MeSH RDF Technical Documentation

Descriptor-Qualifier Pairs

When indexing or cataloging resources using MeSH, NLM pairs Descriptors (main headings) and Qualifiers (sub-headings). Qualifiers comprise a set of 83 terms used to add more specificity to descriptors. Each Descriptor has a set of Allowable Qualifiers. In RDF, Descriptors and Qualifiers may be treated as separate classes, but we have also chosen to create a class of Descriptor-Qualifier pairs, each with its own URI. For example, the pairing of a Descriptor (D015242, Ofloxacin) and one of its Allowable Qualifiers (Q000008, administration & dosage) has the following URI: http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D015242Q000008

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Class Information

In MeSH RDF, the subclasses of meshv:DescriptorQualifierPairs are:

• meshv:AllowedDescriptorQualifierPair
• meshv:DisallowedDescriptorQualifierPair

RDF Graph Diagram

The following RDF graph diagram shows how descriptor-qualifier pairs are modeled. Note that the pairing (D015242Q000008, Ofloxacin/administration & dosage) is an instance of the class, meshv:AllowedDescriptorQualifierPair. Relationships between the descriptor-qualifier pair and its respective descriptor and qualifier are explicitly defined.

meshv:DescriptorQualifierPairs - Relations and Properties

This table includes all the sub-classes of the meshv:DescriptorQualifierPairs class as either the subject or object of an RDF triple.

SPARQL

The following SPARQL query will produce the the data shown in the RDF graph diagram above.

PREFIX rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>
PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
PREFIX mesh: <http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/>
PREFIX meshv: <http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/vocab#>

construct {
    ?dqpair meshv:hasDescriptor mesh:D015242 .
    ?dqpair meshv:hasQualifier mesh:Q000008 .
    mesh:D015242 meshv:allowableQualifier mesh:Q000008 .
    ?dqpair rdf:type ?dqclass .
    ?dqclass rdfs:subClassOf ?superclass .
}
from <http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh>
from <http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/vocab>
where {
    ?dqpair meshv:hasDescriptor mesh:D015242 .
    ?dqpair meshv:hasQualifier mesh:Q000008 .
    mesh:D015242 meshv:allowableQualifier mesh:Q000008 .
    ?dqpair rdf:type ?dqclass .
    ?dqclass rdfs:subClassOf ?superclass .
}

The following shows how EntryCombinations (see the MeSH documentation) are modeled.

RDF Graph Diagram

Depicted in this graph:

SPARQL

The following SPARQL query produces the RDF corresponding to the above graph:

PREFIX rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>
PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
PREFIX mesh: <http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/>
PREFIX meshv: <http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/vocab#>

CONSTRUCT {
  ?ecin ?p ?o .
  ?ecin rdf:type ?eclass .
  ?eclass rdfs:subClassOf $superclass .
}
from <http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh>
from <http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/vocab>
where {
  ?ecin meshv:hasDescriptor mesh:D000005 .
  ?ecin meshv:hasQualifier ?ecinq .
  ?ecin meshv:useInstead ?ecout .
  ?ecin ?p ?o .
  ?ecin rdf:type ?eclass .
  ?eclass rdfs:subClassOf $superclass .
}