Experiment

Defines an experiment. Provides a context for associating experimental data with it.
Allows tree-structured experiments consisting of heterogeneous subexperiments,
subexperiments corresponding to time-series observations,
and repeated trials of identical experiments.
For a hierarchical experiment, data should be associated with the Experiment
at the appropriate level. For example, if data reflects results from averaging
numerous identically conducted trials, that data should be associated with the
Experiment representing the group of these trials.
A Comment table entry may be created to contain discussion of results, etc.
A DBID table entry may be created if the (sub)experiment has a unique name within its DataSet.
SynonymTable table entries may be created to associate names with the (sub)experiment.
If published, a reference may be created in Citation table.

Columns

Column	MySQL Type	Oracle Type	Nullable	Description
WID	BIGINT	NUMBER	No	Warehouse identifier for this entity
Type	VARCHAR	VARCHAR2(50)	No	Mnemonic for the general type of experiment, e.g. 'microarray'
ContactWID	BIGINT	NUMBER	Yes	Contact.WID for submitter/investigator
ArchiveWID	BIGINT	NUMBER	Yes	Archive.WID of external rep'n of experiment and its data.
StartDate	DATETIME	DATE	Yes	Date+time experiment was started
EndDate	DATETIME	DATE	Yes	Date+time experiment was completed
Description	TEXT	CLOB	Yes	Description of this experiment
GroupWID	BIGINT	NUMBER	Yes	Experiment.WID defining the parent group of this subexperiment
GroupType	VARCHAR	VARCHAR2(50)	Yes	Enumeration indicating type of any and all direct subexperiments Exs: 'replicate' 'variant' 'step' 'time-series' *Enumerated Values:* replicate - All subexperiments attempt to replicate identical experimental conditions and parameters variant - Subexperiments are variations upon an experimental procedure, technique, conditions, and/or parameters time-series - Subexperiments consist of observations according to a specific schedule step - Subexperiments comprise an experimental procedure and consist of an ordered sequence
GroupSize	INT	NUMBER	No	Number of child experiments loaded
GroupIndex	INT	NUMBER	Yes	Counter value identifying this experiment in a sequence or set of subexperiments (eg. time-series). NULL if GroupWID is NULL.
TimePoint	INT	NUMBER	Yes	Time offset indicating when associated observations in a time-series experiment were conducted
TimeUnit	VARCHAR	VARCHAR2(20)	Yes	Enumeration for units of TimePoint
DataSetWID	BIGINT	NUMBER	No	DataSet.WID this entity is associated with
BioSourceWID	BIGINT	NUMBER	Yes	References the biological source of this experiment, if applicable.

Referenced By

Table	Column
Experiment	GroupWID
ExperimentData	ExperimentWID
ExperimentRelationship	ExperimentWID
ExperimentRelationship	RelatedExperimentWID
GelLocation	ExperimentWID
ExperimentDesign	Experiment_ExperimentDesigns
ExperimentWIDContactWID	ExperimentWID
ExperimWIDBioAssayDataClustWID	ExperimentWID
ExperimentWIDBioAssayDataWID	ExperimentWID
ExperimentWIDBioAssayWID	ExperimentWID
RelatedTerm	OtherWID
CitationWIDOtherWID	OtherWID
CommentTable	OtherWID
CrossReference	OtherWID
CrossReference	CrossWID
Description	OtherWID
DBID	OtherWID
SynonymTable	OtherWID
ToolAdvice	OtherWID

Other Constraints

None.

Indexes

Name	Columns
EXP_TYPE	TYPE
EXP_CON	CONTACTWID
EXP_GROUP	GROUPWID
EXP_DS	DATASETWID