title: Ontology for assessment studies of human-computer-interaction in surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  New technologies improve modern medicine, but may result in unwanted consequences. Some occur due to inadequate human-computer-interactions (HCI). To assess these consequences, an investigation model was developed to facilitate the planning, implementation and documentation of studies for HCI in surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  The investigation model was formalized in Unified Modeling Language and implemented as an ontology. Four different top-level ontologies were compared: Object-Centered High-level Reference, Basic Formal Ontology, General Formal Ontology (GFO) and Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering, according to the three major requirements of the investigation model: the domain-specific view, the experimental scenario and the representation of fundamental relations. Furthermore, this article emphasizes the distinction of "information model" and "model of meaning" and shows the advantages of implementing the model in an ontology rather than in a database.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results of the comparison show that GFO fits the defined requirements adequately: the domain-specific view and the fundamental relations can be implemented directly, only the representation of the experimental scenario requires minor extensions. The other candidates require wide-ranging extensions, concerning at least one of the major implementation requirements. Therefore, the GFO was selected to realize an appropriate implementation of the developed investigation model. The ensuing development considered the concrete implementation of further model aspects and entities: sub-domains, space and time, processes, properties, relations and functions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The investigation model and its ontological implementation provide a modular guideline for study planning, implementation and documentation within the area of HCI research in surgery. This guideline helps to navigate through the whole study process in the form of a kind of standard or good clinical practice, based on the involved foundational frameworks. Furthermore, it allows to acquire the structured description of the applied assessment methods within a certain surgical domain and to consider this information for own study design or to perform a comparison of different studies. The investigation model and the corresponding ontology can be used further to create new knowledge bases of HCI assessment in surgery.
authors.affiliation: Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery, Universität Leipzig, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweisstraße 14, Haus 14, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Innovative Surgical Training Technologies, University of Applied Sciences Leipzig, Eilenburger Str. 13, 04317 Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: machno@istt.htwk-leipzig.de.
authors.forename: Andrej
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Machno
authors.affiliation: Modélisation des connaissances et procédures chirurgicales et interventionnelles, Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, U1099/Laboratoire Traitement du Signal et de L'Image, University of Rennes, Rue de Tolbiac 101, 75654 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jannin
authors.affiliation: Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, U936, University of Rennes, Rue de Tolbiac 101, 75654 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Dameron
authors.affiliation: Innovative Surgical Training Technologies, University of Applied Sciences Leipzig, Eilenburger Str. 13, 04317 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Korb
authors.affiliation: Institute for Computer Science, Universität Leipzig, Augustusplatz 10, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Gerik
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Scheuermann
authors.affiliation: Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery, Universität Leipzig, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweisstraße 14, Haus 14, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Klinik und Poliklinik für Neurochirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Leipzig AöR, Liebigstraße 20, Haus 4, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Meixensberger
mesh_terms: D001331:Automation; D006801:Humans; D051188:Knowledge Bases; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012107:Research Design; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Automation consequences; Human–computer-interaction; Ontology; Surgery