News and Events

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contact:
Barry Clapp
(508) 561-5040
bclapp@semantxls.com

Children's Hospital's Research Center Uses
SemanTx Life Sciences Search Software to Win
"Innovations in Technology Award"

BOSTON - March 1, 2005 - SemanTx Life Sciences, a provider of next-generation search technology to the health care and life sciences industries, today announced that its client, the Center on Media and Child Health (CMCH), has been named the recipient of the 2005 "Innovations in Technology" award by the Special Libraries Association (SLA), recognizing innovative use and applications of technology in a special library setting.

The CMCH - a joint initiative of Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard School of Public Health - earned the award for its distinctive use of SemanTx software to simplify its research activities. CMCH will receive its award during the 96th Annual SLA Conference in Toronto, June 5, 2005.

"This year's 'Innovations in Technology' award recognizes the Center on Media and Child Health's success in elevating search from technology function to strategic initiative," said SLA President Ethel Salonen. "Effective use of search technology is a hot-button issue for our members, and the need to simplify information management efforts is extremely critical in health care and life sciences."

"The Center on Media and Child Health exemplifies the vital role SemanTx Life Sciences's search solutions play in the productive management and use of information in the health care and life sciences industry," said David Roache, SemanTx's chief executive officer. "CMCH has streamlined the research efforts of a multi-disciplinary group of scientists; opened access to critical information for parents, teachers, and lawmakers; and, ultimately, advanced its mission to promote the physical and mental health of children. Winning the 'Innovations in Technology' award is well-deserved recognition of CMCH's important achievements."

STREAMLINED, STRAIGHTFORWARD HEALTH CARE RESEARCH

CMCH's mission is to analyze the correlation between media and children's health through a public health lens, using rigorous scientific research. The organization pursues its mission not only through the original research of its staff scientists, but also through maintenance of a research database that covers all relevant disciplines - medicine, psychology, public health, education, gender studies, communication, sociology, anthropology, and criminal justice. Maintaining such a comprehensive research database is a complex challenge. What's more, the CMCH database must support multi-disciplinary research and provide search access to non-scientific users - significant additions to CMCH's existing list of challenges.

In response, CMCH built a solution using SemanTx's Semantic Knowledge Indexing Platform (SKIP). Instead of relying on typical keyword matching used by most search engines, SKIP searches based on ideas and concepts. To accomplish this, the system uses ontologies - thesaurus-like databases of biological and medical terms containing not only definitions of concepts, but also a structure of relationships among them. Searches based on underlying medical concepts - as opposed to precise keywords - return a richer, better-focused set of results for review.

"I immediately saw how I could apply SemanTx technology to eliminate the confusion around keywords and subject headings," says Ms. King.

Using SemanTx software, CMCH has resolved discipline-specific terminology conflicts and simplified its research process by enabling users to search for a complete idea, not simply for a keyword, using full sentences in natural language, in the vocabulary of their discipline. This gives researchers a full grasp of existing efforts across multiple scientific disciplines. Researchers can then apply the methods and perspectives of their own disciplines, without the risk of costly duplication of research efforts.

Additionally, this same technology opens the research database for use by new constituencies. "The many parents, policymakers, and teachers we are trying to reach can now enter their questions in even the simplest terms and receive quality results - without prior training in advanced search techniques," says Ms. King. For instance, a parent could ask, "What impact do video games have on my seven year-old boy who has ADD?" and receive complete, relevant results.

"The collaboration of information technology and library science has resulted in an innovative tool that can enhance interdisciplinary thought and provide easily accessible, quality information to those studying this important public health issue," says Ms. King. "SemanTx plays a key role in helping us successfully achieve our number-one priority - to understand the effects of media on children's health."

About the Center on Media and Child Health

About SemanTx Life Sciences

Headquartered in Waltham, Mass., SemanTx Life Sciences raises the quality and productivity of research and translational medicine across the health care and life-sciences industry. The company builds the Semantic Knowledge Indexing Platform (SKIP), an ontology-based knowledge-indexing engine that searches information with better precision and recall than keyword search engines, and reduces the burden of information maintenance. SemanTx Life Sciences holds numerous patents on knowledge assembly and retrieval. SemanTx Life Sciences is a wholly owned division of Jarg Corporation, based in Waltham Mass. Jarg was founded to provide a new approach to knowledge management and retrieval, across all industries. For more information, visit the SemanTx Web site at www.semantxls.com.