Using WordNet synonym substitution to enhance UMLS source integration

摘要

ObjectiveSynonym-substitution algorithms have been developed for the purpose of matching source vocabulary terms with existing Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) terms during the integration process. A drawback is the possible explosion in the number of newly generated (potential) synonyms, which can tax computational and expert review resources. Experiments are run using a synonym-substitution approach based on WordNet to see how constraining two methodological parameters, namely, “maximum number of substitutions per term” and “maximum term length,” affects performance. Our hypothesis is that these values can be constrained rather tightly—thus greatly speeding up the methodology—without a marked decline in the additional matches produced. Furthermore, we investigate whether a limitation on only the first of the two parameters is sufficient to achieve the same results.