Description:
With the advancements in technologies, digitization of health records in the healthcare industry is undertaking a rapid revolution. This is further fueled with the entrance of Internet of Things (IoT), where mobile health devices have resulted in an explosion of health data and increased accessibility via wireless communications and sensor networks. With the introduction of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system as an important venture for the general health and wellbeing of a country's citizens, privacy issues and medical disputes are expected to rise. In addition to critical health information being documented and shared electronically, integrating data from diverse smart medical IoT devices are leading towards increasingly more complex disputes that require immense time and effort to resolve. Online dispute resolution (ODR) programs have been successfully applied to cost-effectively help disputants resolve commercial, insurance and other legal disputes, but as yet have not been applied to healthcare. This paper takes a modest step in this direction, firstly to identify the drivers of medical disputes that include patient empowerment and technology advancements and trends. Secondly, we explore dispute resolution models and identify the status and limitations of current ODR systems.
Description:
This work was funded by the University of Ballarat Deakin University Collaborative Fund. 160134
Description:
This research presents a classifier that aims to provide insight into a dataset in addition to achieving classification accuracies comparable to other algorithms. The classifier called, Automated Weighted Sum (AWSum) uses a weighted sum approach where feature values are assigned weights that are summed and compared to a threshold in order to classify an example. Though naive, this approach is scalable, achieves accurate classifications on standard datasets and also provides a degree of insight. By insight we mean that the technique provides an appreciation of the influence a feature value has on class values, relative to each other. AWSum provides a focus on the feature value space that allows the technique to identify feature values and combinations of feature values that are sensitive and important for a classification. This is particularly useful in fields such as medicine where this sort of micro-focus and understanding is critical in classification.
Description:
This research presents a classifier that aims to provide insight into a dataset in addition to achieving classification accuracies comparable to other algorithms. The classifier called, Automated Weighted Sum (AWSum) uses a weighted sum approach where feature values are assigned weights that are summed and compared to a threshold in order to classify an example. Though naive, this approach is scalable, achieves accurate classifications on standard datasets and also provides a degree of insight. By insight we mean that the technique provides an appreciation of the influence a feature value has on class values, relative to each other. AWSum provides a focus on the feature value space that allows the technique to identify feature values and combinations of feature values that are sensitive and important for a classification. This is particularly useful in fields such as medicine where this sort of micro-focus and understanding is critical in classification.
Description:
This article describes an argumentation shell to support the formulation, representation and drafting of legal arguments. The shell can be used to capture generic arguments in many legal domains as well as to assist decision-makers in constructing their own actual arguments . The shell demonstrates that knowledge represented using the generic/actual argument model (GAAM) (a variant of Toulmin's argument structure) can be used to: (a) support the development of complex arguments, (b) add context and increase specificity for the retrieval of relevant documents, (c) incorporate background knowledge, (d) assist in the drafting of documents that represent arguments made, and (e) provide a structure for complex inferences requiring a range of mechanisms. The shell can be used to support decision making in a range of legal domains, including discretionary domains.
Description:
Argumentation concepts have been applied to numerous knowledge engineering endeavours in recent years. For example, a variety of logics have been developed to represent argumentation in the context of a dialectical situation such as a dialogue. In contrast to the dialectical approach, argumentation has also been used to structure knowledge. This can be seen as a non-dialectical approach. The Toulmin argument structure has often been used to structure knowledge non-dialectically yet most studies that apply the Toulmin structure do not use the original structure but vary one or more components. Variations to the Toulmin structure can be understood as different ways to integrate a dialectical perspective with a non-dialectical one. Drawing the dialectical/non-dialectical distinction enables the specification of a framework called the generic actual argument model that is expressly non-dialectical. The framework enables the development of knowledge-based systems that integrate a variety of inference procedures, combine information retrieval with reasoning and facilitate automated document drafting. Furthermore, the non-dialectical framework provides the foundation for simple dialectical models. Systems based on our approach have been developed in family law, refugee law, determining eligibility for government legal aid, copyright law and e-tourism.
Description:
Argumentation concepts have been applied to numerous knowledge engineering endeavours in recent years. For example, a variety of logics have been developed to represent argumentation in the context of a dialectical situation such as a dialogue. In contrast to the dialectical approach, argumentation has also been used to structure knowledge. This can be seen as a non-dialectical approach. The Toulmin argument structure has often been used to structure knowledge non-dialectically yet most studies that apply the Toulmin structure do not use the original structure but vary one or more components. Variations to the Toulmin structure can be understood as different ways to integrate a dialectical perspective with a non-dialectical one. Drawing the dialectical/non-dialectical distinction enables the specification of a framework called the generic actual argument model that is expressly non-dialectical. The framework enables the development of knowledge-based systems that integrate a variety of inference procedures, combine information retrieval with reasoning and facilitate automated document drafting. Furthermore, the non-dialectical framework provides the foundation for simple dialectical models. Systems based on our approach have been developed in family law, refugee law, determining eligibility for government legal aid, copyright law and e-tourism.
