Knowledge-based Service for African Traditional Herbal Medicine: A Hybrid Approach

Samuel Nii Odoi Devine, Emmanuel Awuni Kolog, Erkki Sutinen, Ilari Sääksjärvi

2019

Abstract

Globally, the acceptance and use of herbal and traditional medicine is on the rise. Africa, especially Ghana, has its populace resorting to African Traditional Herbal Medicine (ATHMed) for their healthcare needs due to its potency and accessibility. However, the practice involving its preparation and administration has come into question. Even more daunting is the poor and inadequate documentation covering the preservation and retrieval of knowledge on ATHMed for long-term use, resulting in invaluable healthcare knowledge being lost. Consequently, there is the need to adopt strategies to help curtail the loss of such healthcare knowledge, for the benefit of ATHMed stakeholders in healthcare delivery, industry and academia. This paper proposes a hybrid-based computational knowledge framework for the preservation and retrieval of traditional herbal medicine. By the hybrid approach, the framework proposes the use of machine learning and ontology-based techniques. While reviewing literature to reflect the existing challenges, this paper discusses current technologies suited to approach them. This results in a framework that embodies an ontology driven knowledge-based system operating on a semantically annotated corpus that delivers a contextual search pattern, geared towards a formalized, explicit preservation and retrieval mechanism for safeguarding ATHMed knowledge.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Devine S., Kolog E., Sutinen E. and Sääksjärvi I. (2019). Knowledge-based Service for African Traditional Herbal Medicine: A Hybrid Approach. In Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2019) - Volume 3: KMIS; ISBN 978-989-758-382-7, SciTePress, pages 45-55. DOI: 10.5220/0007946400450055

in Bibtex Style

@conference{kmis19,
author={Samuel Nii Odoi Devine and Emmanuel Awuni Kolog and Erkki Sutinen and Ilari Sääksjärvi},
title={Knowledge-based Service for African Traditional Herbal Medicine: A Hybrid Approach},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2019) - Volume 3: KMIS},
year={2019},
pages={45-55},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0007946400450055},
isbn={978-989-758-382-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2019) - Volume 3: KMIS
TI - Knowledge-based Service for African Traditional Herbal Medicine: A Hybrid Approach
SN - 978-989-758-382-7
AU - Devine S.
AU - Kolog E.
AU - Sutinen E.
AU - Sääksjärvi I.
PY - 2019
SP - 45
EP - 55
DO - 10.5220/0007946400450055
PB - SciTePress