Desiderata for domain reference ontologies in biomedicine

Domain reference ontologies represent knowledge about a particular part of the world in a way that is independent from specific objectives, through a theory of the domain. An example of reference ontology in biomedical informatics is the Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA), an ontology of anatomy that covers the entire range of macroscopic, microscopic, and subcellular anatomy. The purpose of this paper is to explore how two domain reference ontologies--the FMA and the Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) ontology, can be used (i) to align existing terminologies, (ii) to infer new knowledge in ontologies of more complex entities, and (iii) to manage and help reasoning about individual data. We analyze those kinds of usages of these two domain reference ontologies and suggest desiderata for reference ontologies in biomedicine. While a number of groups and communities have investigated general requirements for ontology design and desiderata for controlled medical vocabularie...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: JBI
• Authors: Anita Burgun
• Keywords: Domain Reference, JBI 2004, JBI 2006, Ontology, Reference Ontologies