DEVELOPMENT OF A SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY LANGUAGE-MEDLISH

CURRENT SCIENTIFIC BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES (E.G., MEDLINE) NOW PLAY A CENTRAL ROLE IN LITERATURE ACTIVITIES. THEY ARE IMPORTANT AND THEY ARE WIDELY USED. HOWEVER, THE INFORMATION EXPRESSED IN THE TITLE, ABSTRACT, AND MESH INDEXFIELDS IN THESE DATABASES IS QUITE CHAOTIC AND SKETCHY COMPARED WITH THE STRUCTURE OF MANY OTHER KINDS OF DATABASES. BECAUSE OF THESE DEFICIENCIES, COMPUTERIZED LITERATURE SEARCHES ARE IMPRECISE AND MERELY RETRIEVE RECORDS BASED ON THE PRESENCE OF "KEYWORDS," RATHER THAN VIA A PRECISE "MATCH ON CONCEPT" CONDITION, SUCH AS IS POSSIBLE WITH RELATIONAL DATABASES AND OTHER ORDERLY DATA STRUCTURES. IN THIS PHASE I PROGRAM, I.S. GRUPE (ISG) PROPOSES TO MAKE ASMALL DATABASE CONTAINING THE KIND OF INFORMATION THAT IS IN ORDINARY ABSTRACTS, BUT TO EXPRESS IT IN A NEW "SCIENTIFIC" LANGUAGE (MEDLISH) THAT ISG HAS BEEN DEVELOPING. UNLIKE ENGLISH, MEDLISH ENFORCES ORDER, SCIENTIFIC PRECISION, AND LOGIC ON THE ENTRIES. AT THE CONCLUSION OF PHASE I, THE DESIGN WILL HAVE BEEN COMPLETED, A SAMPLE DATABASE MADE, AND THE IMPLEMENTATION PLANS FINISHED. IN PHASE II, ISG WILL ATTEMPT TO MAKE THE PRODUCT MARKETABLE. A DATABASE EXPRESSED IN MEDLISH WILL SUPPORT MUCH MORE PRECISE QUERIES THAN CURRENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES.