Literature-based discovery on the World Wide Web

Abstract

Previous research has shown that researchers can generate medical hypotheses by using computers to analyze several, seemingly unrelated, medical literatures. In this work we suggest broader application for the ideas of literature-based discovery. Specifically, we suggest that literature-based discovery can be fruitful in areas other than medicine; that in addition to finding "cures" for "problems," literature-based discovery offers the possibility of finding new problems for existing technologies; that the analysis of a single literature may be sufficient for literature-based discovery; and that literature-based discovery can support individuals seeking to draw together ideas from various areas of inquiry, even if such connections have been previously made by others.We describe literature-based discovery experiments conducted on the World Wide Web that support these ideas.