Rapid-I has successfully implemented virtual laboratory with e-LICO

Dortmund, 14. November 2012 - Rapid-I, a leading provider of open source solutions for predictive analytics, data mining and text mining, has pushed research in the virtual space with a successful participation in the European e-LICO-project. As the only industrial partner, the enterprise, with its solutions, made extensive data mining processes and services available for the project.

The goal of this project was to establish a foundation for interdisciplinary research cooperation in the area of data mining and in the data-intensive scientific environment so that global teams of non-analysts could use complex data analysis processes. In this way, the data mining expert for example can support the biologist in searching his data for undiscovered patterns.

The result was the development of a recommendation system for non-experts in data analysis in the style of “scientists with a similar problem tried out the following analysis process…“. This gives users suggestions for the optimal procedure when evaluating data, meaning they can improve their processes and results step-by-step.

The so-called e-Lab consists of three layers: The e-Science and data mining layer form a generic research environment, which can be adapted to different scientific areas by adjusting the application layer. For the data mining layer, RapidMiner and RapidAnalytics are used, which were determined to be the only suitable solutions by the partners beforehand.

“The active participation of Rapid-I was a substantial success factor in this multinational project financed by the European Union” explains project coordinator Melanie Hilario (University of Geneva). “The employees of Rapid-I are highly qualified and committed, and this is also reflected in the outstanding quality of their data analysis solutions, which form the basis for the e-LICO data mining layer.“ At the same time, Rapid-I’s open source policy goes perfectly with the open nature of the e-Science platform and has significantly lowered the costs of the project.“

On the application level, applications in systems biology among other things were used during e-LICO for the discovery of biomarkers and for the creation of video recommendations for the portal VideoLectures.Net. Some further ranges of application in the future could be “drug discovery” for predicting the effect of certain substances in newly discovered plants for example or “pharmacovigilance” for the discovery of undesired drug effects. The e-Lab developed as part of the EU project can therefore be a template for all possible further application scenarios.

“Indicative data is the be-all and end-all in every business division. And in the scientific division, where varied research teams and sectors often have to work hand in hand, access to consistent data and its analysis are also essential”, points out Dr. Ingo Mierswa, managing director of Rapid-I. “Solutions are therefore required which make cross-border cooperation possible. As we have shown with this project once more, RapidMiner is optimally suited for revealing underlying connections in data volumes.”

Information about e-LICO:
Partners from all over Europe are involved in the eLICO project and it is funded by the EU with 3.3 million euro. Apart from Rapid-I, the international partners of this project, which are coordinated by the University of Geneva, include: Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (France), Josef Stefan Institute (Slovenia), National Hellenic Research Foundation (Greece), Poznan University of Technology (Poland), Ruder Boskovic Institute (Croatia), University of Manchester (UK) as well as the University of Zurich (Switzerland). Further information at http://www.e-lico.eu