Literature-Related Discovery (LRD) by Kostoff, Ronald N. ; Block, Joel A. ; Solka, Jeffrey L. ; Briggs, Michael B. ; Rushenberg, Robert L. ; Stump, Jesse A. ; Johnson, Dustin ; Lyons, Terence J. ; Wyatt, Jeffrey R.
Short Abstract:
Discovery in science is the generation of novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge about the objects of study. Literature-related discovery (LRD) is the linking of two or more literature concepts that have heretofore not been linked (i.e., disjoint), in order to produce novel interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge (i.e., potential discovery).
From the longer abstract in the monograph:
LRD offers the promise of large amounts of potential discovery, for the following reasons:
- the burgeoning technical literature contains a very large pool of technical concepts in myriad technical areas;
- researchers spend full time trying to cover the literature in their own research fields and are relatively unfamiliar with research in other especially disparate fields of research;
- the large number of technical concepts (and disparate technical concepts) means that many combinations of especially disparate technical concepts exist
- by the laws of probability, some of these combinations will produce novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge about the objects of study
This monograph presents the LRD methodology and voluminous discovery results from five problem areas: four medical (treatments for Parkinson’s Disease (PD), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Raynaud’s Phenomenon (RP), and Cataracts) and one non-medical (Water Purification (WP)). In particular, the ODS aspect of LRD is addressed, rather than the CDS aspect. In the presentation of potential discovery, a ‘vetting’ process is used that insures both requirements for ODS LBD are met: concepts are linked that have not been linked previously, and novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge is produced.
The potential discoveries for the PD, MS, Cataracts, and WP problems are the first we have seen reported by this ODS LBD approach, and the numbers of potential discoveries for the ODS LBD benchmark RP problem are almost two orders of magnitude greater than those reported in the open literature by any other ODS LBD researcher who has addressed this benchmark RP problem. The WP problem is the first non-medical technical topic to have been addressed successfully by ODS LBD.
(ODS = open discovery system)
If you are looking for validation with supporting data for the literature-related discovery method, seek no further. The text plus annexes runs 884 pages.
This is a technique that fits quite well with topic maps.
PS: Yes, I know, this monograph says “literature-related discovery” (5.8 million “hits” in a popular search engine) versus “literature-based discovery” (6.3 million “hits” in the same search engine), another name for the same technique. Sigh, even semantic integration is afflicted with semantic integration woes.
[…] processing, mining and evaluation. This is one of the major interfaces to US based literature. The Literature-Related Discovery (LRD) material originated from this […]
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