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Abstract Automatic disease progression prediction models require large amounts of training data, which are seldom available, especially when it comes to rare diseases. A possible solution is to integrate data from different medical centres. Nevertheless, various centres often follow diverse data collection procedures and assign different semantics to collected data. Ontologies, used as schemas for interoperable knowledge bases, represent a state-of-the-art solution to homologate the semantics and foster data integration from various sources. This work presents the BrainTeaser Ontology (BTO), an ontology that models the clinical data associated with two brain-related rare diseases (ALS and MS) in a comprehensive and modular manner. BTO assists in organizing and standardizing the data collected during patient follow-up. It was created by harmonizing schemas currently used by multiple medical centers into a common ontology, following a bottom-up approach. As a result, BTO effectively addresses the practical data collection needs of various real-world situations and promotes data portability and interoperability. BTO captures various clinical occurrences, such as disease onset, symptoms, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, and relapses, using an event-based approach. Developed in collaboration with medical partners and domain experts, BTO offers a holistic view of ALS and MS for supporting the representation of retrospective and prospective data. Furthermore, BTO adheres to Open Science and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles, making it a reliable framework for developing predictive tools to aid in medical decision-making and patient care. Although BTO is designed for ALS and MS, its modular structure makes it easily extendable to other brain-related diseases, showcasing its potential for broader applicability. Database URL https://zenodo.org/records/7886998 .

Taking into account the considerable impact that medical information has on the lives of human beings, it is crucial that medical language is correctly adapted to the needs of patients. This study aims to observe how communication between doctor and patient takes place with the aim of examining the elements of medical language that may compromise the understanding of non-experts in the domain of female oncology. In this regard, the working methodology, based on corpus linguistics and translation-oriented terminography, is illustrated in order to propose an analysis of the terminology that may alter doctor-patient communication. Indeed, a qualitative analysis of terminology cases that caught our attention is proposed. Furthermore, the difficulties posed by the medical language in popular communication are confirmed by analysing the readability of brochures addressed to cancer patients thanks to the criteria of text simplification.

This Special Issue is dedicated to the 2nd International Conference on “Multilingual digital terminology today: Design, representation formats, and management systems” (MDTT 2023) (Di Nunzio et al [...]

When faced with an information need, an exhaustive search aim to retrieve all the relevant information. The need for comprehensive research is fundamental electronic discovery, systematic reviews, investigation, research in general, and also in the creation of evaluation collections in information retrieval. To support these high-recall retrieval tasks, technology relies on machine learning to develop systems that rank and classify documents with greater efficiency than traditional Boolean keyword searches. Technology-Assisted Review (TAR) is one of the key technologies which can help to improve this process. The aim of this special issue is to investigate the most recent approaches of TAR systems applied in a wide variety of contexts where high recall is necessary: from the classification of emails to the compilation of systematic reviews up to the evaluation of the quality of the assessments.

Semic analysis is a linguistic technique aimed at methodically factorizing the meaning of terms into a collection of minimum non-decomposable atoms of meaning. In this study, we propose a methodology targeted at enhancing the systematicity of semic analysis of medical terminology in order to increase the quality of the creation of the set of atoms of meaning and improve the identification of concepts, as well as enhance specialized domain studies. Our approach is based on: (1) a semi-automatic domain-specific corpus-based extraction of semes, (2) the application of the property of termhood to address the diaphasic and the diastratic variations of language, (3) the automatic lemmatization of semes, and (4) seme weighting to establish the order of semes in the sememe. The paper explores the distinction between denotative and connotative semes, offering insights into polysemy and polyreferentiality in medical terminology.

This study aims at examining the phraseology of international disarmament treaties, through a comparative French-Italian case study, in a complementary perspective with a previous study on the terminology of this domain. The legal effectiveness of international disarmament treaties, as well as international efforts towards general and complete disarmament under international control, are subject to the consent of States to be bound by these treaties. Consequently, difficulties in the translation processes required in a multilingual and multicultural environment, such as that of international cooperation, cannot by any means hinder the application of international disarmament provisions. Furthermore, despite the high relevance and the strong impact they produce on international peace and security, the domain of disarmament still remains unexplored in the French-Italian language combination. Consequently, this study focuses on the phraseology of the legal language of disarmament treaties, in an attempt to fill the existing gaps in literature and to ensure their legal effectiveness also through the specificity and accuracy of their linguistic expression. The proposed methodological approach consists of three steps: 1) the analysis of the linguistic and conceptual dimension of the disarmament domain, in a bilingual perspective; 2) the implementation of a new specialised terminological resource on disarmament, named DITTO (Disarmament International Treaties TerminOlogy), freely accessible for consultation; 3) a translation exercise of the main international disarmament treaties for methodological validation purposes.

Sub-Saharan Africa has fewer medical workers per capita than any region of the world, and that shortage has been highlighted consistently as a critical constraint to improving health outcomes in the region. This paper draws on newly available, systematic, comparable data from 10 countries in the region to explore the dimensions of this shortage. We find wide variation in human resources performance metrics, both within and across countries. Many facilities are barely staffed, and effective staffing levels fall further when adjusted for health worker absences. However, caseloads—while also varying widely within and across countries—are also low in many settings, suggesting that even within countries, deployment rather than shortages, together with barriers to demand, may be the principal challenges. Beyond raw numbers, we observe significant proportions of health workers with very low levels of clinical knowledge on standard maternal and child health conditions. This study highlights that countries may need to invest broadly in health workforce deployment, improvements in capacity and performance of the health workforce, and on addressing demand constraints, rather than focusing narrowly on increases in staffing numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]