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 * market research  * market research (see issues #1, 2, 3, 4 below)
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 * Sage Publications: http://www.sagepub.com/
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  1. students in bioinformatics courses?
   1. all molecular biology students?
  1. practitioners in pharma, government research, academic research?
   1. general interest to science-minded public?
  1. students in bioinformatics courses?
  1. all molecular biology students?
  1. practitioners in pharma, government research, academic research?
  1. general interest to science-minded public?
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  1. core textbook (aimed at 1st year or 2nd year undergraduates)
   1. a supplementary book (aimed at less commonly taught higher level courses and interested researchers)
   1. a monograph (based on original research and likely to be of interest only to fellow researchers in the field)
   1. a handbook (a large edited compendium of originally commissioned chapters)
  1. core textbook (aimed at 1st year or 2nd year undergraduates)
  1. a supplementary book (aimed at less commonly taught higher level courses and interested researchers)
  1. a monograph (based on original research and likely to be of interest only to fellow researchers in the field)
  1. a handbook (a large edited compendium of originally commissioned chapters)
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  1. we should be able to name 2-3 competitor texts available, their strengths, weaknesses, 
  1. how would our book differ?
   1. are we aware of other competitive titles that may be published in the next 1-2 years?
  1. we should be able to name 2-3 competitor texts available, their strengths, weaknesses,
  1. how would our book differ?
  1. are we aware of other competitive titles that may be published in the next 1-2 years?
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  1. ''todo'': list advantages/disadvantages of each    1. ''todo'': list advantages/disadvantages of each

RFC Name : Cytoscape Book

Editor(s): Allan Kuchinsky

Date: 2008-05-02

Status: <!>Under Construction

TableOfContents([2])

Proposal

Publish a co-authored book on Cytoscape and its role in exploring biological networks as a companion to 3.0 release.

Background

We have been approached frequently to write book chapters on Cytoscape. But there is so much functionality to write about that it is hard to capture in a book chapter. At the same time, there appears to be a niche for a practitioner-oriented book on biological networks and their analysis, visualization, and integration with measurement data. A book on Cytoscape, co-authored and published in the time frame to be a companion to the 3.0 release, would serve a number of purposes:

  1. a comprehensive and useful resource for the community of Cytoscape users and developers.
  2. a comprehensive and useful resource for anyone who wanted to learn more about biological network analysis and visualization.
  3. a way of broadening the user and developer base for Cytoscape.
  4. a way to enhance Cytoscape's stature and visability.

Use Cases

The book would be oriented towards practitioners (users and developers) and would be a complement to the Cytoscape User Manual. Rather than being a how-to book, this would be more of a what-is-possible book. That is, in contrast to the User Manual and protocols articles we have published, which provide step-by-step directions for using the functionality, the book would provide technical background on the main problem areas for biological networks, coupled with descriptions of how Cytoscape and its plugins approach the problem area. The reader of the book would gain a knowledge of the state of research into biological network analysis and visualization, as well as some familiarity with the Cytoscape platform. The book would serve as a text and could potentially be used as a text for bioinformatics courses. The book could also serve as a general reference for Cytoscape, but the reader would be referred to the User Manual for specific details on how to use the functionality. This has the advantage of insulating the book from changes that will occur in ongoing releases of Cytoscape.

Implementation Plan

The following is one potential way of organizing the book. It could be partitioned into a small number of sections, each section oriented around a particular theme of network analysis and visualization and containing several chapters, each chapter oriented around a particular problem area, approach, or area of functionality. In addition to giving a survey of the problem area and describing the relevant Cytoscape functionality, the chapter could include sidebars on the relevant plugins and/or examples of real-world usage. Additionally, there would be introductory materials the provided vision and and overview of the area, also concluding materials that might describe future trends and how Cytoscape might evolve.

Following is an initial outline of potential sections, chapters, sidebars, and possible authors. It is not exhaustive. I (AllanK) am likely to have forgotten major areas, so please help with additions, modifications, etc. (n.b. I am not completely happy with this particular partitioning into sections, would appreciate suggestions of other alternative partitioning).

Section

Chapter

Problem Description

Cytoscape Functionality

Sidebars

Introductory

Forward

Provide vision and context. Describe the role of biological networks in understanding and curing disease, personalized medicine, etc.

Overview

Describe the major problem and research areas of of Network Analysis, Visualization, and Data Integration. Give an overview of the sections and chapters of the book.

User Perspective

Describe the work practices of different types of biomedical researchers and their needs from information technologies.

Describe a real-world use case that will be used as an example throughout the book.

Creating Content

Biological pathway resources and molecular interactions databases

web service clients, import networks from file/URLs

MiMI, PathwayCommons, BioPAX, GenMAPP

Network inference

inferring networks and interactions from expression data, non-structured text, clustering ...

