RE: Evidence

Interesting question.  There are clinical rules in the form of "X diagnosed_by Y", e.g.
"Diabetes Mellitus proven by fasting plasma glucose >= 126 mg/dL"
where a laboratory test result is expressly intended as evidence to support a specific diagnosis.  I'd think this would also be true for an inclusion/exclusion rule written as
"Nicotine Dependence as determined by Fagerstrom Test score greater than 7"
since the rule intends the Fagerstrom Test as evidence, even though that evidence might be open to interpretation.  Otoh, if one of the individual test questions, e.g.
"Which cigarette would you hate most to give up?
¨ The first in the morning
¨ Any other"
 was rephrased as a rule,
"Would most hate to give up first cigarette in the morning" 
it seems (to me, as someone interested in representing rules like this) harder to apply the concept of evidence, since the rule relies on self-reporting.


Ben


-----Original Message-----
From: public-semweb-lifesci-request@w3.org on behalf of Skinner, Karen (NIH/NIDA) [E]
Sent: Tue 6/12/2007 1:41 PM
To: samwald@gmx.at; Waclaw Kusnierczyk
Cc: phismith@buffalo.edu; public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org
Subject: RE: Evidence
 

This discussion on "evidence" makes me wonder if "inclusion" or "exclusion" criteria for a study are considered as "evidence" or are they something else?  For example, if "smokers" are to be excluded from a study, a definition of a "smoker" must exist, and then an interpretation of whether the subject satisfies the definition  must exist. In the  
"Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence", the subject is evaluated with respect to a series of questions, each of which requires its own "evaluation."  http://ww2.heartandstroke.ca/DownloadDocs/PDF/Fagerstrom_Test.pdf

Is there a definition for "evidence" that applies to any aspects of this situation, and if so, what would it be?

Karen Skinner


-----Original Message-----
From: samwald@gmx.at [mailto:samwald@gmx.at] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 3:53 PM
To: Waclaw Kusnierczyk
Cc: phismith@buffalo.edu; public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org
Subject: Re: Evidence


Hi Waclaw,

 
> Matthias, if you look carefully at BFO, you'll see that roles are 
> entities.  This means that evidences, as roles, are entities.

Of course. I just wanted to differentiate that an experiment is not an instance of any class called 'evidence' (in other words, an experiment 'is not' evidence). Instead, it should be associated with an 'evidence-role'.

cheers,
Matthias

cheers,
Matthias Samwald

----------

Yale Center for Medical Informatics, New Haven / Section on Medical Expert and Knowledge-Based Systems, Vienna / http://neuroscientific.net
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Received on Wednesday, 13 June 2007 19:38:12 UTC