Comments on: Medie, meet Hal http://davidrothman.net/2007/07/16/medie-meet-hal/ Health Information | Geekery Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:49:12 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Kaura http://davidrothman.net/2007/07/16/medie-meet-hal/comment-page-1/#comment-96512 Kaura Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:37:00 +0000 http://davidrothman.net/2007/07/16/medie-meet-hal/#comment-96512 Yeah, I know it was difficult to search (!), which is why I focused on how this step towards natural language is cool, if not quite there yet. I did notice that the subject or object/ verb construction used in the examples was odd ("induces" becomes 'induce', probably to stem?), which I think illustrates how complex our natural speech is (when is the last time you thought about subjects and objects? I'm pretty sure it was around third grade for me, I had to scratch my head for a minute). I think it was really useful to play with in terms of learning about natural language, but unless you’re helping someone who wants to see computational linguistics, I wouldn’t recommend using or recommending this as a way to search Medline. Hopefully that will change some day soon. Yeah, I know it was difficult to search (!), which is why I focused on how this step towards natural language is cool, if not quite there yet.

I did notice that the subject or object/ verb construction used in the examples was odd (”induces” becomes ‘induce’, probably to stem?), which I think illustrates how complex our natural speech is (when is the last time you thought about subjects and objects? I’m pretty sure it was around third grade for me, I had to scratch my head for a minute).

I think it was really useful to play with in terms of learning about natural language, but unless you’re helping someone who wants to see computational linguistics, I wouldn’t recommend using or recommending this as a way to search Medline. Hopefully that will change some day soon.

]]> By: Layla Voll http://davidrothman.net/2007/07/16/medie-meet-hal/comment-page-1/#comment-96451 Layla Voll Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:46:40 +0000 http://davidrothman.net/2007/07/16/medie-meet-hal/#comment-96451 I really like the idea behind MEDIE, but I have to admit that I don’t seem to be able to construct useful natural language searches (which sounds *completely* counterintuitive). Perhaps I’ve been so conditioned into combining different nouns as keywords in my searches that I can’t come up with workable verbs. Or my patrons are already conditioned to think of keyword nouns, so that’s what they ask for in the search, and they’re not suggesting good verbs. I tried running the last five searches I did in MEDLINE, and didn’t come up with much, and almost always had to go to the Advanced Search option to add keywords, which seemed like cheating. Any thoughts on how to add verbs to tease a keyword search backwards into being a natural language search to take advantage of MEDIE? I really like the idea behind MEDIE, but I have to admit that I don’t seem to be able to construct useful natural language searches (which sounds *completely* counterintuitive). Perhaps I’ve been so conditioned into combining different nouns as keywords in my searches that I can’t come up with workable verbs. Or my patrons are already conditioned to think of keyword nouns, so that’s what they ask for in the search, and they’re not suggesting good verbs. I tried running the last five searches I did in MEDLINE, and didn’t come up with much, and almost always had to go to the Advanced Search option to add keywords, which seemed like cheating. Any thoughts on how to add verbs to tease a keyword search backwards into being a natural language search to take advantage of MEDIE?

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