Novel Architecture for supporting medical decision making of different data types based on Fuzzy Cognitive Map Framework

Medical problems involve different types of variables and data, which have to be processed, analyzed and synthesized in order to reach a decision and/or conclude to a diagnosis. Usually, information and data set are both symbolic and numeric but most of the well-known data analysis methods deal with only one kind of data. Even when fuzzy approaches are considered, which are not depended on the scales of variables, usually only numeric data is considered. The medical decision support methods usually are accessed in only one type of available data. Thus, sophisticated methods have been proposed such as integrated hybrid learning approaches to process symbolic and numeric data for the decision support tasks. Fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) is an efficient modelling method, which is based on human knowledge and experience and it can handle with uncertainty and it is constructed by extracted knowledge in the form of fuzzy rules. The FCM model can be enhanced if a fuzzy rule base (IF-THEN rules) is available. This rule base could be derived by a number of machine learning and knowledge extraction methods. Here it is introduced a hybrid attempt to handle situations with different types of available medical and /or clinical data and with difficulty to handle them for decision support tasks using soft computing techniques.