Wikidata: A large-scale collaborative ontological medical database.

Journal: Journal of biomedical informatics
Published Date:

Abstract

Created in October 2012, Wikidata is a large-scale, human-readable, machine-readable, multilingual, multidisciplinary, centralized, editable, structured, and linked knowledge-base with an increasing diversity of use cases. Here, we raise awareness of the potential use of Wikidata as a useful resource for biomedical data integration and semantic interoperability between biomedical computer systems. We show the data model and characteristics of Wikidata and explain how this database can be automatically processed by users as well as by computer methods and programs. Then, we give an overview of the medical entities and relations provided by the database and how they can be useful for various medical purposes such as clinical decision support.

Authors

  • Houcemeddine Turki
    Faculty of Medicine of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia; Clinical Performance Assessment Unit (UR12SP36), University Hospital of Sahloul, Sousse, Tunisia. Electronic address: turkiabdelwaheb@hotmail.fr.
  • Thomas Shafee
    La Trobe University, Bundoora, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Electronic address: T.Shafee@LaTrobe.edu.au.
  • Mohamed Ali Hadj Taieb
    MIRACL Laboratory, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia.
  • Mohamed Ben Aouicha
    MIRACL Laboratory, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia. Electronic address: mohamed.benaouicha@fss.usf.tn.
  • Denny Vrandečić
    Google LLC, Mountain View, CA, United States. Electronic address: vrandecic@google.com.
  • Diptanshu Das
    Institute of Neurosciences Kolkata (I-NK), Kolkata, India. Electronic address: das.diptanshu@gmail.com.
  • Helmi Hamdi
    CUFE, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada. Electronic address: helmi.hamdi@usherbrooke.ca.