Page 140 - DLIS405_INFORMATION_STORAGE_AND_RETRIEVAL

Unit 13: Subject Headings

• Searching System Notes
Returns the corresponding MeSH heading
Presents the exact tree structure of the subject
Problem of Language

• It is the problem faced by inexperienced MEDLINE user while looking for appropriate MeSH
terms in order to execute a query.
• Many biomedical terms point to the single canonical MeSH term.
Example- Heart Failure, Congestive is the only MeSH
term to represent all types of cardiac failures
Solutions-Problem of Language
• Use of entry terms- used to map non MeSH terms to MeSH terms.
• Use MeSH hierarchies to traverse to the articles.

Research

NLM’s Indexing Initiative (IND)
• Human indexing is an expensive and labor-intensive activity.
• IND project involves investigating automated methods to substitute for current indexing
practices.
• More stress is being given to improve the current retrieval performance.
• New approaches like Machine Learning algorithms viz. Naïve.
Bayes, Adaptive Boosting and Support Vector Machines are being tested.

List of MeSH codes
The following is a list of the codes for MeSH. It is a product of the United States National Library of
Medicine.
Source for content is 2006 MeSH Trees.
A — Anatomy
A01 — body regions (74 articles)
A02 — musculoskeletal system (213 articles)
A03 — digestive system (98 articles)
A04 — respiratory system (46 articles)
A05 — urogenital system (87 articles)
A06 — endocrine system
A07 — cardiovascular system
A08 — nervous system
A09 — sense organs
A10 — tissues
A11 — cells
A12 — fluids and secretions

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