Volume 75, Issue 3 , Pages 257-267, March 2006
Databases for knowledge discovery:☆
Examples from biomedicine and health care
Summary
Examples are given of the use of large research databases for knowledge discovery. Such databases are not only increasingly used for research in the ‘hard’ mathematics-based disciplines such as physics and engineering but also in more ‘soft’ disciplines, such as sociology, psychology and, in general, the humanities. In between the ‘hard’ and the ‘soft’ disciplines lie disciplines such as biomedicine and health care, from which we have selected our illustrations. This latter area can be subdivided into: (1) fundamental biomedical research, related to the ‘hard’ scientific approach; (2) clinical research, using both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ data and (3) population-based research, which can be subdivided into prospective and retrospective research. The examples that we shall offer are representative for using computers in scientific research in general, but in medical and health informatics in particular.
Keywords: Knowledge discovery, Population-bases research, Clinical research, Biomedical research, Biomedical literature, Fingerprints, Genetics, Epidemiology, Primary care, Critiquing, Decision-support
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☆ This paper is the written version of an invited lecture given at the Plenary Session of the Conference EuroMISE 2004, in April 2004, at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. This conference was organized by the European Center for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (EuroMISE). Part of this paper was also presented in Brussels in September 2003 as a contribution to the deliberations on the European Research Area.
PII: S1386-5056(05)00153-X
doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.08.012
© 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Volume 75, Issue 3 , Pages 257-267, March 2006
