© 2019 Ahmed Sameh. This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 3.0
license.
Journal of Computer Science
Original Research Paper
Knowledge Based Bayesian Network Construction Algorithm
for Medical Data Fusion to Enhance Services and Diagnosis
Ahmed Sameh
Department of Computer and Information Systems, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia
Article history
Received: 7-05-2018
Revised: 14-12-2018
Accepted: 27-05-2019
Email: asameh@psu.edu.sa
Abstract: Traditional Bayesian networks' algorithms are treating the network
construction process as an isolated and autonomous data-driven trial-and-error
process and completely ignoring the domain knowledge. In this work we are
proposing a new 'Semantically Aware Ontology-Based Bayesian Network
construction algorithm' that is knowledge centered instead of data centered. The
objective of the new algorithm is to empower patients through improving their
self-diagnosis and testing by automatically constructing a set of Ontology-
Based Bayesian networks using combination of domain and expert knowledge.
The exciting thing about the proposed algorithm is that it uses on 'Saudi-native
training data' streamed from the “Unified Medical Record” server and
authenticated domain and expert knowledge extracted from the “King Abdulla
Encyclopedia” server. A proof-of-concept prototype based on open-source
software “Netica” and “Protégé” is implemented and tested. It demonstrates
learning of probabilities, network structure and mixes discrete and continuous
variables. It imports “Diabetes” patient medical record steams from the
“Unified Medical Record” server to be used as training and testing datasets. It
also extracts Bayesian data variables from the “King Abdullah Encyclopedia”
server to aid in constructing and learning the ontology-based Bayesian
networks. The prototype is implemented on an Internet server and can be
accessed from medical applications on Smartphones and PDAs. It currently
deals with 60 positive “Diabetes” Saudi patients and 60 negative "Diabetes"
training cases. The resulting Ontology Bayesian network was tested on another
100 test cases drawn randomly from the 'Unified Medical records' server. An
accuracy of diagnosis of 100% was achieved on the test data.
Keywords: Home Healthcare, Bayesian Network, Ontology, Medical
Encyclopedia, Unified Medical Records, Self-Diagnosis
Introduction
A paradigm shift from traditional data mining to
semantic data mining is leading to Knowledge Centered
instead of Data Centered data mining techniques.
Integrating Ontology and Bayesian Network is currently
promoting the enrichment of our medical domain
knowledge. At the moment, open interoperable ontologies
are enabling medical stakeholders to communicate with no
ambiguity. Unfortunately obtaining action items from such
ontologies is done through deterministic reasoning which
are unsuitable for the medical field. Besides, Bayesian
networks offer an intuitive representation of uncertainty,
which can be integrated with medical ontologies through
few steps. This integration can be done by extracting the
Bayesian variables (noun nodes) that are core in the specific
medical domain along with their possible attributes/values
from the ontologies, mapping the relationships (verb nodes)
between these variables through consulting the appropriate
ontologies and then calculating the conditional probabilities
required for the Bayesian nodes.
It is well known that medicine and healthcare generally
lag behind in technology adoption. Thus, Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia is trying to enhance its medical and healthcare sector
through a number of national technology-based mega
projects. Two notable projects are the Ministry of Health’s
“Unified Medical Record” project (MHUMR, 2016) and
the National Guard’s “King Abdullah Encyclopedia of
Arabic Health Content” project (2018). The first project
was launched by KSA’s Ministry of Health in 2008 and
incremental implementation has already been finished in the