Discussion of some challenges concerning biomedical ontologies

Abstract

According to F.P. Brooks, werewolves are the most terrifying of all monsters because they are common people who are transformed into nightmares. Likewise, nothing can be more concerning than having a semantic system that produces inaccurate results due to unidentified problems in the ontology. Inaccurate medical information can have catastrophic consequences. This paper will briefly discuss some issues with existing biomedical ontologies. For instance, the part-of and has-part dilemma may lead to alternative interpretations and incompatibility among ontologies. Challenges concerning biomedical ontologies can cause inadequate mappings between data elements and contents. Therefore, causing major problems that can corrupt biomedical ontologies for large multiscale and multidomain integration. Moreover, this can result in problems with current methods used to manage biomedical ontology, and ambiguous and inconsistent relation definitions between terms. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.