过程。XML模式允许为公共数据元素（CDE）指定数据类型和有效值范围，这使得使用XML模式能够比使用DTD执行更广泛的错误检查。
