Literature mining method RaJoLink for uncovering relations between biomedical concepts

To support biomedical experts in their knowledge discovery process, we have developed a literature mining method called RaJoLink for identification of relations between biomedical concepts in disconnected sets of articles. The method implements Swanson’s ABC model approach for generating hypotheses in a new way. The main novelty is a semi-automated suggestion of candidates for agents a that might be logically connected with a given phenomenon c under investigation. The choice of candidates for a is based on rare terms identified in the literature on c. As rare terms are not part of the typical range of information, which describe the phenomenon under investigation, such information might be considered as unusual observations about the phenomenon c. If literatures on these rare terms have an interesting term in common, this joint term is declared as a candidate for a. Linking terms b between literature on a and literature on c are then searched for in the closed discovery to provide additional supportive evidence for uncovered connections. We have applied the method to the literature on autism and have used MEDLINE as a source of data. Expert evaluation has confirmed that the discovered relations might contribute to a better understanding of autism.