MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

DEVELOPMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC EXPERT SYSTEM

One-line solution summary:

In this work, by using an expert system, it is expected to accelerate the medical processes in diagnosing a type of infectious viral disease

Pitch your solution.

The need for a diagnostic expert system cannot be overemphasized. Infectious viral disease diagnoses are poor in Nigeria and general disease database for accessing patient’s data is unavailable to hospitals and various government agencies. Also with failing health insurance for citizens, relatives of diseased patients are mostly responsible for their family members that are sick. Use of diagnostic expert system will definitely be of greater value in determining and confirming the viral nature of the diseases. Also, the unique attributes of the diagnostic expert system model specified and developed over previous models is the basis for embarking on this research.

What specific problem are you solving?

Viral infections are collections of diseases caused by viruses that easily attack human, and can be transmitted quickly through touch/contact, air, saliva, or other intermediaries. Therefore, the symptoms caused by infectious viral infections need to be known by medical practitioner. By knowing the symptoms experienced by patients, health worker can immediately find out the disease that is suffered and the prevention, so that the disease suffered by the patient can be treated immediately.

The role of medical practitioner in dealing with dangerous viral infections is necessary but often collides with the limited number of medical experts while those that need to be handled are quite a lot. To reduce this limitation, an expert system is needed.

What is your solution?

Outbreaks of infectious diseases are occurring with increasing frequency and unpredictability. The rapid development and deployment of diagnostics that can accurately and quickly identify pathogens as part of epidemic preparedness is needed now for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The expert system application can be a medium of information on capabilities, knowledge, and facilities (based on symptoms or complaints) for health workers in diagnosing viral infections in patients. The application of this expert system uses the certainty factor method that provides a level of trust in the results of the diagnoses of diseases suffered by users. The output from this expert system is not the result of the user's disease diagnosis. The output of this expert system can be used as input or advice for medical experts. The final decision about a patient's illness is the authority of a medical expert.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

This will present a sustainable model for a global network of country-owned biobanks with standardized methods for collection, characterization, and archiving of specimens and pathogens to facilitate and accelerate diagnostics development and evaluation for COVID-19 and other diseases of epidemic potential.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Prevent the spread of misinformation and inspire individuals to protect themselves and their communities, including through information campaigns and behavioral nudges.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

An expert system is one important part of artificial intelligence that can mimic human reasoning processes. Expert systems can be used to help diagnose diseases, in this case, viral infections in patients. The expert system diagnoses by tracking the symptoms of each patient, matching them with existing rules, and producing a diagnosis based on the knowledge base. The purpose of this research is to design and make an application system expert diagnosis of infectious viral infections in patients whose results can show the disease suffered by patients, the value of the level of trust from the results of the diagnosis, and suggestions for solutions that can be given to sufferers.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Ife, Nigeria

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Concept: An idea being explored for its feasibility to build a product, service, or business model based on that idea.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

The aim of this study is to develop a diagnostic expert system that will be useful in diagnosing infectious viral disease(s) in patients by health workers. The specific objectives of the work are to;

extract data from infectious viral disease control database;
classify diseases according to symptoms;
Implement a functional system
Evaluate the system

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Dr O.D Ninah, Dept of Computer science,OAU Ife

More About Your Solution

Which of the following categories best describes your solution?

A new business model or process that relies on technology to be successful

What makes your solution innovative?

An expert system is a computer-based system that uses knowledge, facts and reasoning techniques in solving problems that can usually only be solved by an expert in the field.

In general, expert systems are systems that try to adopt human knowledge to computers that are designed to model problem-solving abilities like an expert. With this expert system, even ordinary people can solve the problem or simply find quality information that can only be obtained with the help of experts in their fields. This expert system will also be able to assist the activities of experts as assistants who are experienced and have the required knowledge.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
Biotechnology / Bioengineering
Internet of Things
Software and Mobile Applications

Select the key characteristics of your target population.

Women & Girls
Infants
Children & Adolescents
Elderly
Rural
Peri-Urban
Urban
Poor
Low-Income
Middle-Income
Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
Persons with Disabilities

Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?

