Re: seeks input on Study Data Exchange Standards An alternative approach

My answer is not that there is anything intrinsically special about "what" 
vs the when why how etc.

It is just based on what we actually do, and how SNOMED is. SNOMED is very 
good in the "what" of clinical models.

On the one hand we're talking about all the possible things you could do, 
and on the other hand, the main real thing we really do is use SNOMED for 
"what".

SNOMED is very strong in "Clinical Findings, Diseases, Observables, 
Procedures"  so those pre existing SNOMED hierarchies are in general 
"what" things.




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Conor Dowling <conor-dowling@caregraf.com> 
08/21/2012 11:54 PM

To
David Booth <david@dbooth.org>
cc
Peter Hendler/CA/KAIPERM@KAIPERM, helena.deus@deri.org, 
kerstin.l.forsberg@gmail.com, LINMD.SIMON@mcrf.mfldclin.edu, 
meadch@mail.nih.gov, mscottmarshall@gmail.com, 
public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org, ratnesh.sahay@deri.org
Subject
Re: seeks input on Study Data Exchange Standards An alternative approach






apologies if this is a tangent but why is what's identified as 
"extensional" particular to health-care? "Who" said/observed/found/acted 
"What", "When" and "Where" is surely a general notion. Does it need a 
health-care model or ontology? Yes, particular findings or observations or 
procedures can be of health but also of finance, indeed of most of 
life. "Constantine boiled his wife in 326" talks of who, what and when. 

Does Health-care need its own (closed-world) model for "observation" 
("kill method" == "boil") vs "finding" ("was the boiler") or "procedure" 
("dunk and hold down"). Just as we should avoid our own ontologies for 
demographics (a provider's address is not different than the address of a 
supermarket), shouldn't we avoid special handling for the likes of 
"observe", "find", "act" and leave each domain concentrate on its 
particular observations, findings et al? That is, SNOMED gets to be 
health-special but what here is called the "extensional model", that is so 
general (again, maybe I'm missing something), doesn't that belong with 
FOAF et al?

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 3:43 PM, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:
On Tue, 2012-08-21 at 15:11 -0700, Peter.Hendler@kp.org wrote:
> [ . . . ]  Can you use RDF in a closed world way when ever you want,
> or is it only safe when the model you're dealing with, like FHIR,
> really is known to be closed world?
>
I think so, provided that you understand that you are making the closed
world assumption, i.e., that your results reflect only what you
*currently* know.

Almost every application makes the closed world assumption at some
point.


--
David Booth, Ph.D.
http://dbooth.org/

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