The models and contexts in GELLO can be bespoke, that is they can be custom designed for a given implementation. In health FHIR could well be one such model, instead of the HL7 V2 VMR Medical Objects uses.
This section describes some simple two level models built and implemented against, in various non-health domains, purely by way of example.
Engineering example
This first example will walk through an idea of building a small mechanical engineering ontology that started life with reference to https://fastenerengineering.com/what-are-pins/ . This ontology then will be used in a GELLO query along with information model instance data.
Engineering ontology
The ontology was created using a traditional Concepts, Descriptions and Relationships table approach, which also borrowed column headers from SNOMED, to allow an easier import into a terminology server used to SNOMED. 97 concepts were assigned random alphanumeric identifiers and given hierarchical types:
A similar number of relationships were made, mostly of the Is_A type:
This example will be about a type of fastener called a pin. A small parent child table about grooved pins, coiled pins, dowel pins, cotter pins, split pins and slotted pins (phew!) was made and saved as an imported csv file. This has five levels of hierarchy with parents of Pin (Part), Fastener (Part) , Part (BuiltThing) and BuiltThing (BuiltThing). This table serves as a small reference terminology or ontology and the GELLO will make an appeal to it. It could be further populated out of the Relationships table. The table is used in an implies function that returns a boolean if a child and a parent concept taen as parameters are in the same row, and is shown here:
Engineering schema
The information model was built as a gello_model and an XSD schema. Here is the gello_model:
Package OntoEngineering
Imports iso_21090_datatypes
class Geometry extends Any
name: String
code: CD -- square, rectangle, circle, triangle, cylinder, cone, sphere, line , cube, cuboid
area: PQ --derived
width: PQ
length: PQ
height: PQ
volume: PQ --derived
radius: PQ
circumference: PQ
describingFunction: String
--all horizontal relationships done up to here
class BuiltThing extends Any
code: CD
hasGeometry: Sequence(Geometry)
hasBehaviour: Behaviour
hasRole: Role
component: Sequence(Component)
tensileStrength: PQ
btArea: PQ
btWidth: PQ
btLength: PQ
btVolume: PQ
btRadius: PQ
btCircumference: PQ
btFluxEmmission: PQ
spaceType: CD -- negative, positive, negAndPos
constructionMaterial: CD -- wood, steel
constructionMethod: CD -- extruded, printed, cast, milled
elasticity: PQ
class Part extends BuiltThing
partID: String
usedWith: Sequence(Part)
class Behaviour extends Any
class Role extends Any
participant1: Part
participant2: Part
roleType: CD -- fasten, support, join
class Component extends Part
componentID: String
class Fastener extends Part --reference https://fastenerengineering.com/what-are-pins/
type: CD --mechanical, electromagnetic, adhesive
class Pin extends Fastener
pinType: CD -- dowel, slotted, coiled (spiral), grooved, split, cotter
chamfer: Chamfer
class Chamfer extends Any
angle: PQ
chamferLength: PQ
turnOffDistance: PQ
chamferLocation: CD -- proximal, distal
class SpringPin extends Pin --new
springStrength: PQ
class SlottedPin extends SpringPin
sheetRevolutionDeg: PQ
compressionTolerance: PQ
class CoiledPin extends SpringPin
-- sheetRevolutionDeg > 360 deg
class GroovedPin extends Pin
grooveNumber: Integer --usually 3 -- done
groove: Sequence(Component)
class CotterPin extends Any
taper: Geometry
class SplitPin extends Pin
end: Sequence(Component)
class Bush extends Part
-- spaceType = negative
interferenceMeasure: PQ
chamfer: Chamfer
class InfrastructureRoot extends Any
builtThing: Sequence(BuiltThing)
EndPackage
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