Friday, September 4, 2009
Ontology madness!
I will definitely have to agree with my classmates on this one--the vocabulary discussion was confusing and at times very circular. However, I'm glad that Dr. Fridsma presented this topic when he did because it certainly pertains to the research I am currently conducting. It really seems to be that the lack of standards really causes problems in all aspects of the medical world, not just in the data portion. I feel the way things are now is really leading to more confusion among users, given the ever increasing amount of databases for the same elements. I realize that new information and technology are being discovered and created at such a fast rate, but the data needs to be organized in a meaningful and efficient way. I am currently pouring through about 30 genetic, molecular, and ontology databases for my lab research and it is a very daunting task. I think for purposes of this class/lecture, I will start with the UMLS and work from there. He gave us some good information about downloading that for free and how it integrates different databases. Posted by Annie
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Annie,
ReplyDeleteYou and I are in the same situation! Probably has something to do with working in the same lab, but I too am looking through oncologies to find one that would be perfect to normalize our data terms to. I think I am going to look into the free download of the UMLS as well. I tried to make a glossary or list of terms and even that was daunting, as it got larger and connections started to be made. THey get big and messy very quickly. I am very appreciatative of the timing of Dr. Fridsma's lecture, for it gave me a great resource at the start of my research.
Thank You
Laura Wojtulewicz