Effective diagnosis of heart disease through neural networks ensembles

In the last decades, several tools and various methodologies have been proposed by the researchers for developing effective medical decision support systems. Moreover, new methodologies and new tools are continued to develop and represent day by day. Diagnosing of the heart disease is one of the important issue and many researchers investigated to develop intelligent medical decision support systems to improve the ability of the physicians. In this paper, we introduce a methodology which uses SAS base software 9.1.3 for diagnosing of the heart disease. A neural networks ensemble method is in the centre of the proposed system. This ensemble based methods creates new models by combining the posterior probabilities or the predicted values from multiple predecessor models. So, more effective models can be created. We performed experiments with the proposed tool. We obtained 89.01% classification accuracy from the experiments made on the data taken from Cleveland heart disease database. We also obtained 80.95% and 95.91% sensitivity and specificity values, respectively, in heart disease diagnosis.     

A hybrid approach to medical decision support systems: combining feature selection, fuzzy weighted pre-processing and AIRS

This paper presents a hybrid approach based on feature selection, fuzzy weighted pre-processing and artificial immune recognition system (AIRS) to medical decision support systems. We have used the heart disease and hepatitis disease datasets taken from UCI machine learning database as medical dataset. Artificial immune recognition system has shown an effective performance on several problems such as machine learning benchmark problems and medical classification problems like breast cancer, diabetes, and liver disorders classification. The proposed approach consists of three stages. In the first stage, the dimensions of heart disease and hepatitis disease datasets are reduced to 9 from 13 and 19 in the feature selection (FS) sub-program by means of C4.5 decision tree algorithm (CBA program), respectively. In the second stage, heart disease and hepatitis disease datasets are normalized in the range of [0,1] and are weighted via fuzzy weighted pre-processing. In the third stage, weighted input values obtained from fuzzy weighted pre-processing are classified using AIRS classifier system. The obtained classification accuracies of our system are 92.59% and 81.82% using 50-50% training-test split for heart disease and hepatitis disease datasets, respectively. With these results, the proposed method can be used in medical decision support systems.     

Complementary case-based reasoning and competitive fuzzy cognitive maps for advanced medical decisions

This paper presents a new hybrid modeling methodology suitable for complex decision making processes. It extends previous work on competitive fuzzy cognitive maps for medical decision support systems by complementing them with case based reasoning methods. The synergy of these methodologies is accomplished by a new proposed algorithm that leads to more dependable advanced medical decision support systems that are suitable to handle situations where the decisions are not clearly distinct. The methodology developed here is applied successfully to model and test two decision support systems, one a differential diagnosis problem from the speech pathology area for the diagnosis of language impairments and the other for decision making choices in external beam radiation therapy.     

A framework for systems analysis for decision support systems

Comprehensive and elaborate systems analysis techniques have been developed in the past of routine and operational information systems. Developing support systems for organizational decision-making requires new tools and methodologies. We present a new framework for data collection and decision analysis which is useful for developing decision support systems. This task analysis methodology encompasses (1) event analysis, (2) participant analysis, and (3) decision content analysis. With a proper coding manual, it provides a framework for collecting relevant and detailed information required for decision support design and implementation. Further research is suggested for application and evaluation of the methodology in real-life DSS environments.     

Evaluation of decision support systems in medicine

Evaluation deals with the measurement or judgement of system characteristics and with comparison of these with the frame of reference. Evaluation of medical decision support systems is important because these systems are planned to support human decision making in tasks where information from different sources is combined to support clinicians' decisions concerning diagnosis, therapy planning and monitoring of the disease and treatment processes. As the field of decision support systems is still relatively unexplored, standards or generally accepted methodologies are not yet available for evaluation. Evaluation of medical decision support systems should be approached from the perspectives of knowledge acquisition, system development life-cycle and user-system integrated environment.     

