First Release of EHRLICH
Enhanced Rule- and Logic-Based Immunological Consultative Hub or EHRLICH — a reverse acronym inspired by the German pioneer of immunology Paul Ehrlich — is a medical expert system specializing in autoimmune diseases, conditions triggered by malfunctions of the immune system that cause it to attack healthy body tissues. In particular, it seeks to automate the diagnosis for 15 such diseases, selected on the basis of their prevalence and the accessibility of symptomatic detection with visual inspection or the patient’s own assessment prior to conclusive laboratory tests.
DISCLAIMER: The goal of this project is to explore the possibility of employing backward chaining in the implementation of medical expert systems that are able to handle uncertainty. Although care has been taken to consult technical sources, this system is ultimately subject to a closed-world assumption and to the limited size of its knowledge base.
Therefore, it is not intended to be used — and should not be used — for real-world or professional diagnosis.
A formal discussion of the system is provided in Technical Report.pdf