3. Good Health and Well-being
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
17. Partnerships for the Goals

How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?

500 ,

50000,

5000,000

How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?

Expert systems are widely used to diagnose diseases especially in health areas and other disciplines. This is a computer system that nearly earns the decision making ability of a human expert. The goal of designing an expert system is to solve a complex problem by reasoning with knowledge rather than by conventional procedural codes. An expert system consists of two parts namely, the inference engine and the knowledge base. Knowledge base of an expert system dedicated to represent the knowledge about a domain. Various knowledge representation schemas such as Propositional Logic (PL), First Order Logic (FOL), Fuzzy Logic (FL), Frames, Semantic Net, Case Based Reasoning and Bayesian Belief Network are widely used to build the knowledge base of an expert system. Both PL and FOL are used to acquire assertive knowledge and hence, unable to represent various types of uncertainties. Semantic Net is a directed or undirected graph, which represents semantic relations between concepts but not the uncertainty. Bayesian Belief Network or BNN is a directed acyclic graph representing the facts using conditional probability.

About Your Team

What type of organization is your solution team?

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

How many people work on your solution team?

5-10

How long have you been working on your solution?

2020

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

The need for a diagnostic expert system cannot be overemphasized. Infectious viral disease diagnoses are poor in Nigeria and general disease database for accessing patient’s data is unavailable to hospitals and various government agencies. Also with failing health insurance for citizens, relatives of diseased patients are mostly responsible for their family members that are sick. Use of diagnostic expert system will definitely be of greater value in determining and confirming the viral nature of the diseases. Also, the unique attributes of the diagnostic expert system model specified and developed over previous models is the basis for embarking on this research.

What is your approach to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive leadership team?

Outbreaks of infectious diseases are occurring with increasing frequency and
unpredictability. The rapid development and deployment of diagnostics
that can accurately and quickly identify pathogens as part of
epidemic preparedness is needed now for the COVID-19 pandemic. WHO
has developed a global research and innovation forum to facilitate,
accelerate, and deepen research collaboration among countries and
funders. Great progress has been made in the past decade, but access
to specimens remains a major barrier for the development and
evaluation of needed quality diagnostics. This will present a
sustainable model for a global network of country-owned biobanks with
standardized methods for collection, characterization, and archiving
of specimens and pathogens to facilitate and accelerate diagnostics
development and evaluation for COVID-19 and other diseases of
epidemic potential.

Your Business Model & Partnerships

Partnership & Prize Funding Opportunities

Why are you applying to Solve?

To impart lives in term of providing solutions to health challenges via the use of technology,artificial intelligence and diagnosis

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development, etc.)
Business model (e.g. product-market fit, strategy & development)
Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors)
Legal or Regulatory Matters
Public Relations (e.g. branding/marketing strategy, social and global media)
Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
Product / Service Distribution (e.g. expanding client base)
Technology (e.g. software or hardware, web development/design, data analysis, etc.)

Please explain in more detail here.

To impart lives in term of providing solutions to health challenges via
the use of technology,artificial intelligence and diagnosis

What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?

My potential partners could include organizations such as MIT faculty or initiatives, or Solve Members and Canadian Health Research Corporation.

They can be of help in Human Resources,IT , Financial and Application development.

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Prize to advance your solution?

To impart lives in term of providing solutions to health challenges via
the use of technology,artificial intelligence and diagnosis

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion to advance your solution?

To impart lives in term of providing solutions to health challenges via
the use of technology,artificial intelligence and diagnosis

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for the Innovation for Women Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use the Innovation for Women Prize to advance your solution?

To impart lives in term of providing solutions to health challenges via
the use of technology,artificial intelligence and diagnosis

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The AI for Humanity Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The AI for Humanity Prize to advance your solution?

To impart lives in term of providing solutions to health challenges via
the use of technology,artificial intelligence and diagnosis to build diagnostic expert system

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The Global Fund Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The Global Fund Prize to advance your solution?

To impart lives in term of providing solutions to health challenges via
the use of technology,artificial intelligence and diagnosis to build diagnostic expert system