Description:
Data mining is often performed with datasets associated with diseases in order to increase insights that can ultimately lead to improved prevention or treatment. Classification algorithms can achieve high levels of predictive accuracy but have limited application for facilitating the insight that leads to deeper understanding of aspects of the disease. This is because the representation of knowledge that arises from classification algorithms is too opaque, too complex or too sparse to facilitate insight. Clustering, association and visualisation approaches enable greater scope for clinicians to be engaged in a way that leads to insight, however predictive accuracy is compromised or non-existent. This research investigates the practical applications of Automated Weighted Sum, (AWSum), a classification algorithm that provides accuracy comparable to other techniques whilst providing some insight into the data. This is achieved by calculating a weight for each feature value that represents its influence on the class value. Clinicians are very familiar with weighted sum scoring scales so the internal representation is intuitive and easily understood. This paper presents results from the use of the AWSum approach with data from patients suffering from Cystic Fibrosis.
Description:
Data mining is often performed with datasets associated with diseases in order to increase insights that can ultimately lead to improved prevention or treatment. Classification algorithms can achieve high levels of predictive accuracy but have limited application for facilitating the insight that leads to deeper understanding of aspects of the disease. This is because the representation of knowledge that arises from classification algorithms is too opaque, too complex or too sparse to facilitate insight. Clustering, association and visualisation approaches enable greater scope for clinicians to be engaged in a way that leads to insight, however predictive accuracy is compromised or non-existent. This research investigates the practical applications of Automated Weighted Sum, (AWSum), a classification algorithm that provides accuracy comparable to other techniques whilst providing some insight into the data. This is achieved by calculating a weight for each feature value that represents its influence on the class value. Clinicians are very familiar with weighted sum scoring scales so the internal representation is intuitive and easily understood. This paper presents results from the use of the AWSum approach with data from patients suffering from Cystic Fibrosis.
Description:
Wireless sensor devices are used for monitoring patients with serious medical conditions. Communication of content-sensitive and context sensitive datasets is crucial for the survival of patients so that informed decisions can be made. The main limitation of sensor devices is that they work on a fixed threshold to notify the relevant Healthcare Professional (HP) about the seriousness of a patient’s current state. Further, these sensor devices have limited processor, memory capabilities and battery. A new grid-based information monitoring architecture is proposed to address the issues of data loss and timely dissemination of critical information to the relevant HP. The proposed approach provides an opportunity to efficiently aggregate datasets of interest by reducing network overhead and minimizing data latency. To narrow down the problem domain, in-network processing of datasets with Grid monitoring capabilities is proposed for the efficient execution of the computational, resource and data intensive tasks. Interactive wireless sensor networks do not guarantee that data gathered from the heterogeneous sources will always arrive at the sink (base) node, but the proposed aggregation technique will provide a fault tolerant solution to the timely notification of a patient’s critical state. Experimental results received are encouraging and clearly show a reduction in the network latency rate.
Description:
Wireless sensor devices are used for monitoring patients with serious medical conditions. Communication of content-sensitive and context sensitive datasets is crucial for the survival of patients so that informed decisions can be made. The main limitation of sensor devices is that they work on a fixed threshold to notify the relevant Healthcare Professional (HP) about the seriousness of a patient’s current state. Further, these sensor devices have limited processor, memory capabilities and battery. A new grid-based information monitoring architecture is proposed to address the issues of data loss and timely dissemination of critical information to the relevant HP. The proposed approach provides an opportunity to efficiently aggregate datasets of interest by reducing network overhead and minimizing data latency. To narrow down the problem domain, in-network processing of datasets with Grid monitoring capabilities is proposed for the efficient execution of the computational, resource and data intensive tasks. Interactive wireless sensor networks do not guarantee that data gathered from the heterogeneous sources will always arrive at the sink (base) node, but the proposed aggregation technique will provide a fault tolerant solution to the timely notification of a patient’s critical state. Experimental results received are encouraging and clearly show a reduction in the network latency rate.
Description:
Values have been shown to underpin our attitudes, behaviour and motivate our decisions. Values do not exist in isolation but have meaning in relation to other values. However, values are not solely the purview of individuals as communities and organisations have core values implicit in their culture, policies and practices. Values for a group can be determined by a minority in power, derived by algorithmically merging values each group member holds, or set by deliberative consensus. The elicitation of values for the group by deliberation is likely to lead to widespread acceptance of values arrived at, however enticing individuals to engage in face to face discussion about values has been found to be very difficult. We present an online deliberative communication approach for the anonymous deliberation of values and claim that the framework has the elements required for the elicitation of shared values.
