Linking African Traditional Medicine Knowledge

6 December 2017 - SWAT4LS Conference 2017

Gossa Lô, Victor de Boer, Stefan Schlobach

Approach

• Contribution Semantic Web technologies• Integration ATM + CM• Three datasets• Validation

African Traditional Medicine (ATM)• Scientifically (often) unvalidated knowledge• First-line of treatment

• Lack of formalization• Safety• Loss of knowledge

http://healthstaff.co.za/31-august-african-traditional-medicine-day/

Constraints to knowledge sharing:

• Low levels of literacy

• Many different languages spoken

• Poor infrastructures: (no electricity in the villages, no internet, only radio/2G mobile)

Slide from Anna Bon and Victor de Boer

Keur Massar, Senegal

• Hôpital Traditionnel• Herbal medicine• Tradi-practitioners• Botanical garden

(1,000 products & recipes)

http://seyilaabe-htkm.blogspot.nl/

Madagascar• Dataset 1: Medicinal plants used by communities in Mahaboboka,

Amboronabo, Mikoboka, Southwestern Madagascar (34 villages)• Dataset 2: Frequent diseases in Ambalabe rural community, Eastern

Madagascar.

- Rich natural heritage- Poverty -> loss of biodiversity

Tabular data

Triples

Knowledge graphs on the Web

’set2 99’: [u’Emilia humifusa DC. Rakotoarivelo’, u’Asteraceae’, u’Infected wound’, u’L’, u’Angea’, u’Cataplasm on wound’, u’400’, 0.02, u’ID’, 25L]Dictionary

Human Disease Ontology (DOID)

Symptom Ontology (SYMP)

SNOMEDCT DBpedia

Results

• 13,028 triples• 672 plant types• 1,799 health conditions

https://github.com/biktorrr/linkedatmdata

Try it yourself: http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/linkedatm/home

Use case 1

1. Difference in Malaria treatment between two regions Madagascar

Query result case 1

1. Difference in Malaria treatment between two regions Madagascar

2. Difference in use of plant species between Senegal and Madagascar

Use case 2

Query result case 2

Sclerocarya birrea in Senegal

Sclerocarya birrea in Madagascar

Conclusion

• Promising first results• More varied data• Linking to pharmaceutical ontologies• Offline & voice-based