On the feasibility of distributed systems for interactive visual analysis of omics data

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the feasibility of developing a distributed interactive visual analysis omics system demonstrating how selected modules from the standalone J-Express Modularized application can be converted into a web based distributed system maintaining the original application's interactivity and functionality. A distributed system is considered as the main architectural design, where the client-side will mainly be responsible for managing the interactive visualisation of the generated results, and the server-side is responsible for the remote processing and storage of the data files in addition to sharing the data resources between the users. A prototype system of an interactive visual data analysis of omics data will be implemented as an online service to non-technical life science researchers. This provides the opportunity to address the main challenges and limitations of such systems, as well as outlining the additive benefits to the omics-data analysis process achieved by the use of distributed systems. The main goal for this thesis can thus be summarised as: Investigate the feasibility of developing a web distributed system that supports interactive visualisation of omics data analysis based on converting selected modules from J-Express Modularized, and discuss the main benefits and limitations of such a system. From the study and the prototype evaluation, we conclude that even with the current limitations for the browser memory and computing capabilities, it is still feasible to develop a browser based distributed system for interactive visual analysis of omics data. This system will achieve good performance, scalability, besides being biologist- friendly.