Rector Alan L, Brandt Sebastian
University of Manchester, School of Computer Science, Manchester, UK.
J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2008 Nov-Dec;15(6):744-51. doi: 10.1197/jamia.M2797. Epub 2008 Aug 28.
There has been major progress both in description logics and ontology design since SNOMED was originally developed. The emergence of the standard Web Ontology language in its latest revision, OWL 1.1 is leading to a rapid proliferation of tools. Combined with the increase in computing power in the past two decades, these developments mean that many of the restrictions that limited SNOMED's original formulation no longer need apply. We argue that many of the difficulties identified in SNOMED could be more easily dealt with using a more expressive language than that in which SNOMED was originally, and still is, formulated. The use of a more expressive language would bring major benefits including a uniform structure for context and negation. The result would be easier to use and would simplify developing software and formulating queries.
自SNOMED最初开发以来，描述逻辑和本体设计都取得了重大进展。最新版本的标准网络本体语言OWL 1.1的出现导致了工具的迅速激增。再加上过去二十年计算能力的提升，这些发展意味着许多限制SNOMED原始表述的约束条件不再适用。我们认为，使用一种比SNOMED最初所使用且仍在使用的语言更具表现力的语言，可以更轻松地处理在SNOMED中发现的许多难题。使用更具表现力的语言将带来诸多主要益处，包括上下文和否定的统一结构。结果将更易于使用，并将简化软件开发和查询制定。