Explanation and Argumentation Capabilities:Towards the Creation of More Persuasive Agents

During the past two decades many research teamshave worked on the enhancement of theexplanation capabilities of knowledge-basedsystems and decision support systems. Duringthe same period, other researchers have workedon the development of argumentative techniquesfor software systems. We think that it would beinteresting for the researchers belonging tothese different communities to share theirexperiences and to develop systems that takeadvantage of the advances gained in eachdomain.We start by reviewing the evolution ofexplanation systems from the simple reasoningtraces associated with early expert systems torecent research on interactive andcollaborative explanations. We then discuss thecharacteristics of critiquing systems that testthe credibility of the user's solution. Therest of the paper deals with the differentapplication domains that use argumentativetechniques. First, we discuss how argumentativereasoning can be captured by a generalstructure in which a given claim or conclusionis inferred from a set of data and how thisargument structure relates to pragmaticknowledge, explanation production and practicalreasoning. We discuss the role of argument indefeasible reasoning and present some works inthe new field of computer-mediated defeasibleargumentation. We review different applicationdomains such as computer-mediatedcommunication, design rationale, crisismanagement and knowledge management, in whichargumentation support tools are used. Wedescribe models in which arguments areassociated to mental attitudes such as goals,plans and beliefs. We present recent advancesin the application of argumentative techniquesto multi-agent systems. Finally, we proposeresearch perspectives for the integration ofexplanation and argumentation capabilities inknowledge-based systems and make suggestionsfor enhancing the argumentation and persuasioncapabilities of software agents.     

A multilayer perceptron-based medical decision support system for heart disease diagnosis

The medical diagnosis by nature is a complex and fuzzy cognitive process, and soft computing methods, such as neural networks, have shown great potential to be applied in the development of medical decision support systems (MDSS). In this paper, a multiplayer perceptron-based decision support system is developed to support the diagnosis of heart diseases. The input layer of the system includes 40 input variables, categorized into four groups and then encoded using the proposed coding schemes. The number of nodes in the hidden layer is determined through a cascade learning process. Each of the 5 nodes in the output layer corresponds to one heart disease of interest. In the system, the missing data of a patient are handled using the substituting mean method. Furthermore, an improved back propagation algorithm is used to train the system. A total of 352 medical records collected from the patients suffering from five heart diseases have been used to train and test the system. In particular, three assessment methods, cross validation, holdout and bootstrapping, are applied to assess the generalization of the system. The results show that the proposed MLP-based decision support system can achieve very high diagnosis accuracy (>90%) and comparably small intervals (<5%), proving its usefulness in support of clinic decision process of heart diseases.     

Vector space model adaptation and pseudo relevance feedback for content-based image retrieval

Image retrieval is an important problem for researchers in computer vision and content-based image retrieval (CBIR) fields. Over the last decades, many image retrieval systems were based on image representation as a set of extracted low-level features such as color, texture and shape. Then, systems calculate similarity metrics between features in order to find similar images to a query image. The disadvantage of this approach is that images visually and semantically different may be similar in the low level feature space. So, it is necessary to develop tools to optimize retrieval of information. Integration of vector space models is one solution to improve the performance of image retrieval. In this paper, we present an efficient and effective retrieval framework which includes a vectorization technique combined with a pseudo relevance model. The idea is to transform any similarity matching model (between images) to a vector space model providing a score. A study on several methodologies to obtain the vectorization is presented. Some experiments have been undertaken on Wang, Oxford5k and Inria Holidays datasets to show the performance of our proposed framework.     

A Multicriteria Weighted Vote‐Based Classifier Ensemble for Heart Disease Prediction

