Idoia Berges

Toward Semantic Interoperability of Electronic Health Records

Although the goal of achieving semantic interoperability of electronic health records (EHRs) is pursued by many researchers, it has not been accomplished yet. In this paper, we present a proposal that smoothes out the way toward the achievement of that goal. In particular, our study focuses on medical diagnoses statements. In summary, the main contributions of our ontology-based proposal are the following: first, it includes a canonical ontology whose EHR-related terms focus on semantic aspects. As a result, their descriptions are independent of languages and technology aspects used in different organizations to represent EHRs. Moreover, those terms are related to their corresponding codes in well-known medical terminologies. Second, it deals with modules that allow obtaining rich ontological representations of EHR information managed by proprietary models of health information systems. The features of one specific module are shown as reference. Third, it considers the necessary mapping axioms between ontological terms enhanced with so-called path mappings. This feature smoothes out structural differences between heterogeneous EHR representations, allowing proper alignment of information.

Semantic web technology for agent communication protocols

One relevant aspect in the development of the Semantic Web framework is the achievement of a real inter-agents communication capability at the semantic level. The agents should be able to communicate and understand each other using standard communication protocols freely, that is, without needing a laborious a priori preparation, before the communication takes place. For that setting we present in this paper a proposal that promotes to describe standard communication protocols using SemanticWeb technology (specifically, OWL-DL and SWRL). Those protocols are constituted by communication acts. In our proposal those communication acts are described as terms that belong to a communication acts ontology, that we have developed, called COMMONT. The intended semantics associated to the communication acts in the ontology is expressed through social commitments that are formalized as fluents in the Event Calculus. In summary, OWL-DL reasoners and rule engines help in our proposal for reasoning about protocols. We define some comparison relationships (dealing with notions of equivalence and specialization) between protocols used by agents from different systems.

Towards a satisfactory conversion of messages among agent-based information systems

Over the last years, there has been a change of perspective concerning the management of information systems, since they are no longer isolated and need to communicate with others. However, from a semantic point of view, real communication is difficult to achieve due to the heterogeneity of the systems. We present a proposal which, considering information systems are represented by software agents, provides a framework that favors a semantic communication among them, overcoming the heterogeneity of their agent communication languages. The main components of the framework are a suite of ontologies - conceptualizing communication acts - that will be used for generating the communication conversion, and an Event Calculus interpretation of the communications, which will be used for formalizing the notion of a satisfactory conversion. Moreover, we present a motivating example in order to complete the explanation of the whole picture.

TrhOnt: building an ontology to assist rehabilitation processes

BackgroundOne of the current research efforts in the area of biomedicine is the representation of knowledge in a structured way so that reasoning can be performed on it. More precisely, in the field of physiotherapy, information such as the physiotherapy record of a patient or treatment protocols for specific disorders must be adequately modeled, because they play a relevant role in the management of the evolutionary recovery process of a patient. In this scenario, we introduce TrhOnt, an application ontology that can assist physiotherapists in the management of the patients’ evolution via reasoning supported by semantic technology.MethodsThe ontology was developed following the NeOn Methodology. It integrates knowledge from ontological (e.g. FMA ontology) and non-ontological resources (e.g. a database of movements, exercises and treatment protocols) as well as additional physiotherapy-related knowledge.ResultsWe demonstrate how the ontology fulfills the purpose of providing a reference model for the representation of the physiotherapy-related information that is needed for the whole physiotherapy treatment of patients, since they step for the first time into the physiotherapist’s office, until they are discharged. More specifically, we present the results for each of the intended uses of the ontology listed in the document that specifies its requirements, and show how TrhOnt can answer the competency questions defined within that document. Moreover, we detail the main steps of the process followed to build the TrhOnt ontology in order to facilitate its reproducibility in a similar context. Finally, we show an evaluation of the ontology from different perspectives.ConclusionsTrhOnt has achieved the purpose of allowing for a reasoning process that changes over time according to the patient’s state and performance.

