An analysis of existing terminology towards constructing ontology in the field of the radiological technology

Abstract

In 1994, Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JSRT) constructed the lexicon in the field of radiologic technology. However, recently, latest lexicon is not updated yet. The purpose of this article is to compare the terminologies in clinical medicine with the others and to consider reconstructing the lexicon in the radiological technology. Our study selected three categories from the database of the academic society. These three groups were Clinical medicine (hereafter CM, 167 societies, includes JSRT), Psychology / Education (hereafter P/E, 104 societies), and Comprehensive synthetic engineering (hereafter CSE, 40 societies). First, all societies were surveyed to know whether there were any lexicon in their official website. Second, these terminologies were surveyed on the following criteria: (a) Media of lexicon, (b) Number of terms, (c) File type of lexicon, (d) Terms translated into English, (e) Way of searching terms, and (f) Number of committees of the terminology. Lexicon in CM, P/E, and CSE had 20, 4, and 7. Compared with P/E and CSE, CM showed the following trends: (a) used electronic media frequently, (b) stored large number of terms (about 5,000 to 11,000), (c) enabled to download frequently, and (d) used the alphabet and Japanese syllabary order frequently. Compared with the lexicon of P/E and CSE, terminology in CM tended to adopt the electronic media of lexicon and to have large number of terms. Additionally, many lexicons were expressed in English terms along with Japanese terms. Following massive lexicon of SNOMED-CT and RadLex, it is necessary to consider applying the web-based term searching and an ontological technique to the lexicon of radiological technology.