Re: [COI] Clinical Observations Interoperability Telcon January 15 2008

[Samson Tu]

Kashyap, Vipul wrote:  Can you explain what you mean by "ontology version" of the RIM/CDA? What is the meaning of an ontology version of an information model? How would it different from Marley's RIM OWL ITS?   [VK]  My response to the above pre-supposes a particular view of what an information model is. In general, the goal is to incorporate various artifacts that are likely to be useful in a wide variety of use cases, e.g., patient recruitment, etc. So as discussed in the earlier e-mail, one possibility is to pull in information model elements (e.g., Observation), controlled vocabulary concepts (e.g., Snomed, etc.) and Data Types in one specification which could perhaps be RDF(S)/OWL The difference with Tom Markey could be that our approach would cover more than just HL7 data types. Am not clear what Tom's approach is as there is nothing on the wiki. Our approach would be more along Alan Rector's work on binding Snomed to HL7.  Having an integratdc specification of data types, information model, and vocabularies based on use cases, I think, is what HL7 RIM is about.  More than a year ago, I asked for and got a version of Tom Marley's OWL HL7 ITS. It covers data types, RIM classes, and HL7 vocabularies. I think it's consistent with Alan's work on terminology binding. (Tom Marley is a co-author of the Rector paper I referenced.) GELLO assumes a fairly minimal object-oriented model. I don't see RDF/OWL as having particular advantage in representing data. My past experiences suggest that criteria will involve temporal/data/terminological abstractions. At the moment I don't know of any language that is completely satisfactory.   [VK] Would like to know more about why you think RDF/OWL do not have an advantage in representing data/information models. Would presume that it would be a better choice compared to XML Schema for sure. Also, the ability to define a set of constraints and axioms; and in the case of OWL 1.1, role chains might bring in some advantages.   Agree with you on the temporal constructs and abstractions which are very prevalent in the eligibility criteria I have looked at on http://www.clinicaltrials.gov whcih is why OWL may (or may not be a suitable choice), but a rule language could. But these are issues/best practices we hope to develop based on concrete examples of criteria and real patient data.. Yes, I was thinking about the temporal dimensions when I said that I don't see RDF/OWL as having particular advantages. There have been a lot of work on temporal databases in the database community. OWL/SWRL's open-world semantics is also a problem. The availability of classification reasoners, however, allow you to have complex descriptions of patient states.That's an advantage. Thanks. Samson -- Samson Tu email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Senior Research Scientist web: www.stanford.edu/~swt/ Center for Biomedical Informatics Research phone: 1-650-725-3391 Stanford University fax: 1-650-725-7944