Semantic analysis and classification of medical questions for a logic-based medical question-answering system

Abstract

Due to the continuous growth and crucial real-world impact of information produced in the biomedical and health domain, there is an acutely felt need for question-answering (QA) systems that can aid medical researchers and health care professionals in their information search. In order to provide users with accurate answers, such systems need to utilize semantic analysis and processing of medical texts and knowledge resources. Moreover, QA systems equipped with reasoning capabilities can derive more adequate answers by using inference mechanisms. We propose a logic-based medical QA system which uses Description Logic (DL) for knowledge representation and reasoning. As a first step in constructing the proposed QA system, we present a study on the semantic analysis and categorization of medical questions. ©2008 IEEE.