Research On The Construction Of Chinese Medicinal Material Ontology

Objective:With the rapid development of Chinese medicine informatics,research on the standardization of Chinese medicine terminology has been relatively slow.Standards in the industry,such as the GB/T 31774-2015 and Chinese Pharmacopoeia,are textual data.And they are not open TCM intelligent databases.Knowledge of Chinese medicinal material is an important part of knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine.The standardization research of traditional Chinese medicine terminology can begin with the research of Chinese medicinal material terminology.In order to realize the conversion of the Chinese medicinal materials terminology from natural language descriptions to computer languages,this study uses the theory and technical methods of ontology.And based on the current status of ontology research in the field of TCM and the existing mature ontology construction specifications.This study also refers to the principles of OBO Foundry ontology development to build an open,well-expressed,verifiable ontology in the field of Chinese medicinal materials to achieve computer identification and matching of multi-source data of Chinese medicinal materials.This research also explores the unique ontology construction methods in the field of traditional Chinese medicineMethods:An OBO-based ontology construction method was used to construct the Chinese herbal medicine ontology.First,the literature survey method was used to investigate the current status of TCM ontology at China and abroad to determine the subject and coverage of the ontology.Then collect the already recognized authoritative knowledge in the field of Chinese medicinal materials,the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and GB/T 31774-2015,and process the data initially.To sort out the core concepts related to Chinese medicinal materials,select the top-level ontology and the reusable ontology around the field.The top-level ontology selected in this study is Basic Formal Ontology(BFO).The reused ontology includes NCBI Taxonomy,Plant Ontology(PO)and so on Then use the OntoFox tool to import the reused ontology.The classification of Chinese medicinal material ontology(CMMO)is based on a combination of top-down and bottom-up methods.And the classification structure is determined based on the characteristics of the knowledge system of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and GB/T 31774-2015 to complete the ontology framework design.This research is to use the expert consultation method to solicit expert opinions after finishing the definition of the core concepts and the ontology framework to ensure the consensus of the framework.Then use Protege and OWL language to create ontology classes and attributes,formalize the definitions of traditional Chinese medicine materials terms.Finally use the ontology reasoner to verify the ontology and reorganize the ontology according to the results to complete the construction of CMMO.In this study,a total of 103 Chinese herbal medicine terms in various Chinese herbal medicine related literature were extracted to verify the Chinese herbal medicine ontology,and 12 CMMO expert consultation questionnaires were issued to test the research method,ontology design and ensure the ontology framework and core concepts Consensus.Results:The construction of the CMMO was completed,which included 843 Chinese medicinal material terms in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and GB/T 31774-2015.In the literature verification of CMMO,101 terms can be applied to CMMO,with an applicability rate of 98.06%.It is concluded that the CMMO can cover most of the Chinese medicinal material concept,but it still needs to be further perfect.The results of the CMMO expert consultation questionnaire statistics show that the research method and ontology design of this study are reasonable,and the ontology framework and core concepts have consensus.The construction of CMMO realizes the conversion of the concept of Chinese medicinal material terminology from natural language description to computer language description,which makes the knowledge of Chinese medicinal materials more systematic and accurate.It also realizes the identification and matching of multi-source data by the computer.The term sets of Chinese medicinal materials that can only be mapped to each other can be mapped into CMMO.CMMO can also be applied to the semantic annotation of the traditional Chinese medicine annotation system.Conclusion:The construction of CMMO makes the knowledge of Chinese medicinal materials standardized and intelligent.CMMO follows the principles of OBO Foundry ontology,reuses multiple biomedical ontology from OBO,and connects the‘traditional Chinese medicine knowledge'with‘modern biomedical ontology'.CMMO has been verified by literature sampling,and is basically universal and complete.The construction of CMMO explores a new method of ontology construction in the field of traditional Chinese medicine.