Combase compatibility

ComBase compatibility

A popular online resource for microbial data is the ComBase. It comprises a plethora of growth and inactivation data and PMM-Lab provides a compatibility layer that lets you import and export files formatted in the way they are offered by ComBase. The 'ComBase Reader' and the 'ComBase Writer' nodes accomplish these tasks.

In scientific literature results of microbial growth, survival or inactivation experiments are described heterogeneously in different units. In some cases it is impossible to transform this data to a more standardized unit lateron, like e.g. log10(CFU/g) or log10(CFU/ml).
In PMM-Lab the data model defines cell concentration the way that the cell/virus concentration is represented in log10(cells/CFU/units/vp/pfu per g) or log10(cells/CFU/units/vp/pfu per ml) (decadic logarithm). Time is always represented in hours.

This treatment of units has been selected to be consistent with the data handling in the ComBase as documented in a Tutorial for submitting data to ComBase.