Objective: Conceptualization of the physical objects and spaces that constitute the human body at the macroscopic level of organization, specified as a machine-parseable ontology which, in its human-readable form, is comprehensible to both expert and novice users of anatomical information. Design: Conceived as an anatomical enhancement of the UMLS Semantic Network and Metathesaurus, the anatomical ontology was formulated by specifying defining attributes and differentia for classes and subclasses of physical anatomical entities based on their partitive and spatial relationships. The validity of the classification was assessed by instantiating the ontology for the thorax. Several transitive relationships were used for symbolically modeling aspects of the physical organization of the thorax.
Therefore, building a semantic network of anatomical related entities is of great value for both experts and novices REF .
1 Motivation and Organizational Principles for Anatomical Knowledge Representation: the Digital Anatomist Symbolic Knowledge Base
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA
Computer Science Medicine