I analyze a model of advice with two perfectly informed experts and one decision maker. The bias of an expert is her private information. I show that consulting two experts is better than consulting just one. In the simple “peer review” mechanism, the decision maker receives just one report, and the second expert decides whether to block the first expert’s report. A more rigid peer review proce...

The ability to identify and represent the knowledge that a human expert has about a particular domain is a key method in the creation of an expert computer system. The first part of this paper demonstrates a methodology for collecting and analyzing observations of experts at work, in order to find the conceptual framework used for the particular domain. The second part develops a representation...

OBJECTIVE To introduce a fuzzy linguistic model for evaluating the risk of neonatal death. METHODS The study is based on the fuzziness of the variables newborn birth weight and gestational age at delivery. The inference used was Mamdani's method. Neonatologists were interviewed to estimate the risk of neonatal death under certain conditions and to allow comparing their opinions and the model ...

We present the Topical Hidden Markov Model method, which infers jointly a cognitive and student model from longitudinal observations of student performance. Its cognitive diagnostic component specifies which items use which skills. Its knowledge tracing component specifies how to infer students’ knowledge of these skills from their observed performance. Unlike prior work, it uses no expert engi...

This paper describes recent work on an ongoing project in medical diagnosis at the University of Guelph. A domain on which experts are not very good at pinpointing a single disease outcome is explored. On-line medical data is available over a relatively short period of time. Belief Functions (Dempster-Shafer theory) are first extracted from data and then modified with expert opinions. Several m...

The need for validated analytical methods and reference materials to identify and measure constituents in dietary supplements is essential. Such methods allow for the documentation that products meet manufacturer's specifications and contain what their labels declare. In March 2003, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a proposed rule that would establish specific current good manufactu...

The paper develops and applies an expert-based stochastic population forecasting method, which can also be used to obtain a probabilistic version of scenario-based official forecasts. The full probability distribution of population forecasts is specified by starting from expert opinions on the future development of demographic components. Expert opinions are elicited as conditional on the reali...

Problem solving is an essential function of human cognition. To build intelligent systems that are capable of assisting engineers and tutoring students, we need to develop an information processing model and identify the skills used in engineering problem solving. This thesis describes the Integrated Problem Solving Architecture (IPSA) that combines qualitative, quantitative and diagrammatic re...

Industrial and commercial wastes must be classified at least two times on the way from the owner of the waste to the waste disposal facility in order to ensure that waste handling is in conformity with the law. Wastes classification as dangerous goods is very difficult because they consist of many components with diverse dangerous properties. This paper presents a Web-based expert system we dev...