Pat et al., (01)
I've uploaded your file to our document repository. (02)
I have also captured a few pages showing the WordNet mapping (to
SUMO) for the term "time", as well as the various SUMO
representations on: time, TimePoint, TimePosition, TimeMeasure,
TimeInterval & TimeDuration (as they are expressed in KIF). (03)
To facilitate tomorrow's review, I've put links to them at
tomorrow's work session wiki page under: (04)
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?HealthOntologyMapping/ConferenceCall_2005_02_11#nid085 (05)
Cheers. -ppy
-- (06)
Peter Yim wrote Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:48:27 -0800:
> Great work, Pat.
>
> A small question ... under the last section: "DataTypePointInTime", the
> "PQ" you have there on the first and last line, what does it stand for?
>
> Tx. -ppy
> --
>
> Patrick Cassidy wrote Thu, 10 Feb 2005 13:47:58 -0500:
>
>> An initial attempt was made to review time-related concepts in HL7 to
>> determine how they might map to concepts in an upper ontology.
>> Some initial comments are attached as a WinWord file and also appended as
>> text. There are additional time-related concepts in HL7, and in
>> particular
>> relations of time to other concepts. These will be reviewed as time
>> permits, or if others request further discussion.
>>
>> Pat
>
>
>> Patrick Cassidy
>> MITRE Corporation
>> W903 Information Discovery & Understanding
>> 7515 Colshire Drive
>> McLean, VA 22102-7508
>> Phone: 703-883-8976
>> (Eatontown: 732-578-6340)
>> Fax: 703-883-1379
>> Email: pcassidy@xxxxxxxxx
>> Mail Stop: MNJE
>>
>>
>> =====================================
>
>
>> Considerations for aligning HL7 Time concepts with an upper ontology
>
>
>> As part of the Ontolog group participation in discussion of the National
>> Health Information Network RFI, we are providing information on how
>> ontologies can assist in enabling the interoperability of patient health
>> records. At this point, we are focused on how existing and prospective
>> health domain ontologies and taxonomies can be aligned with upper
>> ontologies
>> to improve the accuracy of conceptual information transfer among systems
>> using different domain knowledge representations.
>
>
>> For this facet of that task, my immediate focus will be to determine
>> how the
>> representations of time in the HL7 terminology may be related to similar
>> concepts in an upper ontology.
>
>
>> HL7 Information Request
>
>
>> I have looked at the lists of data types in the html files of the current
>> HL7 Reference Model. I also found some definitions of the types in
>> the XML
>> files. However, I have found only a few files related to the relations
>> between concepts. I would appreciate help from anyone who can point
>> me to
>> the locations of a comprehensive list of the relations that are defined
>> between concepts within the HL7 system. In particular, I can't find
>> anything describing the relations between time intervals, time points, or
>> events that may be specified as taking place at a particular time.
>
>
>> There are a few additional questions I have:
>
>
>> Regarding the term "DataType": is this intended to mean that the Type
>> labels
>> used here may be attached to field designators in documents, such as in
>> XML-tagged documents? Or are these intended merely as general terms for
>> concepts? Or both?
>
>
>> DataValue: can a data value be qualitative (e.g. color)? I could not
>> find
>> color in the classification. Where is that located?
>
>
>> In examining the files I can find in HL7, there is one issue regarding
>> the
>> classification of Time data types that can be discussed with the
>> information
>> I currently have. That issue is discussed below. If anyone has
>> additional
>> information relating to there concepts in HL7, or if I have
>> misinterpreted
>> the intended meanings of these concepts, please send me a note
>> (cassidy@xxxxxxxxx) or send a note to this list.
>
>
>
>> Time Representation
>> -------------------------
>
>
>> General comments on time representation:
>> In order to represent time so as to be broadly compatible with many
>> different databases, it is necessary to make at least the following
>> distinctions:
>
>
>> (1) Specific calendar times such as 12:00 Noon GMT on Feb. 5, 2005
>> need to
>> be distinguished from a specific quantity of time, such as 20 minutes.
>
>
>> (2) A relation between time points of before and after needs to be
>> defined.
