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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Temporal reasoning in medical expert systems

Thesis/Dissertation ·
OSTI ID:7067852
Diseases develop and change over time. Much of the distinction between pathophysiological complexes rests on the temporal relations of their component events. Therefore, knowledge bases that fail to capture the temporal component of the course of disease omit useful diagnostic knowledge. Expert systems that cannot reason with temporal knowledge are impaired in distinguishing between hypotheses and therefore have to explore much-larger problem-spaces than would a human or temporally sophisticated expert system. Temporally naive expert systems are also limited in the extent to which they follow human diagnostic style and provide reasonable automated explanations and diagnostic questions. The Temporal Utility Package (TUP) is a domain-independent utility that is designed for use with a wide variety of knowledge representations. TUP can represent points, intervals, qualitative and quantitative temporal relations, groups of points, common temporal yardsticks, and alternate temporal contexts. THRIPHT is a prototype expert system that demonstrates TUP's application and the role of a temporal reasoning in different phases of the diagnostic process.
Research Organization:
Boston Univ., MA (USA)
OSTI ID:
7067852
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English