Mica is a web platform that supports epidemiological studies through an integrated infrastructure called Maelstrom repository. It is a 3-step process: 1) Mica Catalogues document participating studies and their variables, 2) Mica Variables further identify variables for harmonization, 3) Processing, Integration and Dissemination harmonizes data across studies and allows dissemination through integration with other tools like Opal. The goal is to provide a comprehensive, customizable and open source software solution to support all stages of multi-study data harmonization and analysis.

1. Mic
a
Mica: An integrated web platform to
support epidemiological studies
Etienne Morency (emorency@p3g.org)

2. Mic
 What is Mica ? a
 Mica infrastructure (Maelstrom repository)
 Step 1: Mica Catalogues
 Step 2: Mica Variables
 Step 3: Processing, Integration and Dissemination
 Conclusion
2 4/26/2012

3. Software Infrastructure Mic
 Mealstrom-Research

a
Web portal to document studies that are using our harmonization
tools
 Operational IT infrastructure that supports management of individual
harmonization projects
 Integrated – Series of interrelated software (ONYX, OPAL, MICA,
DataSHIELD and DataSHaPER). Solid “communication routes” with other
resources (PhenX, Molgenis, DDI):
 Comprehensive – Support all steps of the harmonization process from
study description to database federation and statistical analysis
 Open source – Based on state-of-the-art and widely used open source
frameworks, highly customizable and secure, freely available.
 Toolkit to build websites for a study or a consortium
 Easy to install, to manage and extremely customizable (based on
Drupal and PHP)
3 4/26/2012

4. Architecture Mic
a
 3 architectures that links to the central repository (all
share core information)
Network
Hosted
Maelstrom-
Research
Independent
4 4/26/2012

6. Mic
a
1. Identifying and cataloguing
participating studies

9. Study Catalogue Mic
a
9 4/26/2012

11. Mic
a
2. Identifying variables for
harmonization

14. Mic
a
3. Data processing, integration and
dissemination

18. Integration with Opal Mic
a
Kora-gen UK Biobank LifeGene
1800 50,000 50,000
participants participants participants
Harmonized Harmonized
Dataset Dataset
Mica
18 4/26/2012

20. Conclusion Mic
 Other Features a
 Role-based access control (files, fields, content types)
 Dissemination of Publications/Events/Projects/News
 And many other extensions (calendar, publication
workflow…)
 Updates
 Ongoing development
 Catalogues (Questionnaires, Access, Biosamples
Physical Measures) / Follow-up
 Continue the integration with existing tools
 Implement the central repository: Maelstrom-Research
 Translations support
20 4/26/2012