are subject to modeling based on this fact. Cerebrospinal fluid specimen, for example, is not modeled as dependent on any devices. The ontology appears to lack a consistent treatment of fluids and the collection devices for them. It is also certainly incorrect to suggest that would be the parent drug specimen of specimen from when is only one type of specimen that could be derived from a blood product, drug specimen blood. However, not all drug specimens need be derived from blood, so cannot be drug specimen a child concept of either. Instead, both should be parents to a more specimen from blood product, specific concept like This suggestion perhaps drug specimen derived from blood product. represents a mistake from attempting to the existing concepts to do the work of the “force” missing concept. Although this is the only such example in the sample, it is possible that concepts that appear to have unrelated parents or parents that are too specific may predict missing concepts of this type. Since the underlying problem in all cases of ancestral errors in this sample appeared to be a concept that was incorrectly or confusingly conceptualized, the character of the ancestral problems that can be identified from this type of analysis may be limited. Recommendations Confirm findings with additional data The exploratory samples analyzed for this report were small and non-random. Additionally, the same sample coded with the taxonomy was used to develop the taxonomy. A larger, more representative sample must be analyzed to confirm or refute the findings of this report and usefulness and comprehensiveness of the error taxonomy in describing errors. Alternatively, a sample targeted towards just one type of error and its implications could be performed. For example, requests to remove incorrect parents could be analyzed to further explore the possibility of using them to identify ancestral origins of these errors. We have also suggested that a number of errors may indicate other similar errors. Perhaps most importantly, errors may indicate underlying ancestral errors that have Parent too specific propagated elsewhere in the hierarchy as well, potentially engendering bad fixes at the level of individual concepts. Additional possible patterns were observed in this dataset. Parent too , and errors may predict similar errors in sibling general Parent missing, Attribute missing concepts. Also, where the cause of error was a related word in the concept leading Related word, to an incorrect association, the same word may have led to a similar problem elsewhere. The validity of these possible patterns should be further investigated.
are subject to modeling based on this fact. Cerebrospinal fluid specimen, for example, is not modeled as dependent on any devices. The ontology appears to lack a consistent treatment of fluids and the collection devices for them. It is also certainly incorrect to suggest that drug specimen would be the parent of specimen from a blood product, when drug specimen is only one type of specimen that could be derived from blood. However, not all drug specimens need be derived from blood, so drug specimen cannot be a child concept of specimen from blood product, either. Instead, both should be parents to a more specific concept like drug specimen derived from blood product. This suggestion perhaps represents a mistake from attempting to “force” the existing concepts to do the work of the missing concept. Although this is the only such example in the sample, it is possible that concepts that appear to have unrelated parents or parents that are too specific may predict missing concepts of this type. Since the underlying problem in all cases of ancestral errors in this sample appeared to be a concept that was incorrectly or confusingly conceptualized, the character of the ancestral problems that can be identified from this type of analysis may be limited. Recommendations Confirm findings with additional data The exploratory samples analyzed for this report were small and non-random. Additionally, the same sample coded with the taxonomy was used to develop the taxonomy. A larger, more representative sample must be analyzed to confirm or refute the findings of this report and usefulness and comprehensiveness of the error taxonomy in describing errors. Alternatively, a sample targeted towards just one type of error and its implications could be performed. For example, requests to remove incorrect parents could be analyzed to further explore the possibility of using them to identify ancestral origins of these errors. We have also suggested that a number of errors may indicate other similar errors. Perhaps most importantly, Parent too specific errors may indicate underlying ancestral errors that have propagated elsewhere in the hierarchy as well, potentially engendering bad fixes at the level of individual concepts. Additional possible patterns were observed in this dataset. Parent too general , Parent missing, and Attribute missing errors may predict similar errors in sibling concepts. Also, where the cause of error was Related word, a related word in the concept leading to an incorrect association, the same word may have led to a similar problem elsewhere. The validity of these possible patterns should be further investigated.