We consider multilevel set-covering models for diagnostic reasoning: though a lot of work has been done in this field, knowledge acquisition efforts have been investigated only insufficiently. We will show how set-covering models can be build incrementally and how they can be refined by knowledge enhancements or representational extensions. All these extensions have a primary characteristic: th...

In sequential diagnostic reasoning, the goal is to infer the probability of a cause event from sequentially observed effects. Typically, studies investigating such tasks provide subjects with precise quantitative information regarding the strength of the relations between causes and effects. By contrast, we examined people’s performance when this information is communicated through qualitative,...

Case 1: A 77-year-old Caucasian woman with a probable diagnosis of ovarian cancer developed an acute onset of shortness of breath two days after being discharged for a workup of symptomatic ascites. Her medical history was signifi cant for hypertension and atrial fi brillation, and she was taking therapeutic doses of coumadin. She presented to the emergency department; was found to have a large...

Copyright © 2006 Massachusetts Medical Society. Clinical teachers differ from clinicians in a fundamental way. They must simultaneously foster high-quality patient care and assess the clinical skills and reasoning of learners in order to promote their progress toward independence in the clinical setting.1 Clinical teachers must diagnose both the patient’s clinical problem and the learner’s abil...

The authors have previously described an approach for medical diagnostic reasoning based on the ST (Select and Test) model introduced by Ramoni and Stefanelli et al. This paper extends the previous approach by introducing the required algorithm for medical expert system development. The algorithm involves a bottom-up and recursive process using logical inferences, abduction, deduction, and indu...

In this paper,according to the characteristics of maize disease knowledge,OWL DL language was used to build maize diseases ontology, and the reasoning rule of maize diseases was defined by using the expressive ability of SWRL rule language.The author introduced several realizable reasoning functions,and achieved the diagnostic reasoning of maize disease knowledge by Jess inference engine.The re...

Objectives: This cross sectional study aimed to investigate the relative effectiveness of a problem based learning curriculum (PBL) and a traditional curriculum (TC) in the development of medical students’ diagnostic reasoning skills. Methods: Junior and senior clinical students (n = 431) at a single clinical school of the University of Melbourne selfadministered Bordage et al.’s Diagnostic Thi...

BACKGROUND Adverse effects of medical errors have received increasing attention. Diagnostic errors account for a substantial fraction of all medical errors, and strategies for their prevention have been explored. A crucial requirement for that is better understanding of origins of medical errors. Research on medical expertise may contribute to that as far as it explains reasoning processes invo...