- mtrx is a relational database written in MS Access '97 (c) that manages character (discrete state), terminal, and matrix data. It was conceived in part based on the proposal of Nixon et al. (2001). Nixon et al. (2001) had apparently not explored the potential use of DeltaAccess at the time, which uses a SQL data model nearly identical to their proposal (Fig. 3, Nixon et al. 2001). The core data-model used in mtrx (Fig. 1, below) is based on part of the the model used in DeltaAccess with additional tables implemented for data-management purposes. However, all code and implementation of the model is original.
- mtrx allows you to group characters or terminals then combine individual characters or terminals with grouped characters or terminals into any number of matrices. Characters and terminals may be individually sorted in each seperate matrix via sort-codes.
- Data is exportable for analysis in Nexus format. With little effort export routines could be written to export data to NONA or more universal XML-based formats.
- mtrx is currently an undocumented and unsupported project (you should probably be using DeltaAccess instead) but is being released as YASD (yet another systematics database) primarily for those interested in the data-model. At present any given release version may not work at all. A somewhat more complicated version of mtrx is being used by the author to manage data from over 100 terminals and 100 characters. Ultimately this project will be ported to completely free software (MySQL with a Java, PHP or perl front-end). The current implementation is being explored primarily to gain an understanding of the usefulness of different data components. This and all future versions will be free.
- Further information including system requirements and a brief FAQ are available in the readme.txt available with the download.
- Current release version 0.05b 07/28/2003
references cited
- Nixon KC, Carpenter JM, and Borgardt SJ. 2001. Beyond NEXUS: Universal Cladistic Data Objects. Cladistics 17(1): S53-S59.
- Figure 1. Core relationships used in the mtrx model. Circles indicate the many side of the relationship.
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