From Life Science Dictionary to Life Science Ontology

Abstract

　In line with the recent progress in life sciences, vast numbers of words for new substances and phenomena have been appearing. Since 1993, we have been analyzing English texts of medical journals selected mainly from PubMed and collecting frequently-used terms with their frequencies, concordances, typical usages, definitions and translations. The data were recorded in a versatile database and edited into text-based English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries (Life Science Dictionary-LSD) intended for public release. Here we describe the current status, methodology and history of the LSD, together with future plans regarding life science ontology.