SOFTWARE NAME: Blast Extension and Assembly Program (BEAP)
  VERSION: 0.5 beta (BEAP,  Apr 9, 2008)
           5.3 (BeapViewer, May 2, 2008)
  AUTHORS: James E. Koltes, Zhiliang Hu, Eric Fritz and James M. Reecy

BRIEF DESCRIPTION:
  The Blast Extension and Assembly Program (BEAP) is a computer program 
  that uses a short starting DNA fragment, often a EST or partial gene 
  segment, as "primer", to recursively blast nucleotide databases in an 
  attempt to obtain all sequences that overlaps, directly or indirectly,
  with the "primer" therefore help to "extend" the length of the original
  sequence for constructing a "full length" sequence for functional
  analysis, or at least to obtain neighboring regions of the segment for
  SNP discovery and linkage disequilibrium analysis.

PLATFORM:
  Linux/unix/MacOS X/Window or other plateforms where perl, Java, and
  NCBI Blast is installed.

THE DOWNLOAD:
  There are 3 parts in the tar ball:
  - beap_v.0.5:
    o BEAP program in a perl script.
    o A command line program that requires 'netblast' and 'cap3'.
    o You can change paths among other configurable parts in the 1st section

  - beap_v.0.5.conf:
    o BEAP configuration file read by the main program
    o A plain text file you can edit to your needs

  - BeapViewer5.3.jar:
    o A Java .jar file you can run directly
    o You can run it directly in a (Mac or PC) windows environment

INSTALLATION:
  Download and unpackage the program (gunzip; tar -xf-). Identify proper
  path to perl; Change 'configure' file to suit your situation -- that's
  all you need to set it up.

USAGE:
  Refer to "User's Manual".

DATA INPUT / OUTPUT:
  Refer to "User's Manual".

WEB SITE:
  http://www.animalgenome.org/bioinfo/tools/beap/

CONTACT:
  For problems, suggestions or special requests, contact
  NAGRP Bioinformatics Team: bioinfo-team@animalgenome.org