Knowledge Organization and Distribution for Medical Diagnosis

A diagnostician, when he arrives at a diagnosis or diagnoses, has invoked some concepts. They can be diseases, causes of them, or other notions that are relevant to the diagnosis. These concepts form a hierarchical structure similar to a botanical or zoological classification. The diagnostician's knowledge is distributed through this hierarchy. The concepts in the hierarchy provide the criteria to organize under them small pieces of knowledge represented in the form of production rules. Thus concepts may be viewed as clusters of production rules. They extend the capabilities of production rules to more complex problem solving situations. The rules under each concept are further organized into three subgroups: exclusionary, confirmatory, and recommendation rules. During the problem solving process, the concepts are taken as specialists. They interact and communicate among themselves by means of a blackboard.