uc_Milk: An Ontology for Scientifically-based Unambiguous Characterization of Mammalian Milk, their Composition and the Biological Processes Giving Rise to their Creation

Recent efforts in biological ontology go to great lengths to unambiguously categorize biological entities and phenomena of the natural world, as well as their relationships with each other. This paper illustrates the importance of unambiguously characterizing mammalian milk because milk is a complex mixture of many chemical components and thus represents a key role in infant nourishment and development. In addition to the build of a computable knowledge base around mammalian milk, ontological modeling of this aspect of biology and chemistry enable increased understanding of mammalian milk composition and the biological structures and biochemical processes giving rise to their creation. Utilizing unambiguous vocabularies to compare human milk with other mammalian milks relative to the biological and behavioral survival challenges facing varied mammalian organisms and the phenotypic qualities each milk confers, is a fundamental goal