Swiss Context Server
The Swiss Context Server provides semantic web services that can be easily integrated with your current web applications. Used in conjunction with Semedica's medical taxonomy Cortex, a local taxonomy, or a combination of taxonomies, the Swiss Context Server powers a series of web applets that can help your existing applications provide accurate and complete semantic search and linking functions. The applets can be provided fully formed and ready to place on your application pages or in raw form for deeper, subtler integrations.
- Query Expansion runs in real-time with your search engine to ensure that common medical synonyms, alternate phrasings, acronyms, abbreviations, and jargon are not overlooked during a user query. Generic search engines do not know that the "fb" in "fb in foot" refers to foreign bodies. Nor do they understand that "c diff" is the same thing as "clostridium difficile." Query expansion mitigates the limitations of standard search engines when confronted with complex medical terminology by giving the search engine the full list of equivalents to include in its algorithms. Armed with this vital data, standard search engines return more complete and consistent results on medical queries.
- Concept Suggestion uses the user's search string to suggest other common taxonomy nodes that closely align to the query. This suggestion can be to a broader, narrower, or equal level to the search phrase.
- Concept Navigation places your term in hierarchical context (via Semedica's Cortex taxonomy or other hierarchical taxonomy) and provides quick pathways to narrow or expand your current query. All direct parents and children are shown in an easy-to-understand tree view. By clicking on any term, the user can expand or contract their search one conceptual level at a time.
- Search Refinement presents the opportunity for searchers to narrow their retrieval to contextually relevant aspects of their original search phrase. Rather than a fixed list of subtopics for all medical terms (the best Google can do), Semedica provides unique subtopics for every term in its Cortex taxonomy—in some cases more than 50 relevant subtopics per term. The subtopics range from the common (tuberculosis, treatment) to the highly-targeted (hemophilia, in surgical patients). The feature automatically ranks the subtopics by importance so the most common subtopics are shown.
Swiss Demonstration
Figure 1. Example of a generic search engine integrated with the Swiss Context Server. Click the image or click here for a full-screen demonstration.
Previous: Tagmaster