>
>
>> (3) Relations between specific time intervals, such as coinciding,
>> overlapping, or before/after, need to be defined.
>
>
>> (4) Recurring time intervals, such as days of the week or months of the
>> year, need to be distinguished from time points, specific time intervals,
>> and quantities of time.
>
>
>
>> Time Representation in HL7
>
>
>> Within the HL7 data types the following (selected) portion of the
>> taxonomy
>> was noted:
>
>
>> DataTypeDataValue
>> DataTypeInterval
>> DataTypeIntervalOfPhysicalQuantities DataTypeIntervalOfPointsInTime
>> DataTypeEventRelatedInterval
>> DataTypeGeneralTimingSpecification
>> DataTypePeriodicIntervalOfTime
>
>
>> DataTypeQuantity
>> DataTypePhysicalQuantity
>> DataTypeParametricProbabilityDistributionOfPhysicalQuantities
>> DataTypePointInTime
>
>
>> It appears that DataTypePointInTime is intended to refer to a specific
>> point
>> in time on the calendar - a specific time location.
>
>
>>>> A quantity specifying a point on the axis of natural time. A point in
>
>
>> time is most often represented as a calendar expression
>
>
>> An interval of time points (DataTypeIntervalOfPointsInTime) would then
>> also be a specific time location.
>
>
>> DataTypeGeneralTimingSpecification is defined as:
>
>
>>>> A set of points in time, specifying the timing of events and actions
>
>
>> and the cyclical validity-patterns that may exist for certain kinds of
>> information, such as phone numbers (evening, daytime), addresses (so
>> called "snowbirds," residing in the south during winter and north
>> during summer) and office hours.
>
>
>> There is a problem with this arrangement: The instances of the parent
>> class
>> (Type) DataTypeIntervalOfPointsInTime are each a single interval of time,
>> but the suggested instances of this class (evening, wintertime), are
>> conceptually each themselves not single time intervals, rather they are
>> classes of time intervals (i.e., all evenings, etc.). For example, in
>> the
>> SUMO ontology, Monday is a subclass of TimeInterval, not an instance.
>> Thus
>> this class (Type) would not fit into a schema where instances are
>> intended
>> to be individuals. This schema above can work for its intended purpose if
>> users did not attempt to draw logical inferences from the subclass
>> structure
>> that is given here, but merely used the terms in a single restricted
>> manner.
>
>
>> If this conceptual classification is intended to at some point
>> map to
>> other classifications, however, it will be important to keep the logical
>> meanings consistent for all inherited instances within a subclass
>> structure.
>> In this case, there are two possibilities to modify the existing
>> arrangement:
>
>
>> (1) the class (Type) DataTypeGeneralTimingSpecification can be left
>> in its
>> present position, but the types of recurrent time interval which are
>> intended to be used (evening, Winter, Mondays from 9 to 5) should each be
>> entered as a subclass (subtype) of that class, rather than as instances.
>> Such subtypes will themselves have instances which are specific time
>> intervals (e.g., Monday, Feb. 7, 20005, GMT would be an instance of the
>> class Monday), but perhaps more commonly the classes (e.g. Monday)
>> would be
>> the individual data elements that are used in medical records or other
>> communications.
>
>
>> (2) If it is desired that all data elements used in data
>> communications be
>> instances of a designated data type, and must not be subclasses, the
>> class
>> of DataTypeGeneralTimingSpecification should be moved from its present
>> position to a higher level in the DataType hierarchy, at the same
>> level as
>> DataTypeIntervalOfPointsInTime. Then each instance of this class ,
>> though
>> it is also conceptually a class, could be used as a data value while
>> conforming both to the general schema, and to a strict logical
>> inheritance
>> rule that will enhance interoperability.
>
>
>> On the related Type DataTypePeriodicIntervalOfTime, I could not find the
>> notes describing its intended meaning, and it is not clear how this
>> differs
>> from DataTypeGeneralTimingSpecification. Perhaps this is intended to
>> represent strictly periodic intervals? or blocks of time, such as one
>> week?
>> The definition or a pointer to the definition of this concept would be
>> helpful.
>
>
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