Medical data integration - an algebraic approach

It would be difficult to find a knowledge domain in which data integration is as important as in medicine, being interested in human health and life. Firstly, medical data integration enables acquiring all the information, stored anywhere, about a patient who needs an urgent medical intervention. Secondly, thanks to the integration, we can obtain an aggregate data comprising all known, similar medical cases. In fact, the aggregate data is a source of medical knowledge and a base for formulating conclusions about hypothetical diagnoses, and methods of treating the disorder diagnosed. In the paper, it is shown that a uniform, theoretical approach for the both kinds of data integration: horizontal and vertical, respectively, is possible. It is an algebraic approach, joined together with the use of taxonomy of medical and related concepts. Having the algebra of the concepts, we can as well check the permissibility of data integrating (by means of the subsumption relation, defined on the set of all concepts), as describe the semantics of this process (by means of the usual algebraic operations of sum and intersection).