Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33319709›Full record

ArticleBMC medical informatics and decision making2020

Missing lateral relationships in top-level concepts of an ontology.

Ling Zheng, Yan Chen, Hua Min, P Lloyd Hildebrand, Hao Liu, Michael Halper, James Geller, Sherri de Coronado, Yehoshua Perl

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMC medical informatics and decision making, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
0.2field-weighted citation impact, top 49% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 2 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. A substring replacement approach for identifying missing IS-A relations in SNOMED CT.Proceedings. IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine · 2022
    Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.

Ling ZhengComputer Science and Software Engineering Department, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, 07764, USA. lzheng@monmouth.edu.ORCID 0000-0002-6709-828X
Yan ChenCIS Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, New York, NY, 10007, USA.
Hua MinDepartment of Health Administration and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA.
P Lloyd HildebrandUnion Square Eye Care, New York, NY, 10003, USA.
Hao LiuDepartment of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA.
Michael HalperDepartment of Informatics, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA.
James GellerDepartment of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA.
Sherri de CoronadoNational Cancer Institute, Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA.
Yehoshua PerlDepartment of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA.
New Jersey Institute of Technology · USBorough of Manhattan Community College · USEye Care Associates · USGeorge Mason University · USMonmouth University · USNational Institutes of Health · US

Funding

New Jersey Alliance for Clinical Translational Science: NJ ACTSUL1TR003017 · NCATS · RUTGERS BIOMEDICAL/HEALTH SCIENCES-RBHS · PI PANETTIERI, REYNOLD ALEXANDER · 2019 to 2023
$28.9M
A family-based framework of quality assurance for biomedical ontologiesR01CA190779 · NCI · NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · PI PERL, YEHOSHUA · 2015 to 2017
$1.8M
NCATS NIH HHS UL1 TR003017NCI NIH HHS R01 CA190779
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundOntologies house various kinds of domain knowledge in formal structures, primarily in the form of concepts and the associative relationships between them. Ontologies have become integral components of many health information processing environments. Hence, quality assurance of the conceptual content of any ontology is critical. Relationships are foundational to the definition of concepts. Missing relationship errors (i.e., unintended omissions of important definitional relationships) can have a deleterious effect on the quality of an ontology. An abstraction network is a structure that overlays an ontology and provides an alternate, summarization view of its contents. One kind of abstraction network is called an area taxonomy, and a variation of it is called a subtaxonomy. A methodology based on these taxonomies for more readily finding missing relationship errors is explored.

methodsThe area taxonomy and the subtaxonomy are deployed to help reveal concepts that have a high likelihood of exhibiting missing relationship errors. A specific top-level grouping unit found within the area taxonomy and subtaxonomy, when deemed to be anomalous, is used as an indicator that missing relationship errors are likely to be found among certain concepts. Two hypotheses pertaining to the effectiveness of our Quality Assurance approach are studied.

resultsOur Quality Assurance methodology was applied to the Biological Process hierarchy of the National Cancer Institute thesaurus (NCIt) and SNOMED CT's Eye/vision finding subhierarchy within its Clinical finding hierarchy. Many missing relationship errors were discovered and confirmed in our analysis. For both test-bed hierarchies, our Quality Assurance methodology yielded a statistically significantly higher number of concepts with missing relationship errors in comparison to a control sample of concepts. Two hypotheses are confirmed by these findings.

conclusionsQuality assurance is a critical part of an ontology's lifecycle, and automated or semi-automated tools for supporting this process are invaluable. We introduced a Quality Assurance methodology targeted at missing relationship errors. Its successful application to the NCIt's Biological Process hierarchy and SNOMED CT's Eye/vision finding subhierarchy indicates that it can be a useful addition to the arsenal of tools available to ontology maintenance personnel.

Indexed as

Systematized Nomenclature of MedicineVocabulary, ControlledElectronic Data ProcessingHumansProbabilityAbstraction networkError concentrationMissing relationship errorNational Cancer Institute thesaurus (NCIt)Omission errorOntology modelingOntology quality assuranceSNOMED CTTaxonomy

Identifiers

PMID33319709
PMCPMC7737264
OpenAlexW3111613353

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.