A tool for pathophysiological knowledge acquisition

by Liliana Ironi, A. Cattaneo and Mario Stefanelli



in Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, S. Andreassen - R. Engelbrecht - J. Wyatt eds, IOS Press, (1993), 13-31.

ABSTRACT

The explanation power of a medical knowledge based system (MKBS) can be highly enhanced by the availability of deep pathophysiological knowledge. This kind of knowledge is well represented through mathematical models whose formulation, either quantitative or qualitative, requires both domain specific and domain independent knowledge. This paper describes QCMF (Qualitative Compartmental Modeling Framework), a tool which makes easier the acquisition, through an interactive graphical interface, of the domain knowledge and embeds the needed methodological knowledge to formulate a qualitative pathophysiological model. Such a model is directly coded in QSIM language and is simulated in order to predict the system behavior under the effects of a variety of pathogenetic mechanisms and therapeutical treatments. Moreover, different models of a pathophysiological system are stored in a library so that they can be efficiently retrieved and exploited within a MKBS.


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    Liliana Ironi June 25th, 1996