Biomedical Ontology 2016

PHI 548 (seminar, 3 credits). Registration number: 24057

This course is cross-listed with BMI 508, which is offered as part of the newly accredited PhD program in UB's Department of Biomedical Informatics

Time: 4:00-6:50pm, Mondays, Fall Semester 2016

Room: Baldy 200-G, UB North Campus

Instructors: Barry Smith (Philosophy) and Werner Ceusters (Biomedical Informatics)

Office hours: BS: by appointment via email; WC: TBA

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to biomedical ontology. It will review how data and information are generated through biological and biomedical experiments and through patient care, and show how ontologies are used in accessing, maintaining and exploiting the results. We will describe how biomedical ontologies are developed and evaluated and provide a comparative critical analysis of the principal current ontology resources. We will also review the major theories, methods and tools for the development of ontologies, and illustrate how these are being used in different areas of biomedical research and healthcare. On completion of this course students will have a thorough understanding of strategies to manage and exploit biomedical data; they will have a knowledge of categorization, of the philosophy of experimentation, of the philosophy of medicine, and of computer-based reasoning with data. The seminar will be highly interactive, featuring debates between Drs Smith and Ceusters and between Smith and Ceusters and the course participants.

All slides and videos will be made available at this link

Recommended background reading

R. Arp, B. Smith, A. D. Spear, Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology

Recommended background video content

Selections from: [1]

8/29/2016 Introduction to Ontology 1: General Overview (BS)

Slides

Roots of ontology in

• artificial intelligence (Second Naive Physics Manifesto)
• library science (MeSH)
• Semantic Web (OWL)
• Human Genome Project (Gene Ontology)

9/12/2016 Ontology of Clinical Practice (WC)

Slides

Disease vs. diagnosis; Electronic Health Records and other systems and techniques for modeling, representing and maintaining patient data

• Ontology for General Medical Science
• Toward an Ontological Treatment of Disease and Diagnosis

9/19/2016 Ontology of Experiments (WC, BS)

Part 1: Ontology of Clinical Practice (continued) (WC)

Slides

Representing clinical data

Part 2: Ontology of Scientific Research (BS)

Background on philosophy of science

The generation and dissemination of new knowledge through scientific experiments

Biomedical research and clinical trials

The Information Artifact Ontology

Slides

• Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI)
• Information Artifact Ontology
• Image Ontologies

Video: Clinical Trial Data Wants to be Free

9/26/2016 Introduction to Ontology 2: Ontology in Buffalo (BS)

Includes a presentation by Alex Diehl on the Cell and Protein Ontologies

• Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology
• Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry
• Information Artifact Ontology
• Referent Tracking
• Logical development of the Cell Ontology
• The Cell Ontology 2016
• Protein Ontology: a controlled structured network of protein entities

10/3/2016 Ontology of Social Entities (BS)

Representation of race, gender, and other demographic entities; patient consent; healthcare organizations

10/10/2016 Ontology Software (AR/BS)

Use of Protege and other tools for ontology editing, search and reasoning This session will be co-taught by Alan Ruttenberg

10/17/2016 Using Ontologies to Represent Information and Artefacts (WC/BS)

Information Artifact Ontology (BS)

Internet of Things (WC)

Ontology of Functions in Biology and in Engineering (BS/WC)

10/24/2016 Representing Types and Representing Instances (WC)

Introduction to Referent Tracking

10/31/2016 The Gene Ontology and the Open Biomedical Ontologies Foundry (BS)

History and current theoretical foundations for the development of effective biomedical ontologies

12/5/2016 Student presentations

All students will be required to take an active part in class discussions throughout the semester and to prepare a paper on some relevant topic. The paper should be submitted in a draft version on or before October 31, and in final form on or before December 5. A powerpoint version will be presented in class in one or other of the two closing sessions.

Your grade will be determined in three equal portions deriving from:

1. class participation (2.5% per class attended)

2. paper (3000 words; deadline for draft: March 29; deadline for final version: May 3)

3. class presentation (graded according to quality of powerpoint slides, quality of delivery, and quality of response to questions)

For policy regarding incompletes see here

For academic integrity policy see here

For accessibility services see here