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Concept locator: a client-server application for retrieval of UMLS metathesaurus concepts through complex boolean
1Center for Medical Informatics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA. nadkarni@cs.yale.edu
Computers and Biomedical Research, an International Journal
|August 1, 1997
Summary
Concept Locator (CL) is a client-server application for retrieving concepts from the UMLS Metathesaurus. It efficiently processes complex queries using optimized SQL, enhancing medical concept discovery.
Area of Science:
- Medical Informatics
- Database Management
- Bioinformatics
Background:
- Accessing and retrieving specific medical concepts from large terminologies like the UMLS Metathesaurus is crucial for research and clinical applications.
- Existing methods may lack the flexibility to handle complex search criteria or optimize database interactions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and describe the Concept Locator (CL) application for efficient retrieval of medical concepts.
- To enable complex query expression processing against the UMLS Metathesaurus.
Main Methods:
- CL is a client-server application interacting with a Sybase relational database.
- It supports a query grammar with Boolean logic, wildcards, and nested subexpressions.
- Client-side optimization of SQL statements is employed to enhance retrieval efficiency.
Main Results:
- The CL application successfully translates complex user queries into executable SQL statements.
- Optimized SQL generation allows for efficient data retrieval from the UMLS Metathesaurus subset.
- The system balances the strengths and weaknesses of the database server's query optimizer.
Conclusions:
- Concept Locator provides an efficient and flexible tool for accessing and retrieving medical concepts from the UMLS Metathesaurus.
- The application's query processing and SQL optimization strategies improve the performance of concept retrieval.