The availability of a large amount of medical data leads to the need of intelligent disease prediction and analysis tools to extract hidden information. A large number of data mining and statistical analysis tools are used for disease prediction. Single data‐mining techniques show acceptable level of accuracy for heart disease diagnosis. This article focuses on prediction and analysis of heart disease using weighted vote‐based classifier ensemble technique. The proposed ensemble model overcomes the limitations of conventional data‐mining techniques by employing the ensemble of five heterogeneous classifiers: naive Bayes, decision tree based on Gini index, decision tree based on information gain, instance‐based learner, and support vector machines. We have used five benchmark heart disease data sets taken from UCI repository. Each data set contains different set of feature space that ultimately leads to the prediction of heart disease. The effectiveness of proposed ensemble classifier is investigated by comparing the performance with different researchers' techniques. Tenfold cross‐validation is used to handle the class imbalance problem. Moreover, confusion matrices and analysis of variance statistics are used to show the prediction results of all classifiers. The experimental results verify that the proposed ensemble classifier can deal with all types of attributes and it has achieved the high diagnosis accuracy of 87.37%, sensitivity of 93.75%, specificity of 92.86%, and F‐measure of 82.17%. The F‐ratio higher than the F‐critical and p‐value less than 0.01 for a 95% confidence interval indicate that the results are statistically significant for all the data sets.     

Two controlled experiments on model-based architectural decision making

ContextIn recent years, architectural design decisions are becoming more and more common for documenting software architectures. Rather than describing the structure of software systems, architectural decisions capture the design rationale and – often reusable – architectural knowledge. Many approaches and tools have been proposed in the literature to support architectural decision making and documentation (for instance, based on models, ontologies, or templates). In this context, the capturing, organization, and effective reuse of architectural knowledge has gained a lot of attention.ObjectiveHowever, there is little empirical evidence about the supportive effect of reusable architectural knowledge on the effectiveness and efficiency of architectural decision making.MethodTo investigate these aspects, we conducted two separate controlled experiments with software architecture students in which we tested the supportive effect of reusable decision models in decision making and documentation.ResultsOur results show that the use of reusable decision models can significantly increase both the efficiency and the effectiveness of novice architects.ConclusionWe can report, that our findings are in line with similar studies and support the claims regarding reusable architectural design decisions in principle.     

A fuzzy classification model for myocardial infarction risk assessment

The use of data mining approaches for analyzing patients trace in different medical databases has become an important research field especially with the evolution of these methods and their contributions in medical decision support. In this paper, we develop a new clinical decision support system (CDSS) to diagnose Coronary Artery Diseases (CAD). According to CAD experts, Angiography is most accurate CAD diagnosis technique. However, it has many aftereffects and is very costly. Existing studies showed that CAD diagnosis requires heterogeneous patients traces from medical history while applying data mining techniques to achieve high accuracy. In this paper, an automatic approach to design CDSS for CAD assessment is proposed. The proposed diagnosis model is based on Random Forest algorithm, C5.0 decision tree algorithm and Fuzzy modeling. It consists of two stages: first, Random Forest algorithm is used to rank the features and a C5.0 decision tree based approach for crisp rule generation is developed. Then, we created the fuzzy inference system. The generation of fuzzy weighted rules is carried out automatically from the previous crisp rules. Moreover, a critical issue about the CDSS is that some values of the features are missing in most cases. A new method to deal with the problem of missing data, which allows evaluating the similarity despite the missing information, was proposed. Finally, experimental results underscore very promising classification accuracy of 90.50% while optimizing training time using UCI (the University of California at Irvine) heart diseases datasets compared to the previously reported results.     

A multi-scale framework for strategic management of diffuse pollution

A multi-scale framework for decision support is presented that uses a combination of experiments, models, communication, education and decision support tools to arrive at a realistic strategy to minimise diffuse pollution. Effective partnerships between researchers and stakeholders play a key part in successful implementation of this strategy. The Decision Support Matrix (DSM) is introduced as a set of visualisations that can be used at all scales, both to inform decision making and as a communication tool in stakeholder workshops. A demonstration farm is presented and one of its fields is taken as a case study. Hydrological and nutrient flow path models are used for event based simulation (TOPCAT), catchment scale modelling (INCA) and field scale flow visualisation (TopManage). One of the DSMs; The Phosphorus Export Risk Matrix (PERM) is discussed in detail. The PERM was developed iteratively as a point of discussion in stakeholder workshops, as a decision support and education tool. The resulting interactive PERM contains a set of questions and proposed remediation measures that reflect both expert and local knowledge. Education and visualisation tools such as GIS, risk indicators, TopManage and the PERM are found to be invaluable in communicating improved farming practice to stakeholders.     

