CardioVascular Research Grid (CVRG)

Studies focusing on the systems biology of heart disease, many of which are cross-institutional, play an important role in biomedical research and the mission of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  NHLBI funds the Cardiovascular Research Grid (CVRG), an R24 resource.  The main objective of the CVRG is to create a collaborative environment for cardiovascular research.  The project is based at the Institute for Computational Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with the Center for Comprehensive Informatics at Emory University.

The CVRG leverages the experience obtained in and the software infrastructure developed as part of the BIRN, caBIG and NCBO efforts, to develop tools and services for the cardiovascular community.  It has used the caGrid infrastructure to build a federated set of data and analytical resources, including a caGrid OpenClinica service, ECG data services, and caGrid-compatible analytical services for processing ECG data. These services can be downloaded free of charge for research use by the cardiovascular research community as well as other biomedical research communities. In addition, CVRG has developed several caGrid-compatible tools as extended components or on top of the caGrid infrastructure to provide additional capabilities. These tools can be used along with caGrid installations and include:

• An XML data service infrastructure, which enables creation of caGrid data services from XML schemas. More information about the XML data service infrastructure can be found here.

• A federated query library, which uses CQL and caGrid querying support as the underlying mechanism. The library and its API provide a layer for composing and executing federated queries that request multiple target objects, as required by several use cases in CVRG. he CVRG federated query library is implemented as a generic library and can be used to support queries in other application domains. More information about the library can be accessed here.

• An instance-level data access control library, which provides access control support based on the CSM authorization model and is integrated with several backends for caGrid data services, including relational, XML, and DICOM data management backends. The information about the library is available here.

Learn more about CVRG at the CVRG website.

Announcements

CVRG News

Core Grid Service Information

Core Service Addresses (URLs)

The CVRG core infrastructure services, maintained by the Project 1 Emory collaborators, are:

• Metadata Services
  • Global Model Exchange
    • http://cvrg02.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9080/wsrf/services/cagrid/GlobalModelExchange
  • EVS Service
    • http://cvrg03.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9080/wsrf/services/cagrid/EVSGridService
  • caDSR Service
    • http://cvrg02.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9080/wsrf/services/cagrid/CaDSRService
  • Index Service
    • http://cvrg03.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9080/wsrf/services/DefaultIndexService
• Security Services
  • Authentication Service
    • https://dorian.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9443/wsrf/services/cagrid/Dorian
  • Credential Delegation Service
    • https://cvrg02-dev.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9442/wsrf/services/cagrid/CredentialDelegationService
  • Dorian
    • https://dorian.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9443/wsrf/services/cagrid/Dorian
  • Grid Grouper
    • https://cvrg03.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9443/wsrf/services/cagrid/GridGrouper
  • GTS (master)
    • https://cvrg05.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9442/wsrf/services/cagrid/GTS
  • GTS (slave)
    • https://cvrg04.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9442/wsrf/services/cagrid/GTS
• Business Activity Services
  • FederatedQueryProcessor
    • https://cvrg02.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9443/wsrf/services/cagrid/FederatedQueryProcessor
  • BPEL Workflow Service
    • https://cvrg02.bmi.ohio-state.edu:9443/wsrf/services/cagrid/WorkflowFactoryService

Data Services

Analytical Services

Grid Policies

Account Request Requirements & Procedure

CVRG account requests are governed by the CVRG Management Team.  With the need for beta testers, the requirements are as follows:

• First and Last Name of account requester
• E-mail address
• Work Phone Number
• Organization represented
• Mailing address
• Detailed interest statement providing insight into user's tools of interest and data to be tested with (i.e., no brief statements such as "scientific research," "research interest" or "read the ecg data")

CVRG account requests must be performed via the CVRG Beta Signup Portlet.  The portlet is accessible via the CVRG Portal.  The portlet provides a form for required information and conveys that information to the CVRG Management Team.  Upon review, the CVRG Management Team will contact individuals/groups chosen for beta testing.  The CVRG Management Team thanks all interested parties for their interest in the CVRG itself and their understanding in the beta test selection process.

Data Sharing Requirements

CVRG data must be de-identified, in order to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.  In order for data to be stored within CVRG data services, information about the data involved and how they will be shared must be provided to the CVRG Management Team.  This information includes, but is not limited to:

• Specific descriptions of the data to be shared and the source(s) of the data
• Descriptions of the expected level of data access (i.e., private, group or public access)
• Descriptions of the de-identification process followed, providing the precise methodology used (i.e., manual or automated, tools used, verification process, etc.)

Data Usage Requirements

Data available within the CVRG Beta Testing Environment will be available to all beta testers unless specified in the Data Sharing Requirements submission.  Data used in the CVRG Beta Testing Environment for research purposes must be properly referenced.  Upon submission of publications with information derived from the CVRG, the CVRG Management Team must be informed to provide the full reference with regard to the original data source.