Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge (2022) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 9-26
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From page 9... ...
Yet despite these advances, the behavioral sciences are facing substantial challenges that constrain scientific progress. These challenges, which ironically have been exacerbated by the many research possibilities opened up by rapid advances in computer technology, hamper the integration of findings from individual studies to accumulate bodies of knowledge.
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, the National Science Foundation, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. The committee, which included experts in medicine, population health, psychology, psychiatry, biobehavioral sciences, biomedical informatics, neural and cognitive science, library and information science, the history and philosophy of science, computer science, and bioengineering, was charged with reviewing the literature on ontologies in the behavioral sciences and example ontologies in other sciences and developing recommended approaches for improving them; the complete charge is shown in Box 1-1.
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One of the most influential methods of organizing knowledge about the world was launched during the 4th century BC by Aristotle, who attempted to find order among chaos in the natural world: see Box 1-2 and Figure 1-1. In AD 77 Pliny the Elder published Natural History, an effort to categorize all that was known.
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Com ponents of Aristotle's ontology guided zoological science for millennia and con tinue to dominate the way organisms are classified. Yet, the hierarchical scale may have interfered with scientific progress by inhibiting new insights about evolution and adaptation.
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hcb=1 disciplines, the volume of data generated presents tremendous opportunities, but it also amplifies the challenges of structuring, mining, integrating, and reusing information: those challenges demonstrate the need for and applications of ontologies. Using computer technology to develop and maintain ontologies involving potentially vast quantities of data has offered the potential for significant changes in the ways human beings interact with scientific knowledge.
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structure large bodies of data.2 As in other scientific contexts, ontologies used in the behavioral sciences (e.g., to categorize the components of psychological well-being or to classify thought processes) may help scientists in a variety of ways.
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Yet it is difficult to be sure what "stress" means across these diverse studies, and thus to make informed inferences or broad conclusions about stressors and their effects from the body of research that has explored this multifaceted set of phenomena. Researchers in the behavioral sciences seek to describe observed phenomena, to understand the causes for those phenomena, to use this knowledge to improve psychological and physical health outcomes, and to predict who might be affected in the future.
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COMMITTEE'S APPROACH TO ITS CHARGE The committee's approach to the charge began with an effort to reach a shared understanding of the meaning of the key terms we were to address, ontologies in the behavioral sciences, and the basic purposes they serve. Though the committee adopted the most widely used definition of ontology (a formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualization; Gruber, 1995; see Chapter 3)
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, a definition that would include such disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, law, psychiatry, political science and the behavioral aspects of biology; the American Psychological Association defines behavioral science as including research on nonhuman animals (Wolman, 1989)
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We explore these goals and concerns throughout the report, but the foundations for this report are twofold: their basic utility in the behavioral sciences and the concept of "use cases" (cited in the study charge) -- a term coined in the context of software engineering to refer to situations in which software is usefully applied or to which it responds.
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To gain insight into the range of potential use cases for ontologies in the behavioral science, the committee conducted an informal self-survey. Participating committee members enumerated possible use cases, specific ways different actors in a given context could use an ontological resource to achieve expected results relevant to a set of stakeholders.
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insurance plans, school mental health programs, community programming Providers: Individuals or organizations that design or distribute products relevant to behavioral health was not a means to model or design specific ontology applications, but simply to assess the potential of behavioral science ontologies to facilitate important goals.7 Despite the small sample involved with this exercise, a considerable diversity of use cases emerged; see Appendix B Researchers were the most commonly cited actors, but health care providers, policy makers, educators, students, administrators, and the general public were also cited.
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STUDY PROCESS: FOUR KEY QUESTIONS The committee recognized that some scholars and stakeholders may question the value of developing and using ontologies in the behavioral sciences, while others have high aspirations for their potential benefits. We began our work from an agnostic stance, eager to better understand how ontologies have actually operated in the behavioral sciences, the challenges of developing and sustaining ontologies in this context, and the possibilities they offer for supporting advances in behavioral research.
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From page 22... ...
investigation of example ontologies in the behavioral sciences and related fields. As we will discuss, particularly in Chapters 3 and 5, existing ontologies and related knowledge structures in the behavioral sciences vary in significant ways and are not easily counted or categorized, but there are fewer ontologies in the behavioral domain than in other scientific domains.
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In order to provide a response to this important study charge that could be useful now, the committee deliberated and arrived at judgments based on the information available. The committee met formally five times, once in person, and also collaborated using Zoom and other technologies throughout the process of digesting the information and developing the report.
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. Commissioned paper prepared for the Committee on Accelerating Behavioral Science Through Ontology Development and Use, National Acad emies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
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Commissioned paper prepared for the Committee on Accelerating Behavioral Science Through Ontology Development and Use, National Acad emies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Available: https://nap.nationalacademies.
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