META-DATA APPROACH TO QUERYING MULTIPLE BIOMEDICAL ONTOLOGIES

• US 20120259885A1
• Filed: 04/09/2012
• Published: 10/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Corp. (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Shet, Vinay Damodar, Palla, Ravi Kiran Reddy, Tecuci, Dan G., Dejori, Mathaeus
• Granted Patent: US 9,183,294 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/367 Ontology

Abstract

A method for retrieving information spread across a plurality of different ontologies, including: defining a meta-ontology, wherein the meta-ontology includes high-level properties and their mappings to specific properties defined in a plurality of different ontologies; receiving a question, wherein the question is associated with a high-level property; and providing an answer to the question, wherein the answer is determined by using the meta-ontology.

Claims

1. A method for retrieving information spread across a plurality of different ontologies, comprising:

defining a meta-ontology, wherein the meta-ontology includes high-level properties and their mappings to specific properties defined in a plurality of different ontologies;

receiving a question, wherein the question is associated with a high-level property; and

providing an answer to the question, wherein the answer is determined by using the meta-ontology.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the high-level properties are based on a set of questions a system is expected to answer.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the high-level properties are mapped to specific properties that provide answers to the expected questions.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the high-level properties are represented in a resource description framework description.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the meta-ontology includes information about how to generate queries that are used to retrieve information associated with the high-level properties from the ontologies.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the queries include SPARQL queries.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein some of the high-level properties are defined for retrieving synonyms of particular entities from the ontologies such that the same concept represented as different entities in different ontologies can be identified.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontologies include medical ontologies.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising integrating a new ontology into the meta-ontology by updating the meta-ontology.

10. A system, comprising:

a memory device for storing a program;

a processor in communication with the memory device, the processor operative with the program to;

define a meta-ontology, wherein the meta-ontology includes high-level properties and their mappings to specific properties defined in a plurality of different ontologies;

receive a question, wherein the question is associated with a high-level property; and

provide an answer to the question, wherein the answer is determined by using the meta-ontology.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the high-level properties are based on a set of questions the system is expected to answer.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the high-level properties are mapped to specific properties that provide answers to the expected questions.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the high-level properties are represented in a resource description framework description.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the meta-ontology includes information about how to generate queries that are used to retrieve information associated with the high-level properties from the ontologies.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein some of the high-level properties are defined for retrieving synonyms of particular entities from the ontologies such that the same concept represented as different entities in different ontologies can be identified.

16. A computer program product, comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code configured to perform the steps of;

defining a meta-ontology, wherein the meta-ontology includes high-level properties and their mappings to specific properties defined in a plurality of different ontologies;

receiving a question, wherein the question is associated with a high-level property; and

providing an answer to the question, wherein the answer is determined by using the meta-ontology.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the high-level properties are based on a set of questions a system is expected to answer.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the high-level properties are mapped to specific properties that provide answers to the expected questions.

19. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the high-level properties are represented in a resource description framework description.

20. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the meta-ontology includes information about how to generate queries that are used to retrieve information associated with the high-level properties from the ontologies.

21. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein some of the high-level properties are defined for retrieving synonyms of particular entities from the ontologies such that the same concept represented as different entities in different ontologies can be identified.