Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
certain that a particular symptom is present, a response of “YES 0.4”
might be appropriate.
MYCIN's success with several hundred cases confirmed its compe-
tence in identifying the various possible infectious agents, in selecting
appropriate doses of effective drugs, and in recommending additional
diagnostic tests. In one series of assessments of its capabilities, based
on the system's diagnoses and its choice of medicines for treating each of
the patients, MYCIN and three members of staff at the Stanford Medical
School consistently prescribed therapies that would have been effective in
all ten cases. In a second series of assessments the criterion was whether
the drugs prescribed by MYCIN adequately covered for other plausible
pathogens
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while at the same time avoiding over-prescribing. Using
this criterion, MYCIN received a higher rating for its choice of prescrip-
tions than any of the human specialists—the assessors rated MYCIN's
prescriptions correct in 65 percent of the cases, whereas the ratings for
the prescriptions of the human specialists ranged from 42.5 percent to
62.5 percent. These assessments and other evaluations of the system all
suggested that MYCIN was as good as or better than most of the very
skilled human experts who served as the comparison.
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Disease-causing organisms.
