Recognized as an essential component of Chinese culture, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is both an ancient medical system and one still used widely in China today. TCM's independently evolved knowledge system is expressed mainly in the Chinese language and the information is frequently only available through ancient classics and confidential family records, making it difficult to utilize. The major concern in TCM is how to consolidate and integrate the data, enabling efficient retrieval and discovery of novel knowledge from the dispersed data. Computational approaches such as data mining, semantic reasoning and computational intelligence have emerged as innovative approaches for the reservation and utilization of this knowledge system. Typically, this requires an inter-disciplinary approach involving Chinese culture, computer science, modern healthcare and life sciences. This book examines the computerization of TCM information and knowledge to provide intelligent resources and supporting evidences for clinical decision-making, drug discovery, and education. Recent research results from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Informatics Group of Zhejiang University are presented, gathering in one resource systematic approaches for massive data processing in TCM. These include the utilization of modern Semantic Web and data mining methods for more advanced data integration, data analysis and integrative knowledge discovery. This book will appeal to medical professionals, life sciences students, computer scientists, and those interested in integrative, complementary, and alternative medicine. - Interdisciplinary book bringing together Traditional Chinese Medicine and computer scientists - Introduces novel network technologies to Traditional Chinese Medicine informatics - Provides theory and practical examples and case studies of new techniques

Annotation Papers from a June 2002 symposium address recent advances in intelligent medical systems, medical systems, data management, data mining, signal processing, software systems and agents, multimedia and visualization, knowledge representation, image processing, Web-based systems and frameworks, and management of image databases. Specific topics include efficiency enhancement of rule-based expert systems, protecting medical data for analyses, mining a diabetes database with decision trees and association rules, and testing medical software. Other subjects are structured speech input for clinical data collection, 3D reconstruction of abdominal aortic aneurysms, and data mining problems in medicine. There is no subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Also available online as part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library under the title Complete dictionary of scientific biography.