Description:
Narrative or story telling has long been used to structure and organise human experience. In contrast to logical models of reasoning, narrative models enable complex situations to be understood and recalled by humans readily. There is also some indication that narrative models represent the way in which jurors weigh up the veracity of legal evidence. In this work a narrative model is integrated into a logical reasoning model for the purpose of advancing a learning environment that promises to be engaging and effective. The narrative model includes a representation of the point of a story and a simple story grammar. The learning environment is designed to enable the automated generation of plausible scenarios representing a variety of family law property division cases told from the point of view of numerous characters.
Description:
Deliberative dialogue is a form of dialogue that involves participants advancing claims and, without power plays or posturing, deliberating on the claims of others until a consensus decision is reached. This paper describes a deliberative support system to facilitate and encourage participants to engage in a discussion deliberatively. A knowledge representation framework is deployed to generate a strong domain model of reasoning structure. The structure, coupled with a deliberative dialogue protocol results in a web based system that regulates a discussion to avoid combative, non-deliberative exchanges. The system has been designed for online dispute resolution between husband and wife in divorce proceedings involving property.
Description:
Deliberative dialogue is a form of dialogue that involves participants advancing claims and, without power plays or posturing, deliberating on the claims of others until a consensus decision is reached. This paper describes a deliberative support system to facilitate and encourage participants to engage in a discussion deliberatively. A knowledge representation framework is deployed to generate a strong domain model of reasoning structure. The structure, coupled with a deliberative dialogue protocol results in a web based system that regulates a discussion to avoid combative, non-deliberative exchanges. The system has been designed for online dispute resolution between husband and wife in divorce proceedings involving property.
Description:
Decision making processes in the health care setting are often complex, demanding of professionals and rapidly changing. Furthermore, there is increasing pressure for professionals to make reasoning transparent and consistent. Decision support technologies have not made a substantial contribution to these issues to date largely because knowledge is difficult to elicit and maintain and existing development tools are very sophisticated yet complex. In this study a method for representing complex and discretionary reasoning used successfully in law was applied to the task of modelling decision making processes that critical care nurses deploy in responding to a low oxygen alarm. The approach, based on decision and argument tree diagrams enables the rapid development of small scale, yet useful web based decision support systems.
Description:
Knowledge discovery from databases (KDD) exercises in law have typically attempted to derive knowledge about decision making processes in the legal domain automatically from datasets. This is made difficult in that real data that represents aspects of a decision process in law is commonly stored as text and rarely stored in structured databases. The central claim advanced here is that KDD processes can be usefully applied to existing datasets of client and demographic data in order to provide feedback for the effective operation of organizations within the legal system. However, the cost of data mining suites and the scarcity of specialized personnel for these tools mitigates against their use. In this study data mining with Association Rules (AR) has been performed on a data-set of over 380,000 records from a legal aid agency. Methods to visualise patterns in order to suggest and test plausible hypotheses from the data have been developed. The tool, called WebAssociate is entirely web based. Domain experts using the tool report favorable responses.
Description:
Dimensionality reduction of the problem space through detection and removal of variables, contributing little or not at all to classification, is able to relieve the computational load and instance acquisition effort, considering all the data attributes accessed each time around. The approach to feature selection in this paper is based on the concept of coherent accumulation of data about class centers with respect to coordinates of informative features. Ranking is done on the degree to which different variables exhibit random characteristics. The results are being verified using the Nearest Neighbor classifier. This also helps to address the feature irrelevance and redundancy, what ranking does not immediately decide. Additionally, feature ranking methods from different independent sources are called in for the direct comparison.
Description:
Dimensionality reduction of the problem space through detection and removal of variables, contributing little or not at all to classification, is able to relieve the computational load and the data acquisition effort, considering all data components being accessed each time around. The approach to feature selection in this paper is based on the concept of coherent accumulation of data about class centers with respect to coordinates of informative features. Ranking is done on the degree, to which different variables exhibit random characteristics. The results are being verified using the Nearest Neighbor classifier. This also helps to address the feature irrelevance, what ranking does not immediately decide. Additionally, feature ranking methods available from different independent sources are called in for direct comparison.
Description:
Dimensionality reduction of the problem space through detection and removal of variables, contributing little or not at all to classification, is able to relieve the computational load and instance acquisition effort, considering all the data attributes accessed each time around. The approach to feature selection in this paper is based on the concept of coherent accumulation of data about class centers with respect to coordinates of informative features. Ranking is done on the degree to which different variables exhibit random characteristics. The results are being verified using the Nearest Neighbor classifier. This also helps to address the feature irrelevance and redundancy, what ranking does not immediately decide. Additionally, feature ranking methods from different independent sources are called in for the direct comparison.
