SWAN - Semantic Web Applications in Neuromedicine [1]

In the last months, Marco and I have been coding for the SWAN project for Mass General Hospital (Neurology Dept) and Harvard Medical School. The SWAN project is the reason I moved to Boston to work. It is not easy to explain in a few words what SWAN (that stands for Semantic Web Applications in Neuromedicine) does (or it is supposed to do). I could say that 'we are using Semantic Web technologies with the idea of helping the researchers' life' but I understand that this is not really useful.

I'll try to explain it better with an example. When I was a student, I used to create summaries of the lessons integrating my notes with what I was finding in some books. I was using obviously (I am not that young anymore) paper sheets, colors, drawings... and so on. I had my formalism for stressing a definition, a theorem a short summary and whatsoever. It was efficient, I could easily remember the things (I have visual memory) and it was faster than going through the book again and again. This was perfect for a single lesson. But what was happening with an entire year of lectures? With different topics somehow connected each others? Well, I tried to update the things but it was hard and everything was getting terribly messy. At that time, the word processors were really poor and crispy. Now we can think of organizing the things in some electronic documents... better we can use a wiki where several students can cooperate to build faster with less effort. Everybody knows wikipedia right? Nice, we have wiki tools, we can decide our formalism, the meaning of the colors... this works if we have "one truth". Let's say I want to create in Wikipedia a page about a politician and I really dislike him/her (something that occurs often to me). I would probably be aggressive and biased. Somebody else could have a different perspective on the same person... this needs a mediation and rules to follow.

Now, the same perspective can be true in science. When we have hypothesis these are still not confirmed facts. Scientists need to prove them and it is normal to have disagreement. Disagreement is part of the scientific process (and as we are not in the Middle Ages we don't risk our life saying something 'different'... I guess). In science disagreement can be a real value.

SWAN is not Wikipedia, it is in some perspective the opposite of it. In SWAN, several 'truths' or better 'hypotheses' (consistent or not) can exist at the same time... inconsistencies can be both declared and inferred (nice uh?). In SWAN we can build the map of science (well, a part of it)... (TO BE CONTINUED)