Here's a little discussion about some of the issues in computer-aided diagnosis: Historical attempts at decision support include Mycin for diagnosing infectiou

Here's a little discussion about some of the issues in computer-aided diagnosis: Historical attempts at decision support include Mycin for diagnosing infectious blood diseases, which contained assertions and rules in the form if IF-THEN clauses: IF the site of the culture is blood, AND the organism gram +, AND the original infectious site was the GI tract, AND the abdomen is the locus of infection, OR the pelvis is the locus of infection THEN therapy should cover Enterobacteriaceae Rules structured in this manner are brittle, and don’t use unification. Such a system, for example, would not robustly provide answers to queries for all flora that would be likely found in a pelvic infection. The narrow domains and lack of some of what we might call “common sense” knowledge can be problematic: H.R. Ekbia [1] humorously notes that querying a medical inference engine for suggestions on what could be causing the reddish-brown spots on the chassis and body of your Jeep, you’d get “measles”. Another medical support program, asked to suggest treatment for bacterial infection in the kidney, suggested boiling the kidney in hot water. http://apps.keithflower.org/?p=238 http://apps.keithflower.org/?p=238