Other terminologies have been converted into DL formalism, including the UMLS ® Metathesaurus ® and Semantic Network, the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the Gene Ontology ™ and the National Cancer Institute Thesaurus. GALEN 1 and SNOMED Clinical Terms ® (SNOMED CT) 2 were both developed in a native DL formalism.
This study explores the benefits of converting the FMA, a large reference ontology, to the Web Ontology Language OWL.īiomedical terminologies and ontologies are increasingly taking advantage of Description Logic (DL)-based formalisms in representing knowledge. Converting ontologies into the formalisms supported by the Semantic Web can also benefit these ontologies as such formalisms enable consistency checking and reasoning support. However, existing reference ontologies sometimes need to be adapted to Semantic Web technologies before they can actually contribute to the Semantic Web. One such ontology is the Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA). As virtually all other biomedical ontologies relate to them, reference ontologies for core domains such as anatomical entities and small molecules form the backbone of the Semantic Web for Life Sciences.
