Using Elab metadata as an early diagnostic tool. Is it possible ?

[Aveyron-RetD]

What i am trying to achieve is an early diagnostic tool, and I was wondering if I could use the metadata and the search function as an early diagnostic tool.

For example
I was thinking to create a resource item category with the known results and all the metadata associated with it
Like for example a fish diseases category where I would create an item for each known fish disease and the associated metadata of this disease Like size/color/etc.../test results/etc...

And I create an experiment with the similar metadata and do a search on this metadata to find in my resource item category some fish disease that could help me to narrow my search and identify the next steps to confirm my fish disease.

Do you think this is the correct approach ?
How would you narrow the search results ?

[MarcelBolten]

eLab has no way to create a search query from existing metadata of an experiment from the web interface so far. But you could use a python script and the eLab API to do so:

• read the experiment of interest
• convert the relevant metadata into a query
• use that query to get the resource item entries that match the query

It will be important to use consistent metadata field names as they will be used in the queries. Also note that if you want to compare e.g. the length of a fish it will need to be an exact match as smaller (<) and greater (>) comparison operators are not implemented yet (#4749). As a workaround you could use a range as the value [8-11] or combine more values in the query with an "or" operator (x=8 or x=9 or x=10 or x=11).

[Aveyron-RetD]

Ok thanks !
Do you think it's a good aproach or do you think there is another way to achieve this in elab.
I am sure there could be a clever way to do this without any coding skills... maybe with tags ? as they can be added to narrow the search.

[MarcelBolten]

I think using metadata is the right approach but if coding is off the table then tags might be an alternative.
It also depends on how you use eLab. Are you the only user or are you part of a team.

[Aveyron-RetD]

It's for another team, and they do not have the coding skills.
I have beginner level of coding styles and only do Excel macros . Python coding has been on my wish list for some time, but never had a project worth the time.
I might recommand to do both approaches, add tags and the metadata in the resource item. (start building the database). I think with the tags they could go far.