Extensible database system and method

• US 20070198564A1
• Filed: 04/19/2007
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cleveland Clinic Foundation
• Original Assignee: Cleveland Clinic Foundation
• Inventors: Thomas-Ogbuji, Chimezie, Pierce, Christopher, Kisuule, Peter, Stellhorn, William, Blackstone, Eugene
• Granted Patent: US 7,836,097 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/25 Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/60 relating to pathologies

Abstract

A system includes a metadata model arranged to express concepts in a domain as a domain model. The domain model includes domain elements and at least one hierarchical relationship between domain elements. The system also includes at least one given instance representation of the domain model, which includes instance data stored in a repository. A user interface is associated with the domain model and configured to at least create, view and modify at least one given instance representation of the domain model.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a metadata model arranged to express concepts in a domain as a domain model, the domain model comprising domain elements and at least one hierarchical relationship between data elements;

at least one instance representation of the domain model, the at least one instance representation comprising instance data stored in a repository; and

a user interface associated with the domain model and configured to at least one of create, view and modify at least one instance representation of the domain model.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the domain model is represented according to a formal knowledge representation language expressing the domain model as a predicate logic.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the domain model further comprises a graph model representation in which the data elements of the domain model comprise a plurality of nodes and arcs, interconnecting pairs of nodes, representing at least the at least one hierarchical relationship according to the formal knowledge representation language.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a domain interpreter that employs predetermined rules of the metadata model to generate at least one data management tool that is associated with the at least one instance representation of the domain model.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one data management tool is programmed to express domain model constraints in the at least one instance representation of the domain model based on metadata associated with the data elements of the domain model.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the domain model constraints comprise at least two of cardinality, inheritance, data types, annotations, and vocabulary synonyms.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein the predetermined rules further comprise a set of rules to translate from the at least one hierarchical relationship between the data elements in the domain model, corresponding to nodes in a graph that represent the domain model, to a given instance of the domain model arranged as a tree-structured representation thereof.

8. The system of claim 4, wherein one of the predetermined rules for the domain model defines the at least one hierarchical relationship as including a contains relationship that is explicitly interpreted by the domain interpreter as indicating a parent-child relationship between nodes in the domain model.

9. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one data management tool further comprises at least one of a formal ontology, schema, data dictionary, transformation, report template, and constructed query.

10. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one data management tool further comprises an XML schema corresponding to at least a portion of the domain that represents logical groupings of the data elements within an XML representation of a given instance of the domain model.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the tree-structured representation of the given instance of the domain model is expressed as an XML information set.

12. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one data management tool further comprises at least one formal ontology that employs at least one of class constructors, role hierarchies, functional restrictions, cardinality restrictions, data types, and transitive roles.

13. The system of claim 4, wherein the domain interpreter generates a transformation for a first representation of a given instance the domain model based on node metadata from the domain model, the transformation generating a second representation of the given instance of the domain model based on the first representation.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein at least the first and second representations of the given instance of the domain model exist concurrently.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the second representation of the given instance of the domain model is expressed as a graph according to a formal knowledge representation language.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the domain interpreter generates a formal ontology that is associated with the second representation of the given instance of the domain model.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the transformation is expressed as a tree-structured representation of the given instance of the domain model, the domain interpreter further comprising a schema generator that generates a schema based on node metadata from the metadata model for validating the tree-structured representation of the given instance of the domain model.

18. A method for providing an extensible knowledgebase/database comprising:

storing a metadata model programmed to express concepts in a given domain as a domain model;

storing metadata for the domain model, the stored metadata for the domain model defining at least one hierarchical relationship between data elements in the domain model;

storing predetermined rules for interpreting the stored metadata; and

instantiating at least a portion of the domain model as a domain instance, the domain model and the domain instance being extensible and independently changeable.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the domain model is represented according to a knowledge representation language for expressing the domain model as predicate logic.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the domain model further comprises a graph model representation in which the data elements of the domain model comprise a plurality of nodes and arcs, interconnecting pairs of nodes, representing hierarchical relationships among nodes in the graph model representation according to a formal knowledge representation language.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising employing at least one of the predetermined rules to interpret a core vocabulary term that defines a contains relationship indicating a parent-child relationship between nodes in the graph model representation of the domain model.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising employing the predetermined rules to interpret the at least one hierarchical relationship between the data elements in the graph model representation of the domain model to compose a given domain instance of the domain model expressed as a tree-structured representation.

23. The method of claim 21, further comprising generating at least one data management tool based on the predetermined rules, the at least one data management tool being associated with the domain instance.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising triggering automatic generation of the at least one data management tool in response to at least one of completing, creating or modifying of the domain model.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the at least one data management tool further comprises at least one of a formal ontology, XML schema, data dictionary, data transform, report template, and constructed query.

26. The method of claim 22, wherein the tree-structured representation of the given domain instance of the domain model can be expressed as an XML information set.

27. The method of claim 25, further comprising translating metadata associated with nodes of the domain model into a formal ontology that comprises at least one of class constructors, role hierarchies, functional restrictions, cardinality restrictions, data types and transitive roles.

28. The method of claim 21, further comprising generating a predetermined transformation associated with the domain instance based on node metadata from the metadata model and the predetermined rules, the predetermined transformation being employed to transform the tree-structured representation of the domain instance to a corresponding graph representation of the domain instance.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the domain instance further comprises a first representation of the domain instance of the domain model, the method further comprising employing a transformation to generate a second representation of the domain instance based on the first representation of the domain instance, such that multiple representations of the domain instance of the domain model exist concurrently.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the second representation of the domain instance is expressed as a graph representation according to a formal knowledge representation language.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the first representation of the domain instance of the domain model is expressed as a tree-structured representation of the domain instance of the domain model.

32. The method of claim 25, further comprising:

generating at least one of an ontology or schema that is associated with the domain instance; and

employing the at least one of an ontology or schema to validate the domain instance.

33. A knowledgebase/database system for a domain, comprising:

a storage system that comprises;

a metadata model expressing concepts in the domain according to stored data, and

at least one hierarchical relationship between elements in the metadata model corresponding to a predetermined core vocabulary term for the metadata model;

at least one user interface programmed for managing the metadata model based on user instructions; and

at least one domain instance of the metadata model being generated and stored in the storage system in response to the user instructions.

34. The system of claim 33, further comprising an interpreter programmed to generate at least one tool for managing or modifying at least one of the domain instance or the metadata model.

35. The system of claim 34, further comprising a predetermined rule set for the metadata model stored in the storage system, the interpreter employing the predetermined rule set to control generating the at least one tool by the interpreter, at least one rule in the predetermined rule set defining a core vocabulary term for interpreting at least one hierarchical relationship among data elements in the metadata model.

36. The system of claim 33, wherein the at least one domain instance is a first domain instance representation, the system further comprising a transformation programmed to convert the first domain instance representation into a second domain instance representation that exists concurrently with the first domain instance representation.