The development of traditional Thai foot massage knowledge-based systems using ontology technique

Abstract

This study aimed to developing a knowledge-based systems of traditional Thai foot massage by using ontology techniques and developing its application as a semantic web. Since local knowledge of traditional Thai foot massage is often presented in plain information and lacking in knowledge organization system, clear understanding of the whole perspective of treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder and knowledge transfer with traditional Thai massage can hardly be attained. To solve this issues ontology has been recommended to create the explicit of traditional Thai foot massage knowledge. An Ontology has the potential to play an important role in the traditional Thai massage instructional design and identify key classes and relationships among the classes in the domain knowledge. The result of this study is Traditional Thai Foot Massage Ontology (TTFMO), covers classes derived from traditional Thai foot massage as well as local wisdom. The TTFMO consists of 13 main classes: massage, objectives, use_method, pharmacy, discipline, material, diseases, diagnosis, patient_information_basic, actions, time_period, sequence, and demeanor. The TTFMO was accurateness evaluated by seven domain experts includes two ontology engineering specialists and five traditional Thai foot massage practitioners. Over all opinions in general strongly agreed with TTFMO regarding concept identification, relationship identification, content, accuracy, format, ease to use, timeliness, and perceived usefulness. As a TTFMO semantic web application was found to improve the efficiency of knowledge retrieval query by synonyms' information.