Re: A question on the vocabulary for 'persons'

[William Bug]

Hi All, I agree with the points Helen & Chimezie are making here.  HL7 RIM cannot be used "as is" as a well-founded ontology. However, as we are finding with many such knowledge sources that aren't quite appropriate for use as ontologies themselves, I think RIM's focus on roles provides an excellent starting for defining the types of people/actors one needs to formally represent - and the various roles they may play.  If analyzed carefully, many of the HL7 RIM roles could - for instance - end up defined as relations in RDF with a defined domain/range - and used as the basis of constructing necessary (possible necessary & sufficient) "person/actor" restrictions in OWL. I'm not an expert in the use of HL7, but that's my take on how best to derive value from it, when seeking to construct an effective, formally-sound ontology for describing people and the roles they play in a healthcare setting. I believe FOAF representations of "people" - especially when used with Wordnet synsets, as well as the openEHR - person demographic definition that Helen cites - can also provide a great deal of insight on the sort of properties a "person" ontology might be called on to represent. I would also recommend the paper Chimezie cites as an useful critique on some of the pitfalls such model-based representations have when one seeks to use them as the basis for a reasoning application, such as a decision support system. Cheers, Bill On Sep 13, 2006, at 8:30 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Chimezie Although it is questionable whether HL7 RIM can be converted to a "good" healthcare domain ontology, in this discussion of a "person" description (ontology), I agree with Dirk on looking at RIM's description of Person and its attributes for healthcare domain.  You will find some overlapping with vCard-rdf, and additional attributes which are meaningful in healthcare, such as raceCode, ethnicGroupCode, maritalStatus, etc. For "person" in healthcare domain, we can also look at openEHR's archtype "person"  [1].  But I think HL7's description of "person" has fully content. [1] openEHR Archtype "person" http://svn.openehr.org/knowledge/archetypes/dev/adl/openehr/demographic/openehr-demographic-person.person.draft.html Helen http://www.agfa.com/w3c/hchen Chimezie Ogbuji <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/13/2006 10:03 AM To Dirk Colaert/AMIPU/[EMAIL PROTECTED] cc systemsbiology <public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org> Subject Re: A question on the vocabulary for 'persons' There are ontological inconsistencies [1] with HL7 RIM that warrant a closer look.  Though, admittedly, the criticism is more about HL7's Actions than its Roles. [1] http://ontology.buffalo.edu/HL7/doublestandards.pdf Chimezie Ogbuji Lead Systems Analyst Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Cleveland Clinic Foundation 9500 Euclid Avenue/ W26 Cleveland, Ohio 44195 Office: (216)444-8593 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Wed, 13 Sep 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I am just popping into this thread. Why don't we look at RIM (HL7 > Reference Information Model)? > They distinguish 'entities' (a person is an entity) and roles: 'patient', > 'doctor', etc are examples of roles. That gives you an easy way of using a > standard description of a person, common to other communities, reusing > what exists, and still you can add properties to the rol 'patient' to have > whatever you need, specific in Health Care and Life Sciences. > > you can download the RIM model at > http://www.hl7.org/library/data-model/RIM/modelpage_mem.htm > > ______________________________________ > Dr. Dirk Colaert MD > Advanced Clinical Application Research Manager > Agfa Healthcare               mobile: +32 497 470 871 > > > > Alan Ruttenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 13/09/2006 06:47 > > To > Ivan Herman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > cc > systemsbiology <public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org> > Subject > Re: A question on the vocabulary for 'persons' > > > > > > > > > I had been using FOAF as a basis and then adding relations as needed. > -Alan > > On Sep 12, 2006, at 10:52 AM, Ivan Herman wrote: > >> Dear all, >> >> we would need some feedback... >> >> There were some brainstorming on what vocabularies to use for the >> simple >> notion of 'Person' in various settings. There is old W3C note for >> an RDF >> version of vCard[1], but another version was created by Norm Walsh a >> while ago[2]. And, of course, there is FOAF. >> >> The issue came up because some people would like us to update the old >> [1] note but, if we want to do that seriously, it is not necessarily >> that easy (the vCard spec itself is not soooo o.k.). >> >> Hence the question as a feedback: what does the HCLS community use for >> something like 'Person'? >> >> Thanks for the feedback >> >> Ivan >> >> >> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/vcard-rdf >> [2] http://norman.walsh.name/2005/12/12/vcard >> -- >> >> Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead >> URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ >> PGP Key: http://www.cwi.nl/%7Eivan/AboutMe/pgpkey.html >> FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf#Me > > > > Bill Bug Senior Research Analyst/Ontological Engineer Laboratory for Bioimaging  & Anatomical Informatics www.neuroterrain.org Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy Drexel University College of Medicine 2900 Queen Lane Philadelphia, PA    19129 215 991 8430 (ph) 610 457 0443 (mobile) 215 843 9367 (fax) Please Note: I now have a new email - [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email and any accompanying attachments are confidential. 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