Fuzzy ontology for medical information retrieval

Ontology-based information retrieval is a key component of the Semantic Web. However current “crisp” ontologoies suffer from issues related to disambiguation of text terms and lack of domain knowledge necessary for effective query refinement. The fuzzy ontology approach is designed to allow personalised and group ontologies to be shared and collaboratively developed within the framework of existing ontologies and hirearchies. This paper briefly describes the fuzzy ontology and explains its role in enhancing information retrieval and the construction of the semantic web. Imprecise and fuzzy queries and fuzzy relevance scores can be retrieved in this way. This paper also extends the concept to include the representation of the degtree of belief in a relation by a user or group of users. Fuzzy ontologies may allow users to express their own understanding of the meaning of web documents and increase the utility of the web.