Agilent Literature Search, use case in atherosclerosis?

Network editing and Curation

subnet extraction, cytoscape editor

WikiPathways

Molecular Structure and Biochemical data

relation of biological networks to interactions at the molecular level -- domains, small molecule interactions

structureViz, GoSC cheminformatics plugin

Data and Annotations

web service clients, import expression data, import attributes, import annotations, Linkout

SubGeneViewer?

Exploring Networks

Overview of Information Visualization principles

zooming, birds-eye-view, hide-show, rendering/level of detail

VistaClara

Graph Layout

Overview of criteria and algorithms for aesthetic graph layout

Cytoscape Layouts

Mapping data to visual properties

Description of data coding

vizmapper

MSKCC expression viewer, dynamicXPR, VistaClara

Abstraction

managing network and data complexity via aggregation

Groups, network merge

clustering plugins

Search

overview of information retrieval issues

Filters, QuickFind

Cytoscape ESP

Analyzing Networks

overview

description of main issues in network analysis, scale free networks, etc.

graph-theoretic analysis

analysis of topological properties

nearest neighbor

GoSC random network generator, Network Analyzer plugin

identifying community structure

mCODE, GoSC normalized visualization project, jActiveModules

network comparison

network merge

functional enrichment

overview of biological ontologies

BiNGO, BubbleRouter

Perspectives and Conclusion

developer's perspective

how to write a cytoscape plugin

non-biological networks

social networks, telecoms network management

emerging standards

SBML, SBGN

Molecular Interaction Maps

the future

personalized medicine, etc.

Project Management

Editors' responsibilities for preparatory phase

Here are some thoughts about the tasks/responsibilities of anyone serving as an editor or 'associate' editor during the preparatory phase, which would result in a report and recommendations to be presented at the 2008 Cytoscape retreat, plus an extended outline or rough draft version of the book with 'synopsis' versions of each chapter.

  • setting a baseline
    • surveying what books are out there, what are their strengths and gaps
    • gathering pointers to materials we can draw upon for our writing
      • familiarization: go through tutorials, wiki pages, Nature Protocols
  • learning and setting up the process
    • recruiting authors
    • contacting publishers
    • contacting, getting permission from people whose work we reference or summarize
    • explore different vehicles for publishing
  • project management
    • defining time line, dependencies, tracking tools and process
  • writing and editing
    • pulling together a synopsis on each of the technical areas for each chapter
    • excerpt information from user manual, Nature Protocols into Cytoscape-specific portion of each chapter
    • writing an excerpt chapter for submission with book proposal (should this be Overview chapter?)
    • consolidating peoples' different writing styles
    • pulling together sidebar articles for each chapter
  • book and page design
    • put together candidate cover designs
    • build/gather/position figures to go with the text
    • put together list of possible working titles
  • market research (see issues #1, 2, 3, 4 below)

Project Timeline

Provide a timeline for implementation. Insert a graphic if you can. Try this free online tool for making project timelines -> [http://www.helpuplan.com/index.asp Help-u-Plan] (create a new chart; modify; right-click to save gif; then attach to this page)

Tasks and Milestones

Outline the major milestones and tasks involved in implementation.

  1. Milestone 1: …

    1. Task 1: ...
    2. Task 2: ...
  2. Milestone 2: …

Project Dependencies

Outline and projects that depend on this project, link to relevant RFC's and note at what point dependent projects could be started.

Link to other related RFCs

Issues

  1. what are the primary and secondary audiences for the book
    1. students in bioinformatics courses?
    2. all molecular biology students?
    3. practitioners in pharma, government research, academic research?
    4. general interest to science-minded public?
  2. what type of book should it be?
    1. core textbook (aimed at 1st year or 2nd year undergraduates)
    2. a supplementary book (aimed at less commonly taught higher level courses and interested researchers)
    3. a monograph (based on original research and likely to be of interest only to fellow researchers in the field)
    4. a handbook (a large edited compendium of originally commissioned chapters)
  3. what are the competing titles?
    1. we should be able to name 2-3 competitor texts available, their strengths, weaknesses,
    2. how would our book differ?
    3. are we aware of other competitive titles that may be published in the next 1-2 years?
  4. What is the right venue for publishing -- traditional publisher, Publish-on-Demand service, WikiBook?

    1. todo: list advantages/disadvantages of each

  5. Do we focus on biological networks or do we broaden the focus to include other kinds of networks?

Comments

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Cytoscape_Book (last edited 2009-02-12 01:04:00 by localhost)

Funding for Cytoscape is provided by a federal grant from the U.S. National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the Na tional Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number GM070743-01. Corporate funding is provided through a contract from Unilever PLC.

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