Knowledge Acquisition for Expert Systems: Experience in Leukaemia Diagnosis

Summary

EMYCIN was used to develop an expert system for the interpretation of immunological data obtained in the cell surface phenotyping of leukaemia. Access to a recognised expert, and a large quantity of data on the leukaemias, has facilitated a systematic study of knowledge acquisition and knowledge base refinement based on tape recorded commentaries made by the expert. System performance was analysed at six stages in its development, and ways in which it differed from that of the human diagnostician were identified. Among the most suggestive observations were differences in the way that “undiagnosable” patients were treated and a failure of the elicitation technique to reveal structural aspects of the task. The tools and techniques of knowledge engineering are a significant advance, but a better methodology for developing high quality knowledge bases is needed.

EMYCIN wurde benutzt, um ein Expertensystem für die Auswertung in der Zelloberflächen-typisierung bei Leukämie gewonnener immunologischer Daten zu entwickeln. Die Verfügbarkeit eines anerkannten Experten auf diesem Gebiet und einer großen Menge von Daten über Leukämien haben eine systematische Untersuchung über Wissenserfassung und Weiterentwicklung von Wissensbanken auf der Grundlage von bandgespeicherten Kommentaren des Experten erleichtert. Leistungsdaten für das System wurden auf sechs Stufen seiner Entwicklung bestimmt, und es wurde untersucht, wo die Leistung des Systems sich von derjenigen des menschlichen Diagnostikers unterschied. Unter den eindrucksvollsten Beobachtungen waren Unterschiede in der Behandlung »nicht diagnostizierbarer« Patienten und die Unfähigkeit der Analysetechnik, strukturelle Aspekte der Aufgabe aufzudecken. Die Werkzeuge der technischen Wissenserfassung stellen einen wesentlichen Fortschritt dar; aber eine bessere Methodik zur Entwicklung von Wissensbanken von hoher Qualität ist erforderlich.

Key-Words:

Diagnosis - Leukaemia - Expert Systems - Knowledge Engineering - Knowledge Acquisition

Schlüssel-Wörter:

Diagnose - Leukämie - Expertensysteme - Wissensverarbeitung - Wissenserfassung

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