A Telerehabilitation System for the Selection, Evaluation and Remote Management of Therapies

Telerehabilitation systems that support physical therapy sessions anywhere can help save healthcare costs while also improving the quality of life of the users that need rehabilitation. The main contribution of this paper is to present, as a whole, all the features supported by the innovative Kinect-based Telerehabilitation System (KiReS). In addition to the functionalities provided by current systems, it handles two new ones that could be incorporated into them, in order to give a step forward towards a new generation of telerehabilitation systems. The knowledge extraction functionality handles knowledge about the physical therapy record of patients and treatment protocols described in an ontology, named TrhOnt, to select the adequate exercises for the rehabilitation of patients. The teleimmersion functionality provides a convenient, effective and user-friendly experience when performing the telerehabilitation, through a two-way real-time multimedia communication. The ontology contains about 2300 classes and 100 properties, and the system allows a reliable transmission of Kinect video depth, audio and skeleton data, being able to adapt to various network conditions. Moreover, the system has been tested with patients who suffered from shoulder disorders or total hip replacement.

A mechanism for discovering semantic relationships among agent communication protocols

One relevant aspect in the development of the Semantic Web framework is the achievement of a real inter-agent communication capability at the semantic level. Agents should be able to communicate with each other freely using different communication protocols, constituted by communication acts. For that scenario, we introduce in this paper an efficient mechanism that presents the following main features: (i) It promotes the description of the communication acts of protocols as classes that belong to a communication acts ontology, and associates to those acts a social commitment semantics formalized through predicates in the Event Calculus. (ii) It is sustained on the idea that different protocols can be compared semantically by looking to the set of fluents associated to each branch of the protocols. Those sets are generated using Semantic Web technology rules. (iii) It discovers the following types of protocol relationships: equivalence, specialization, restriction, prefix, suffix, infix and complement_to_infix.

SSDOnt: An Ontology for Representing Single-Subject Design Studies

BACKGROUND Single-Subject Design is used in several areas such as education and biomedicine. However, no suited formal vocabulary exists for annotating the detailed configuration and the results of this type of research studies with the appropriate granularity for looking for information about them. Therefore, the search for those study designs relies heavily on a syntactical search on the abstract, keywords or full text of the publications about the study, which entails some limitations. OBJECTIVE To present SSDOnt, a specific purpose ontology for describing and annotating single-subject design studies, so that complex questions can be asked about them afterwards. METHODS The ontology was developed following the NeOn methodology. Once the requirements of the ontology were defined, a formal model was described in a Description Logic and later implemented in the ontology language OWL 2 DL. RESULTS We show how the ontology provides a reference model with a suitable terminology for the annotation and searching of single-subject design studies and their main components, such as the phases, the intervention types, the outcomes and the results. Some mappings with terms of related ontologies have been established. We show as proof-of-concept that classes in the ontology can be easily extended to annotate more precise information about specific interventions and outcomes such as those related to autism. Moreover, we provide examples of some types of queries that can be posed to the ontology. CONCLUSIONS SSDOnt has achieved the purpose of covering the descriptions of the domain of single-subject research studies.

Knowledge-Based Telerehabilitation Monitoring

In this paper we describe the main features of an innovative home telerehabilitation system that offers, for both users and physiotherapists, actionable information to gain new insight in the telerehabilitation processes. From the point of view of users, it offers a friendly and immersive exercise interface that shows in two 3D avatars how an exercise must be executed and how the user is executing it respectively. Moreover, during a therapy session, informative elements show up-to-date information to guide and encourage the user. From the point of view of the physiotherapists, the system suggests them appropriate exercises that can be used to define customizable telerehabilitation therapies. Furthermore, another novel contribution of the system is its capacity to transform the raw data collected from a user into information that can help the physiotherapist to improve therapy decision making or the redefinition of existing therapies.