Developing a brain informatics provenance model

Abstract

Integrating brain big data is an important issue of the systematic Brain Informatics study. Provenances provide a practical approach to realize the information-level data integration. However, the existing neuroimaging provenances focus on describing experimental conditions and analytical processes, and cannot meet the requirement of integrating brain big data. This paper puts forward a provenance model of brain data, in which model elements are identified and defined by extending the Open Provenance Model. A case study is also described to demonstrate significance and usefulness of the proposed model. Such a provenance model facilitates more accurate modeling of brain data, including data creation and data processing for integrating various primitive brain data, brain data related information during the systematic Brain Informatics study. © Springer International Publishing 2013.