Beyond spreadsheets: tools for building decision support systems

The complexity and long development time inherent in building decision support systems has thus far prevented their wide use. A new class of tools, DSS generators, seeks to cut the lead time between development and deployment. DSS generators provide tools that make it easier and faster to develop models, data, and user interfaces that are customized to the application's requirements. Using a DSS generator reduces DSS development to a decision analysis task-which requires expertise in decision analysis and mathematical modeling-rather than a programming task. DSS generators are crucial to the success of DSSs in practice. We describe the state of the art in DSS generator software, specifically in the realm of decision analysis methods. Decision analysis techniques account for the uncertain, dynamic, and multicriteria aspects of decisions. Essentially, they aid the evaluation of alternatives in the face of trade-offs. Well known decision analysis methods include decision trees and influence diagrams. We briefly describe the features of 11 commercially available DSS generators that specialize in decision analysis. Although not a comprehensive, complete analysis of these tools, the article clarifies the idea of DSS generators as DSS development environments and presents an overview of the progress in this area     

Recent development of knowledge-based systems,methods and tools for One-of-a-Kind Production

In recent years, product knowledge has played increasingly significant roles in new product development process especially in the development of One-of-a-Kind products. Although knowledge-based systems (KBSs) have been proposed to support product development activities and new knowledge modelling methodologies have been developed, they are still far from complete. This area has become attractive to many researchers and as a result, many new knowledge-based systems, methods and tools have been developed. However, to the best of our knowledge, knowledge-based systems for product development have not been systematically reviewed, compared and summarized. This paper provides a comprehensive review on the recent development of KBS, methods and tools in supporting rapid product development. In the paper, the relevant technologies for modelling, managing and representing knowledge are investigated and reviewed systematically for better understanding their characteristics. The focus is placed on knowledge-based systems that support product development, and how product knowledge is identified, captured, represented and reused during the processes of One-of-a-Kind product development. The limitations and the future trend of KBS are presented in terms of how they can help One-of-a-Kind Production (OKP) companies.     

Discovering relevance knowledge in data: a growing cell structuresapproach

Both information retrieval and case-based reasoning systems rely on effective and efficient selection of relevant data. Typically, relevance in such systems is approximated by similarity or indexing models. However, the definition of what makes data items similar or how they should be indexed is often nontrivial and time-consuming. Based on growing cell structure artificial neural networks, this paper presents a method that automatically constructs a case retrieval model from existing data. Within the case-based reasoning (CBR) framework, the method is evaluated for two medical prognosis tasks, namely, colorectal cancer survival and coronary heart disease risk prognosis. The results of the experiments suggest that the proposed method is effective and robust. To gain a deeper insight and understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the proposed model, a detailed empirical analysis of the models structural and behavioral properties is also provided.     

Popular News Are Relevant News! How Investor Attention Affects Algorithmic Decision-Making and Decision Support in Financial Markets

Algorithmic decision-making plays an important role in financial markets. Current tools in trading focus on popular companies which are discussed in thousands of news items. However, it remains unclear whether methodologies from the field of data analytics relying on large samples can also be applied to small datasets of less popular companies or whether these methodologies lead to the discovery of meaningless patterns resulting in economic losses. We analyze whether the impact of media sentiment on financial markets is influenced by two levels of investor attention and whether this impacts algorithmic decision-making. We find that the influence differs substantially between news and companies with high and low investor attention. We apply a trading simulation to outline the practical consequences of these interrelations for decision support systems. Our results are of high importance for financial market participants, especially for algorithmic traders that consider sentiment for investment decision support.

