10.3. Life Sciences Are Turning to XML to Model Their Information

It has been said that the difficulties in dealing with bioinformatics data come more from its idiosyncrasies than its quantity, and there certainly is no lack of quantity of information (Achard et al. 2001). Biological data are complex to model, and because of this complexity, our models must have the flexibility to grow. The complexity comes in part from the large variety of data types and their many interrelationships. In addition, new data types emerge regularly, and these new types modify our perception of the old types.

François Rechenmann confirms this synopsis by stating, “It is not so much the volume of data which characterizes biology, as it is the data's diversity and ...

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