The unexpected high practical value of medical ontologies

Ontology is no longer a mere research topic, but its relevance has been recognized in several practical fields. Current applications areas include natural language translation, e-commerce, geographic information systems, legal information systems and biology and medicine. It is the backbone of solid...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computers in biology and medicine 2006-07, Vol.36 (7), p.669-673
Main Authors: Pinciroli, Francesco, Pisanelli, Domenico M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Computational Biology
Medical Informatics
Terminology as Topic
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Summary:Ontology is no longer a mere research topic, but its relevance has been recognized in several practical fields. Current applications areas include natural language translation, e-commerce, geographic information systems, legal information systems and biology and medicine. It is the backbone of solid and effective applications in health care and can help to build more powerful and more interoperable medical information systems. The design and implementation of ontologies in medicine is mainly focused on the re-organization of medical terminologies. This is obviously a difficult task and requires a deep analysis of the structure and the concepts of such terminologies, in order to define domain ontologies able to provide both flexibility and consistency to medical information systems. The aim of this special issue of Computers in Biology and Medicine is to report the current evolution of research in biomedical ontologies, presenting both papers devoted to methodological issues and works with a more applicative emphasys.
ISSN:0010-4825
1879-0534
DOI:10.1016/j.compbiomed.2005.04.006