Ontology and Information System of Iranian Herbal Medicines

In the contemporary period, the acceptance of medicinal plants and herbal medicines is on the rise due to factors like accessibility, reasonable cost, and the belief in lower side effects compared to chemical drugs. Despite common belief, medicinal plants have side effects, and their misuse can result in irreparable damage. Given these challenges and the lack of appropriate knowledge structures, we initiated the development of the first Herbal Medicine Ontology of Iran (HMOIr). This ontology manually curated using data from GolDarou, a leading herbal pharmaceutical company in Iran, comprises ۹۷۱ classes, ۱۶ relations, and ۴ annotations. Evaluation, comparing with primary sources and competency questions, revealed coverage and accuracy percentages of ۸۹.۱۷% and ۹۷.۲%, respectively. Lastly, the Iranian Herbal Medicines Information System, built upon this ontology, was introduced to provide users with accurate responses to their inquiries.

Keywords:

Medical Plants , Herbal medicine , Ontology Engineering , Information System of Iranian Herbal Medicines , Natural Language Processing