Classification Made Relevant

Classification Made Relevant: How Scientists Build and Use Classifications and Ontologies explains how classifications and ontologies are designed and used to analyze scientific information. The book presents the fundamentals of classification, leading up to a description of how computer scientists use object-oriented programming languages to model classifications and ontologies. Numerous examples are chosen from the Classification of Life, the Periodic Table of the Elements, and the symmetry relationships contained within the Classification Theorem of Finite Simple Groups. When these three classifications are tied together, they provide a relational hierarchy connecting all of the natural sciences. The book's chapters introduce and describe general concepts that can be understood by any intelligent reader. With each new concept, they follow practical examples selected from various scientific disciplines. In these cases, technical points and specialized vocabulary are linked to glossary items where the item is clarified and expanded. - Explains the theory and practice of classification, emphasizing the importance of classifications and ontologies to the modern fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and medicine - Includes numerous real-world examples that demonstrate how bad construction technique can destroy the value of classifications and ontologies - Explains how we define and understand the relationships among the classes within a classification and how the properties of a class are inherited by its subclasses - Describes ontologies and how they differ from classifications and explains conditions under which ontologies are useful

Jules Berman holds two Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT (in Mathematics and in Earth and Planetary Sciences), a PhD from Temple University, and an MD from the University of Miami. He was a graduate researcher at the Fels Cancer Research Institute (Temple University) and at the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, New York. He completed his postdoctoral studies at the US National Institutes of Health, and his residency at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC. Dr. Berman served as Chief of anatomic pathology, surgical pathology, and cytopathology at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, where he held joint appointments at the University of Maryland Medical Center and at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. In 1998, he transferred to the US National Institutes of Health as a Medical Officer and as the Program Director for Pathology Informatics in the Cancer Diagnosis Program at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Berman is a past President of the Association for Pathology Informatics and is the 2011 recipient of the Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a listed author of more than 200 scientific publications and has written more than a dozen books in his three areas of expertise: informatics, computer programming, and pathology. Dr. Berman is currently a freelance writer.