The ontology of medical terminological systems: Towards the next generation of medical ontologies

Abstract

Integrating, processing and applying the rapidly expanding information generated in medicine, bio-medicine and biology is one of most challenging problems facing research in these fields today. As the volumes of experimental data and knowledge increases, there is a growing need for supporting formal analyses of these data and pre-processing knowledge for further use in solving problems and stating hypotheses. Achieving these goals requires the precise and formal characterization of biological and biomedical data and knowledge, as well as their correct representation in computational form. This chapter presents a critical analysis of the current situation, particularly with regard to the significance of logic, artificial intelligence and philosophy for ontology research. in the area of medical ontologies. A broader framework is needed to analyze and represent the relevant phenomena occurring in the field of terminologies and ontologies. This framework should be based on logic, artificial intelligence, linguistics and philosophy. Logic contributes to a rigorous formalization of biomedical content, linguistics plays a role in the analysis of natural languages texts, artificial intelligence is relevant for knowledge representation, inference procedures and integration methods, and, finally, philosophical ontology provides a framework for the categorization of the world. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.