Partitioning the UMLS semantic network

Author

Chen, Zong ; Perl, Yehoshua ; Halper, Michael ; Geller, James ; Gu, Huanying

Author_Institution

Comput. Sci. Dept., New Jersey Inst. of Technol., Newark, NJ, USA

Volume

6

Issue

2

fYear

2002

fDate

6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

102

Lastpage

108

Abstract

The unified medical language system (UMLS) integrates many well-established biomedical terminologies. The UMLS semantic network (SN) can help orient users to the vast knowledge content of the UMLS metathesaurus (META) via its abstract conceptual view. However, the SN itself is large and complex and may still be difficult to comprehend. Our technique partitions the SN into smaller meaningful units amenable to display on limited-sized computer screens. The basis for the partitioning is the distribution of the relationships within the SN. Three rules are applied to transform the original partition into a second more cohesive partition.

Keywords

medical computing; medical information systems; nomenclature; semantic networks; thesauri; UMLS metathesaurus; UMLS semantic network partitioning; abstract conceptual view; biomedical terminologies; limited-sized computer screens; unified medical language system; Biomedical informatics; Computer displays; Computer science; Helium; Knowledge representation; Large screen displays; Mathematics; Terminology; Tin; Unified modeling language; Algorithms; Databases, Factual; Dictionaries as Topic; Models, Theoretical; Semantics; Unified Medical Language System; Vocabulary, Controlled;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Information Technology in Biomedicine, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1089-7771

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TITB.2002.1006296

Filename

1006296