RE: Antwort: RE: Semantic web article in Nature Biotechnology

Hi, Phil and Xiaoshu



>> (3) All these ontologies are still developed in a monolithic manner.
>> No consideration about the granuality and practicality has been
>> emphasized. 

>There have been many considerations of practicality made. Monolithic
>development is a problem, but both OBO and the MGED ontologies have 
>been attemping to ensure consistency between ontologies as well as 
>minimise overlap. 

Even with many considerations and increasing community efforts in 
developing ontologies to be consumed by semantic web, I am afraid the 
"monolithic development" problem will be with us for a long time. 
Ontologies developed within different specialties and sub-domains will 
always be fragmented and rather "monolithic" in their own right. 

In Healthcare domain, different regulatory bodies may develop ontologies 
for their practice guidelines, and disease management centers develop 
their own care plans and protocols.   It is not realistic to hope for a 
well-coordinated ontology that covers everything nicely under the hood. 

What I understand of the power of semantic web technology lays the 
connecting and inference capability between those "fragmented" knowledge 
bases.  This connection is to be reached by a thin layer of "over-arching" 
ontology and a set of basic rules. We have limited experience in linking 
(mapping) our rather "monolithically developed" RPGOntology (ontology for 
EU-radiation protection guideline) with SNOMED 
CT(http://www.snomed.org/snomedct/).  The benefit of such connection can 
not be over-stated.


Helen



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Helen Chen, Ph.D
Research and Innovation Center for Healthcare
Global Architecture and Design Group
Agfa Healthcare

http://www.agfa.com/healthcare