Formalising and acquiring model-based hypertext in medicine: an integrative approach.
Combining a knowledge acquisition methodology with a powerful data model we present an approach to the acquisition, maintenance and browsing of scientific medical hypertext. The hypergraph-based data model supports the consistent treatment of cyclic data structures, the nesting of complex object and provides an elegant way of path declaration to represent time-dependent medical processes or large hypertext tours. It encourages a stepwise schema design and therefore supports a spiral-shaped acquisition process. We formally define view mechanisms on the basis of a rule-based query and modification language. The views enable a context-sensitive presentation of medical knowledge according to the informational needs of the physician. Our approach has been applied to the implementation of an authoring and tutoring environment for a computer-based hypermedia reference book for cerebrovascular diseases (NeuroN). During the acquisition process the expressive power and flexibility of the representational formats have been evaluated.
Spreckelsen
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Institut für Medizinische Informatik, Universitätsklinikum der RWTH Aachen, Germany. spreckel@imib.rwth-aachen.de
Spitzer
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D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003196:Computer Graphics; D005103:Expert Systems; D006801:Humans; D019146:Hypermedia; D008492:Medical Informatics Computing