1 Semantic Network Issues in UMLS Study Yehoshua Perl, James Geller

2 The Questionnaire The questionnaire was distributed to the members of the UMLS user list and 70 responses were received. The questionnaire consists of 26 questions and has three parts: Demographic User Agenda

3 4. What is (are) your profession(s)? 47.1% Researcher 22.9% Programmer 21.4% Physician 17.1% Professor 17.1% Others 15.7% Student 11.5% Manager 7.1% Nurse 5.8% Librarian 5.7% Administrator 4.3% Engineer

4 5. Where are you employed? 48.6%University 35.7% Industry 7.1%Government 2.9%Self-employed 2.9%Other 1.4%Research institute 1.4% no answers

5 6. If working in industry, what type of company are you working in? 41.7% Software vendor 29.1% Hospital 16.7%Other 8.3% Healthcare information processing company 4.2% Doctor office 2.5%Insurance company 0% Pharmaceutical company

6 9. Which of the following subject areas of the UMLS are you using? 67.1%Concepts & Ideas 62.9%Disorders 60% Procedures 54.3% Anatomy 51.4% Chemicals &Drugs 42.9% Physiology 35.7% Devices 34.3% Activities & Behaviors 30% Living Beings 24.3% Genes & Molecular Sequences 21.4% Objects 20% Phenomena 18.6% Occupations 15.7% Organizations 14.3% Geographic Areas On average 5.7 per respondent

7 Observations of Question 9 Seven medical oriented areas are leading the interest, with Disorder and Procedure at the front, while more general areas exhibit lower interest. Concept and Ideas show the highest interest and Gene and Molecular Sequences show a low interest.

8 21. How much do the following kinds of modeling errors bother you when encountered? Bothers me: 0-- not at all 1-- a little 2-- moderately 3-- a lot

9 Result of Question comparison of university, software company and hospital Modeling ErrorOverallUniv.Sftw.Hp Concept Redundancy Concept polysemy Wrong hierarchical relationships Wrong associative relationships Wrong semantic type assignments Redundant semantic type assignment Average

10 Q22. How much do the following kinds of missing knowledge bother you when encountered? Bothers me: 0-- not at all 1-- a little 2-- moderately 3-- a lot

11 Result of Question 22-- comparison of university, software company and hospital Missing KnowledgeOverallUniv.Sftw.Hp. Missing concepts Missing definitions Missing Synonyms Missing hierarchical relationships Missing associative relationships Missing semantic type assignments Average