Superior

AUTOMATING LABORATORY OPERATIONS BY INTEGRATING
LABORATORY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (LIMS) WITH
ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENTS AND SCIENTIFIC DATA MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM (SDMS)

Jianyong Zhu

Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
Master of Science in the School of Informatics,
Indiana University
June 2005

Master’s Committee

__________________________________________
Mahesh Merchant, Ph.D

__________________________________________
Douglas Perry, Ph.D

__________________________________________
Michael Evans, Ph.D

Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master’s of Science in
Laboratory Informatics Graduate Program

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During my two-year academic career I am grateful to many people who helped me in my research and studies. Firstly most important of all I would like to thank Dr. Mahesh
Merchant and Dr. Douglas Perry for their guidance, encouragement, support and unconditional faith in my abilities. I would also like to thank Dr. Michael Evans for giving me the opportunity to intern in his laboratory and for his generosity of letting me use his analytical instruments, software and hardware. In the end I want to thank my friends and family, particularly my wife, Ping, without their endurance and relentless support it would have been impossible for me to coordinate my studying and working schedules and fulfill my responsibilities.

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ABSTRACT

The large volume of data generated by commercial and research laboratories, along with requirements mandated by regulatory agencies, have forced companies to use laboratory information management systems (LIMS) to improve efficiencies in tracking, managing samples, and precisely reporting test results. However, most general purpose
LIMS do not provide an interface to automatically collect data from