An Ontology to Standardize Research Output of Nutritional Epidemiology: From Paper-Based Standards to Linked Content

Abstract

Background: The use of linked data in the Semantic Web is a promising approach to add value to nutrition research. An ontology, which defines the logical relationships between well-defined taxonomic terms, enables linking and harmonizing research output. To enable the description of domain-specific output in nutritional epidemiology, we propose the Ontology for Nutritional Epidemiology (ONE) according to authoritative guidance for nutritional epidemiology. Methods: Firstly, a scoping review was conducted to identify existing ontology terms for reuse in ONE. Secondly, existing data standards and reporting guidelines for nutritional epidemiology were converted into an ontology. The terms used in the standards were summarized and listed separately in a taxonomic hierarchy. Thirdly, the ontologies of the nutritional epidemiologic standards, reporting guidelines, and the core concepts were gathered in ONE. Three case studies were included to illustrate potential applications: (i) annotation of existing manuscripts and data, (ii) ontology-based inference, and (iii) estimation of reporting completeness in a sample of nine manuscripts. Results: Ontologies for “food and nutrition” (n = 37), “disease and specific population” (n = 100), “data description” (n = 21), “research description” (n = 35), and “supplementary (meta) data description” (n = 44) were reviewed and listed. ONE consists of 339 classes: 79 new classes to describe data and 24 new classes to describe the content of manuscripts. Conclusion: ONE is a resource to automate data integration, searching, and browsing, and can be used to assess reporting completeness in nutritional epidemiology.

Bridging the food security gap: an information‐led approach to connect dietary nutrition, food composition and crop production

“…Initiative such as the Breeding API (BrAPI) and MIAPPE are enhancing the ability of pre‐breeding scientists and plant breeders to compare and make use of data from diverse sources. Likewise, development of formal systems of knowledge representation including ontologies have contributed to progress in the sophistication of nutritional epidemiology research, leading to the recent development of the Ontology for Nutritional Epidemiology (ONE) …”

“…DPPH scavenging activity is expressed as μmol Trolox equivalent. Data were collated using the CDN‐DF from a range of independent sources: soybean, chickpea, cowpea, and mungbean . Linear regression analysis across the complete dataset resulted in a R 2 of 0.51, and a dotted regression line was plotted.…”

Utilization of text mining as a big data analysis tool for food science and nutrition

“…ISO‐FOOD ontology was created for sharing and organizing stable isotope data across food science (Eftimov et al., ). ONE ontology was developed for enhancing reporting and communication of nutritional epidemiologic studies and data (Yang et al., ). And an ontology‐based recipe repository that describes cooking terms and activities was developed for facilitating the sharing and searching of recipe data (Öztürk, & Özacar, ).…”

“…On the other hand, maintenance of a large number of transactions in a large database is a rather expensive task (Doorn, ). As in the example of the blockchain environment, it is necessary to make sure that after data get recorded, they will not be altered (Yli‐Huumo, Ko, Choi, Park, & Smolander, ).…”

Systematization of effective population-based preventive measures under uncertainty: an ontological approach

“…Построение модели проводилось с соблюдением фундаментальных прин- ципов. Онтологический подход используется в исследованиях в области медицины, в частности для синтеза, гармонизации и систематизированного представления результатов исследований по вопросам питания [14,15]. Кроме того, онтология является фундаментом для построения систем поддержки принятия врачом решения в рамках проектов, направленных на изменение поведения человека, что может стать ключом к решению проблем, связанных со здоровьем и благополучием, а также стимулировать развитие поведенческих наук [16,17].…”