MMSE: Design & Implementation of a Medical Meta Search Engine

Abstract

We present a new next generation domain of meta search engine. A Medical Meta Search Engine (MMSE) was designed in this research for the users with no medical expertise. It is enhanced with the domain knowledge obtained from Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) to increase the effectiveness of the searches. The power of the system is based on the ability to understand the semantics of web pages and the user queries. This MMSE transforms a keyword search into a conceptual search. This medical meta search engine aims to generate maximum output with semantic value using minimum input from the user. Since this system is designed to help people seeking information about health on the web, our target users are not medical specialists who can effectively use the special jargon of medicine and access medical databases. Medical experts have the advantage of shrinking the answer set by expressing several terms using medical terminology. Medical meta search engine provides the same advantage to its users through the automated use of the medical domain knowledge in the background. The results of our experiments indicate that, expanding the queries with domain knowledge and increase dramatically the relevance of an answer set and the number of retrieved web pages that are relevant to the user request.