Ontological representation–oriented term normalization and standardization of the Research Domain Criteria

Abstract

The Research Domain Criteria, launched by the National Institute of Mental Health, is a new dimensional and interdisciplinary research framework for mental disorders. The Research Domain Criteria matrix is its core part. Since an ontology has the strengths of supporting semantic inferencing and automatic data processing, we would like to transform the Research Domain Criteria matrix into an ontological structure. In terms of data normalization, which is the essential part of an ontology representation, the Research Domain Criteria elements (mainly in the Units of Analysis) have some limitations. In this article, we propose a series of solutions to improve data normalization of the Research Domain Criteria elements in the Units of Analysis, including leveraging standard terminologies (i.e. the Unified Medical Language System Metathesaurus), context-combining queries, and domain expertise. The evaluation results show the positive (Yes) percentage is more than 80 percent, indicating our work is favorably received by the mental health professionals, and we have formed a good data foundation for the Research Domain Criteria ontological representation in the future work.