Description:
Dimensionality reduction of the problem space through detection and removal of variables, contributing little or not at all to classification, is able to relieve the computational load and the data acquisition effort, considering all data components being accessed each time around. The approach to feature selection in this paper is based on the concept of coherent accumulation of data about class centers with respect to coordinates of informative features. Ranking is done on the degree, to which different variables exhibit random characteristics. The results are being verified using the Nearest Neighbor classifier. This also helps to address the feature irrelevance, what ranking does not immediately decide. Additionally, feature ranking methods available from different independent sources are called in for direct comparison.
Description:
In this paper global optimisation-based techniques are studied in order to increase the accuracy of medical diagnosis and prognosis with FNA image data from the Wisconsin Diagnostic and Prognostic Breast Cancer databases. First we discuss the problem of determining the most informative features for the classification of cancerous cases in the databases under consideration. Then we apply a technique based on convex and global optimisation to breast cancer diagnosis. It allows the classification of benign cases and malignant ones and the subsequent diagnosis of patients with very high accuracy. The third application of this technique is a method that calculates centres of clusters to predict when breast cancer is likely to recur in patients for which cancer has been removed. The technique achieves higher accuracy with these databases than reported elsewhere in the literature.
Description:
In this paper global optimisation-based techniques are studied in order to increase the accuracy of medical diagnosis and prognosis with FNA image data from the Wisconsin Diagnostic and Prognostic Breast Cancer databases. First we discuss the problem of determining the most informative features for the classification of cancerous cases in the databases under consideration. Then we apply a technique based on convex and global optimisation to breast cancer diagnosis. It allows the classification of benign cases and malignant ones and the subsequent diagnosis of patients with very high accuracy. The third application of this technique is a method that calculates centres of clusters to predict when breast cancer is likely to recur in patients for which cancer has been removed. The technique achieves higher accuracy with these databases than reported elsewhere in the literature.
Description:
A NUMBER OF INCREASINGLY SOPHISTICATED technologies are now being used to support complex decision-making in a range of contexts. This paper reports on a project undertaken to provide decision support in discretionary legal domains by referring to a recently created model that involves the interplay and weighting of relevant rule-based and discretionary factors used in a decision-making process. The case study used in the modelling process is the Criminal Jurisdiction of the Victorian Magistrate’s Court (Australia), where the handing down of an appropriate custodial or non-custodial sentence requires the consideration of many factors. Tools and techniques used to capture relevant expert knowledge and to display it both as a paper model and as an online prototype application are discussed. Models of sentencing decision-making with rule-based and discretionary elements are presented and analyzed. This paper concludes by discussing the benefits and disadvantages of such technology and considers some potential appropriate uses of the model and web-based prototype application.
Description:
A NUMBER OF INCREASINGLY SOPHISTICATED technologies are now being used to support complex decision-making in a range of contexts. This paper reports on a project undertaken to provide decision support in discretionary legal domains by referring to a recently created model that involves the interplay and weighting of relevant rule-based and discretionary factors used in a decision-making process. The case study used in the modelling process is the Criminal Jurisdiction of the Victorian Magistrate’s Court (Australia), where the handing down of an appropriate custodial or non-custodial sentence requires the consideration of many factors. Tools and techniques used to capture relevant expert knowledge and to display it both as a paper model and as an online prototype application are discussed. Models of sentencing decision-making with rule-based and discretionary elements are presented and analyzed. This paper concludes by discussing the benefits and disadvantages of such technology and considers some potential appropriate uses of the model and web-based prototype application.
Description:
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to describe an innovative information and decision support tool (ToolSHeD™) developed to help construction designers to integrate the management of OHS risk into the design process. The underlying structure of the prototype web-based system and the process of knowledge acquisition and modelling are described. Design/methodology/approach - The ToolSHeD™ research and development project involved the capture of expert reasoning regarding design impacts upon occupational health and safety (OHS) risk. This knowledge was structured using an innovative method well-suited to modelling knowledge in the context of uncertainty and discretionary decision-making. Example "argument trees" are presented, representing the reasoning used by a panel of experts to assess the risk of falling from height during roof maintenance work, The advantage of using this method for modelling OHS knowledge, compared to the use of simplistic rules, is discussed Findings - The ToolSHeD™ prototype'development and testing reveals that argument trees can represent design safety risk knowledge effectively. Practical implications - The translation of argument trees into a web-based decision support tool is described and the potential impact of this tool in providing construction designers (architects and engineers) with easy and inexpensive access to expert OHS knowledge is discussed. Originality/value - The paper describes a new computer application, currently undergoing testing in the Australian building and construction industry. Its originality lies in the fact that ToolSHeD™ deploys argument trees to represent expert OHS reasoning, overcoming inherent limitations in rule-based expert systems.