Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Domain Ontology: Current Status and Rethinking for the Future Development.

Yan ZHU; Ke-Yu YAO; Su-Yuan PENG; Xiao-Lin YANG

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Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Domain Ontology: Current Status and Rethinking for the Future Development.

VernacularTitle:中医药领域本体研究现状与思考
Author: Yan ZHU ¹ ; Ke-Yu YAO ¹ ; Su-Yuan PENG ² ; Xiao-Lin YANG ³
Author Information

1. Institute of Information on Traditional Chinese Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.
2. National Institute of Health Data Science, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
3. Institute of Basic Medical Sciences Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, School of Basic Medicine, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100005, China.
Publication Type:Journal Article
Keywords: domain ontology; ontology; semantic standard; top-level ontology; traditional Chinese medicine
MeSH: Medicine, Chinese Traditional; Semantics; Drugs, Chinese Herbal
From: Chinese Medical Sciences Journal 2022;37(3):228-233
CountryChina
Language:English
Abstract: The past twenty years have seen the increasingly important role of ontology in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). However, the development of TCM ontology faces many challenges. Since the epistemologies dramatically differ between TCM and contemporary biomedicine, it is hard to apply the existing top-level ontology mechanically. "Data silos" are widely present in the currently available terminology standards, term sets, and ontologies. The formal representation of ontology needs to be further improved in TCM. Therefore, we propose a unified basic semantic framework of TCM based on in-depth theoretical research on the existing top-level ontology and a re-study of important concepts in TCM. Under such a framework, ontologies in TCM sub-domains should be built collaboratively and be represented formally in a common format. Besides, extensive cooperation should be encouraged by establishing ontology research communities to promote ontology peer review and reuse.