Thinking precedes action: Using software engineering for the development of a terminology database to improve access to biomedical documentation

Abstract

Relational databases have been used to represent lexical knowledge since the days of machine-readable dictionaries. However, although software engineering provides a methodological framework for the construction of databases, most developing efforts focus on content, implementation and timesaving issues, and forget about the software engineering aspects of software and database construction. We have defined a methodology for the development of lexical resources that covers this and other aspects, by following a sound software engineering approach to formally represent knowledge. Nonetheless, the conceptual model from which it departs has some major limitations that need to be overcome. Based on a short analysis of common problems in existing lexical resources, we present an upgraded conceptual model as a first step towards the methodological development of a hierarchically organized concept-based terminology database, to improve the access to medical information as part of the SINAMED and ISIS projects. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.