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Here you can find detailed information on using CMKb. For viewing the website you will need Mozilla Firefox web browser, which is Java
enabled. For downloading Firefox click here http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
CMKb is a database which is species centric and has multi-disciplinary information related to customary medicinal plant knowledge, such
as phytochemistry, botany, ethnobotany, biogeography and biological activities. This diverse information is stored in different relational
tables in MySql. The internal organisation of CMKb is shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Internal organisation of CMKb database
Figure 2. Screenshot of CMKb home page showing menu on left hand side
Data in CMKb can be broswed or searched using Browse or Quick Search link respectively situated under main menu. We have also
provided Advance Search facility situated next to the Quick Search. The Browse, Quick Search and Advance Search modules are
explained below.
This module can be used for browsing the database. Under this module the Scientific names are arranged alphabetically (Figure 3). By
clicking on the alphabet you can view the scientific name listing and its related details. (Figure 4).
Figure 3. Screenshot of Browse module
Figure 4. Screenshots showing links to different species related information
As an example in Figure 4 above, inter-linking of information related to the species is shown. First the listing of scientific names under the alphabet "N" (Figure 4. Number 1) is shown. The list is hyperlinked which takes user to detailed information of the medicinal plant species in CMKb (Figure 4. Number 2). Using scientific name from CMKb we have provided the external links to public domain data portals such as SpeciesLinks of Integrated Botanical Information System (IBIS) which provide links to range of Australian data portals, Integrated Taxonomy Information System (ITIS), NCBI Taxonomy and Google images for species images (Figure 4.Number 3).
Note: The external data portals are dynamically queried using scientific name from CMKb except Australia's SpeciesLinks of Integrated Botanical Information System, due to technical reasons. To query, user will have to manually type the scientific name in the search field provided on SpeciesLinks website.
The database can be searched using its comprehensive search engine. The “Quick Search” option accessible under main menu provides users with the facility to query the database by scientific name, species common name, native name, locality or chemical name using different logical parameters such as “contains”, “begins with”, “ends with” and “is” (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Screenshot of Quick Search Module
When using Scientific name as search criteria, the database can be queried using only Genus name or Species name apart from using scientific name. The result of the search when queried using only genus is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Screenshot of quick search result obtained using Genus Eremophila as query.
Figure 7. Screenshots of search results using (A) locality name (B) Native name (C) Common name and (D) Chemical name
For more complex queries, the Advance Search module option (Figure 8) can be used, where the user can combine different search fields, using AND as logical parameter. The Advance Search module is accessible via Quick Search module. The results retreived using combination of search criteria are shown in Figure 8b.
Figure 8a. Screenshot of Advance Search module
Figure 8b. Screenshot showing retrieved results using Advance Search
Internal links to species related information
Multi-disciplinary information such as chemical, medicinal, bioactivity, multimedia, biogeography, information related to CMKb plant species are provided as links below the species information display page (Figure 3 and 9).
Figure 9. Screenshots of links to multi-disciplinary information
Figure 10. Screenshots of external links