Assignment 2

12th Nov, 2014

Artificial Intelligence

Saurabh Verma
B.Tech (C.S.E.)-7th Sem.
75112024

MYCIN
MYCIN is the name of a decision support system developed by Stanford University in the early- to midseventies, built to assist physicians in the diagnosis of infectious diseases. The system (also known as an"
expert system") would ask a series of questions designed to emulate the thinking of an expert in the field
of infectious disease (hence the "expert-"), and from the responses to these questions give a list of
possible diagnoses, with probability, as well as recommend treatment (hence the "decision support-").
The name "MYCIN" actually comes from antibiotics, many of which have the suffix "-mycin".
MYCIN has three sub-systems:

Consultation system
Explanation System
Rule Acquisition system

1. Mycins Consultation System

- works out possible organisms and suggests treatments
Rule base

Rules stored as premise -action pairs

Premises are conjunctions and disjunctions of conditions
Conditions normally evaluate to True or False, with some certainty factor on the evidence.
Rules also have certainty factors. Combined to form new certainty factors
Certainty factor - degree of belief attached to information
Actions are either conclusions (e.g. microbe is type X) or instruction (e.g. remove drug from
list of possible value)

Static and dynamic data structures

Static data structures: These store medical knowledge not suitable for storage as inferential
rules: includes lists of organisms, knowledge tables with features of bacteria types, list of
parameters
Parameters = features of patients, bacterial cultures, drugs
Parameters can be Y/N (e.g. FEBRILE), single value (e.g. IDENTITY - if its salmonella it cant
be another organism as well) or multi-value (e.g. INFECT - patient can have more than one
infection) Parameter properties include:
EXPECT range of possible values
PROMPT English sentence to elicit response
LABDATA can be known for certain from Lab data
LOOKAHEAD lists rules mentioning the parameter in their premise (e.g. a rule might need to

know whether or not a patient is febrile)

UPDATED-BY lists rules mentioning the parameter in their action (i.e. they may draw a
conclusion about the value of the parameter, such as the IDENTITY parameter)
Dynamic data structures store information about the evolving case - the patient details, possible
diagnoses, rules consulted:
Control structure: MYCIN first attempts to create patient context" containing information
about the case, then tries to compile a list of therapies for the context. It uses a backward chaining
mechanism, reasoning back from the goals it want to prove to the data it has, rather than vice
versa. The overall goal is "compile a list of therapies. Questions can be prompted by the
invocation of rules, to find out necessary data, to avoid unnecessary questions.
2. The Explanation System
MYCIN can answer questions about HOW a conclusion was reached and WHY a question was
asked, either after a consultation or while it is going on. It does this by manipulating its record of
the rules it invoked, the goal it was trying to achieve, the information it was trying to discover.
Can also answer general questions (e.g. what would you prescribe for organism X?) by consulting
its static data structures.
3. The Rule Acquisition System
Experts can enter new rules or edit existing rules. The system automatically adds the new rule to
the LOOKAHEAD list for all parameters mentioned in its premise, and to the UPDATED-BY list
of all parameters mentioned in its action.

MYCIN Components
KNOWLEDGE BASE:
facts and knowledge about the domain
DYNAMIC PATIENT DATABASE:
information about a particular case
CONSULTATION MODULE:
asks questions, gives advice on a particular case
EXPLANATION MODULE:
answers questions and justifies advice
KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION PROGRAM:
adds new rules and changes existing rules

Physical User
Consultation Program
Dynamic
Patient
Data

Explanation Program

Static
Knowledge
Base

Knowledge Acquisition
Program
Infectious Disease Expert
Fig. Basic MYCIN Structure

The MYCIN Knowledge Base

Where the rules are held
Basic rule structure in MYCIN is:
if condition1 and.and conditionm hold
then draw conclusion1 and.and conditionn
Rules written in the LISP-like form
Rules can include certainty factors to help weight the conclusions drawn
An example rule is shown below, written in English although the system itself was written in
a variation of Lisp.
(defrule 52
if (site culture is blood)
(gram organism is neg)
(morphology organism is rod)
(burn patient is serious)
then .4
(identity organism is pseudomonas))
This is obviously rule 52 out of the knowledge base of some 600 rules. In this case, the
conditions are that the culture being examined is based on a sample of blood, that the blood
sample has an organism which has been tested as gram negative (this is a blood test result
that pertains to a type of infection), that the morphology of the organism being tests is rod
shaped, and that the patient is suffering from serious burns. If these conditions are true, the

conclusion for this rule is that the organisms identity is pseudomonas. Therefore, this rule is
used to identify a bacterium found in the blood test of the patient. There will be dozens or
more of such identity rules.

MYCIN Control Structure

Uses a goal-based strategy to attempt to find evidence for a particular disease
Establishes sub-goals required to satisfy the top level goal
General approach: backward chaining
Based on backward chaining, MYCINs algorithm works as follows:
Add diagnose-and-treat to working memory along with all reported patient data.
Repeat

Identify all rules that can provide the conclusion currently sought

Match right hand sides (that is, search for rules whose right hand sides match
anything in working memory)

Use conflict resolution to identify a single rule

Fire (execute) that rule

Find and remove a piece of knowledge which is no longer needed

Find and modify a piece of knowledge now that more specific information
is known

Add a new subgoal (left-hand side conditions that need to be proved)

Until the action done is added to working memory

MYCIN Limitations
Research tool with limited knowledge base - only covers a small number of
infectious diseases
Doctors reluctant to use it (trust and enjoyment)
Poor interface