Construction of a Prototype Ontology of Islamic Medicine Era Based on the Thesaurus

This study aims to develop an initial model of the Ontology of Islamic Medicine Era based on the second edition of the Thesaurus of Islamic Medicine Era.

This research was conducted by qualitative content analysis method. The study population included all entries of the second edition of the Thesaurus of Islamic Medicine Era (compiled by the Academy of Medical Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran), of which 508 terms under the entry of "disease" were selected by purposive sampling. The Ontology model of the Islamic Medicine Era was designed according to the semantic relations presented in the Thesaurus of Islamic Medicine Era. The data gathering method was structured (systematic) observation. The data gathering tool was a checklist compiled based on the terms and relationships in the Thesaurus of Islamic Medicine Era.

Following refinement of the terms and their relationships in the Thesaurus of Islamic Medicine Era, and identifying ontological entities (including classes, instances, and relationships), the Ontology model of the Islamic Medicine Era was designed using Protege ontology editor. The RDF representation of the model was subsequently created in RDF/XML Syntax.

After designing the Ontology model of the Islamic Medicine Era, the RDF graphs of this model were created to analyze the entities and the relationships between them.