title: Deriving an abstraction network to support quality assurance in OCRe.
abstract: An abstraction network is an auxiliary network of nodes and links that provides a compact, high-level view of an ontology. Such a view lends support to ontology orientation, comprehension, and quality-assurance efforts. A methodology is presented for deriving a kind of abstraction network, called a partial-area taxonomy, for the Ontology of Clinical Research (OCRe). OCRe was selected as a representative of ontologies implemented using the Web Ontology Language (OWL) based on shared domains. The derivation of the partial-area taxonomy for the Entity hierarchy of OCRe is described. Utilizing the visualization of the content and structure of the hierarchy provided by the taxonomy, the Entity hierarchy is audited, and several errors and inconsistencies in OCRe's modeling of its domain are exposed. After appropriate corrections are made to OCRe, a new partial-area taxonomy is derived. The generalizability of the paradigm of the derivation methodology to various families of biomedical ontologies is discussed.
authors.affiliation: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ochs
authors.forename: Ankur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Agrawal
authors.forename: Yehoshua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Perl
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Halper
authors.forename: Samson W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Tu
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carini
authors.forename: Ida
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sim
authors.forename: Natasha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Noy
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Musen
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Geller
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000145:classification*; D008490:Medical Informatics; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled