title: Evolving rule-based systems in two medical domains using genetic programming.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To demonstrate and compare the application of different genetic programming (GP) based intelligent methodologies for the construction of rule-based systems in two medical domains: the diagnosis of aphasia's subtypes and the classification of pap-smear examinations.
  
  
  METHODS
  Past data representing (a) successful diagnosis of aphasia's subtypes from collaborating medical experts through a free interview per patient, and (b) correctly classified smears (images of cells) by cyto-technologists, previously stained using the Papanicolaou method.
  
  
  METHODS
  Initially a hybrid approach is proposed, which combines standard genetic programming and heuristic hierarchical crisp rule-base construction. Then, genetic programming for the production of crisp rule based systems is attempted. Finally, another hybrid intelligent model is composed by a grammar driven genetic programming system for the generation of fuzzy rule-based systems.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results denote the effectiveness of the proposed systems, while they are also compared for their efficiency, accuracy and comprehensibility, to those of an inductive machine learning approach as well as to those of a standard genetic programming symbolic expression approach.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The proposed GP-based intelligent methodologies are able to produce accurate and comprehensible results for medical experts performing competitive to other intelligent approaches. The aim of the authors was the production of accurate but also sensible decision rules that could potentially help medical doctors to extract conclusions, even at the expense of a higher classification score achievement.
authors.affiliation: Department of Financial and Management Engineering, University of the Aegean, 31 Fostini St., 82100 Chios, Greece. tsakonas@stt.aegean.gr
authors.forename: Athanasios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tsakonas
authors.forename: Georgios
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dounias
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jantzen
authors.forename: Hubertus
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Axer
authors.forename: Beth
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bjerregaard
authors.forename: Diedrich Graf
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: von Keyserlingk
mesh_terms: D001037:Aphasia / Q000175:diagnosis; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003663:Decision Trees; D005260:Female; D017143:Fuzzy Logic; D005823:Genetics; D006801:Humans; D065006:Papanicolaou Test; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D014626:Vaginal Smears