Knowledge Representation, Acquisition and Retrieval of Ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine Books Based on Knowledge Element-Semantic Network Model

Ancient traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) books are the essential carriers for recording and transmitting TCM knowledge. They include a wealth of medical information with a high value for development and utilization. However, the existing methods of TCM knowledge representation and acquisition are unable to accurately capture the dynamic and static knowledge as well as the clinical thinking mode from ancient TCM books. After a comprehensive analysis of the styles, contents, and knowledge kernels of various kinds of ancient TCM books, we propose a knowledge element-semantic network model (KESN), which is fully applicable to the knowledge representation and organization of ancient TCM books. Based on KESN, we have indexed 600 ancient TCM books at four levels of knowledge: knowledge body, knowledge element, semantics, and semantic relation. Further, we have constructed a knowledge graph and a knowledge base of ancient TCM books with the diagnosis and treatment thinking mode of "disease-pulse-syndrome combined treatment". As a result, we have developed a knowledge service platform and a variety of intelligent knowledge retrieval functions to achieve the in-depth utilization and wisdom sharing of knowledge in ancient TCM books. In the future, we plan to use more modern information technologies to extract knowledge from ancient TCM books in an efficient, detailed, and comprehensive manner and create a medical knowledge project that is based on ancient and modern medical knowledge and links the East and West. It is not only the focus of inheriting and carrying forward TCM itself but also a vital source of inspiration for modern medical innovation.