     

Intelligent heart disease prediction in cloud environment through ensembling

Cloud computing is the delivery of on‐demand computing resources. Cloud computing has numerous applications in fields of education, social networking, and medicine. But the benefit of cloud for medical purposes is seamless, particularly because of the enormous data generated by the health care industry. This colossal data can be managed through big data analytics, and hidden patterns can be extracted using machine learning procedures. In particular, the latest issue in the medical domain is the prediction of heart diseases, which can be resolved through culmination of machine learning and cloud computing. Hence, an attempt has been made to propose an intelligent decision support model that can aid medical experts in predicting heart disease based on the historical data of patients. Various machine learning algorithms have been implemented on the heart disease dataset to predict accuracy for heart disease. Naïve Bayes has been selected as an effective model because it provides the highest accuracy of 86.42% followed by AdaBoost and boosted tree. Further, these 3 models are being ensembled, which has increased the overall accuracy to 87.91%. The experimental results have also been evaluated using 10,082 instances that clearly validate the maximum accuracy through ensembling and minimum execution time in cloud environment.     

A new approach to water quality modelling and environmental decision support systems

The concepts and technology of environmental decision support systems (EDSS) have developed considerably over recent decades, although core concepts such as flexibility and adaptability within a changing decision environment remain paramount. Much recent EDSS theory has focussed on model integration and re-use in decision support system (DSS) tools and for design and construction of ‘DSS generators’. Many current specific DSS have architectures, tools, models and operational characteristics that are either fixed or difficult to change in the face of changing management needs. This paper reports on development and deployment of an EDSS that encompasses a new approach to DSS tools, generators and specific DSS applications. The system, named E2, is built upon a conceptualisation of terrestrial and aquatic environmental systems that has resulted in a robust and flexible system architecture. The architecture provides a set of base classes to represent fundamental concepts, and which can be instantiated and combined to form DSS generators of varying complexity. A DSS generator is described within which system users are able to select and link models, data, analysis tools and reporting tools to create specific DSS for particular problems, and for which new models and tools can be created and, through software reflection (introspection), discovered to provide expanded capability where required. This system offers a new approach within which environmental systems can be described in the form of specific DSS at a scale and level of complexity suited to the problems and needs of decision makers.     

Decision support and control for large-scale complex systems

The technical and social systems of the present day are ever more large, complex and complicated objects. Their models are characterized by numerous state and control variables, time delays, and different time constants. Also they show constraints in their information infrastructure and risk sensitivity aspects. Such systems are called large-scale complex systems (LSS). Hierarchical approach which has been for several decades one of the most utilized methodologies for controlling large-scale systems has evolved in recent years toward more collaborative schemes. When human intervention is necessary, decision support systems (DSS) can represent a solution. A DSS is an adaptive and evolving information system meant to implement several of the functions of a human support team that would otherwise be needed to help the decision-maker to overcome his/her limits and constraints he/she may face when approaching decision problems that count in the organization. This paper aims at reviewing several aspects concerning the utilization and technology of DSS in the context of LSS control. Particular emphasis is put on real-time DSS and multi-participant (group) DSS which support collaborative work. Several advanced solutions such as mixed knowledge systems, that combine numerical methods with AI-based tools, and the prospects of using Ambient intelligence (AmI) concepts in DSS construction are described.     

Fuzzy logic-based decision support system for automating ergonomics risk assessments

Workers in the modular construction industry are frequently exposed to ergonomic risks, which may lead to injuries and lower productivity. In light of this, researchers have proposed a number of ergonomics risk assessment methods to identify design flaws in work systems, thereby reducing ergonomic discomfort and boosting workplace productivity. However, organizations often disregard ergonomics risk assessments due to a lack of convenient tools and knowledge. Therefore, this study proposes a fuzzy logic-based decision support system to help practitioners to automatically and comprehensively assess the ergonomic performance of work systems. For comprehensive assessment of ergonomic risk, the proposed decision support system considers physical, environmental, and sensory factors. Specifically, the decision support system comprises eight fuzzy expert systems that output a composite risk score, called an “ergonomic risk indicator”, that indicates the overall level of ergonomic risk present in a given work system. The performance of the proposed decision support system is then evaluated using a real-world case study in a modular construction facility by comparing the results of the decision support system with the facility's occupational injury reports. The results prove the effectiveness of the decision support system. Overall, the decision support system is capable of generating a composite risk score, the ergonomic risk indicator, and the proposed high-level architecture and design represent significant contributions for the enhancement of health and safety in the modular construction industry.