Enhancing a Genome Database Using the XSB Tabled Logic Programming System

LabBase is a generic database management system for implementation of laboratory information systems developed at the Center for Genome Research in the Whitehead Institute at MIT. It has become an important community database serving biological scientists engaged in genome research. Until now the language used to query LabBase has been non-recursive datalog without rules. Using the XSB Tabled Logic Programming System developed at SUNY, Stony Brook, we have now extended this query language into a full-fledged logic programming language. LabBase users can now use the full power of a logic programming language, especially rules and recursion, to compose complex queries. The XSB system extends and improves the evaluation strategy of Prolog. In particular it terminates for (recursive and non-recursive) Datalog programs thus enabling a smooth generalization of LabBase's query language. In addition it supports HiLog - a higher-order logic programming language, and by combing HiLog and tabling..