The flow of data through the NDB is illustrated in Figure 1. The NDB abstracts experimental data from the primary literature and from author depositions, and records this information in mmCIF template files. The template files are ordinary mmCIF data files which have added comments containing definitions and enumerations that assist in data processing and curation. After validation processing, the primary data are loaded into the NDB database system. Once the primary data has been loaded into the database, the derivative features in Table 3 are calculated from coordinate data and loaded into the database. The calculation of derivative features is managed by the application, NDBQuery, which is also responsible for providing local query access and for generating database reports. Some of the features of NDBQuery are discussed in the next section.
Figure 1:
Functional diagram of the data management scheme used by the NDB.
The figure illustrates the generation of derived structural features
by the NDBQuery program using both internal and encapsulated methods.
The collections of graphical and tabular reports created by the
NDBQuery application are accessible via the NDB network servers.