title: A Belief Rule Based Expert System to Assess Tuberculosis under Uncertainty.
abstract: The primary diagnosis of Tuberculosis (TB) is usually carried out by looking at the various signs and symptoms of a patient. However, these signs and symptoms cannot be measured with 100 % certainty since they are associated with various types of uncertainties such as vagueness, imprecision, randomness, ignorance and incompleteness. Consequently, traditional primary diagnosis, based on these signs and symptoms, which is carried out by the physicians, cannot deliver reliable results. Therefore, this article presents the design, development and applications of a Belief Rule Based Expert System (BRBES) with the ability to handle various types of uncertainties to diagnose TB. The knowledge base of this system is constructed by taking experts' suggestions and by analyzing historical data of TB patients. The experiments, carried out, by taking the data of 100 patients demonstrate that the BRBES's generated results are more reliable than that of human expert as well as fuzzy rule based expert system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, Bangladesh.
authors.forename: Mohammad Shahadat
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Hossain
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, Bangladesh.
authors.forename: Faisal
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, Bangladesh.
authors.lastname: Fatema-Tuj-Johora
authors.affiliation: Pervasive and Mobile Computing Laboratory, Luleå University of Technology, SE-931 87, Skellefteå, Sweden. karl.andersson@ltu.se.
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Andersson
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005103:Expert Systems; D017143:Fuzzy Logic; D006801:Humans; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000175:diagnosis*; D035501:Uncertainty
keywords: Belief rule base; Expert system; Signs and symptoms; Tuberculosis; Uncertainty