A Research About Syndrome Differentiation Assistant System Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Based On Structural Partial-ordered Attribute Theory

Syndrome differentiation is the characteristics and essence of Traditional ChineseMedicine (TCM)，while it is also the key foundation of TCM’s development. Syndrome ofdifferentiation is the premise and basis of treatment, as the accuracy level of syndromedifferentiation has a direct impact on the treatment effect. However, traditional syndromedifferentiation diagnosis is subjective, fuzzy and uncertain at some extent because of itsdependence on qualitative observation and experience-based judgment of clinical doctor,which restricts the inheritance and development of TCM. Therefore, it is an urgent need toexpress the rule and thought of syndrome differentiation diagnosis with modern sciencetechnology and realizing the objectiveness, quantization and systematization of syndromedifferentiation.In view of the complexity and fuzziness of syndrome differentiation, a syndrome typegenerating method based on the theory of structural partial-ordered attribute diagram(SPOAD) has been proposed in this paper, and a complex system model of quantitativesyndrome differentiation diagnosis has been constructed, which consistent with therelation of disease, syndrome and symptom in TCM based on this method. While aquantitative system prototype of syndrome differentiation diagnosis based on inquiry hasbeen designed as well. Then, clinical experiment and assessment has been carried out withthe system prototype. Therefore, the work finished in this paper will probably makesignificant meaning and value for both theoretical research of diagnosis objectiveness andpractical application of clinical diagnosis in TCM.First, based on the theory foundation of partial order and formal concept analysis(FCA),12kinds of attribute with different features have been defined while the nature ofeach attribute in formal context has been listed out under the definition. According to thesedefinitions and natures, a generation method of SPOAD and a knowledge discover methodbased on SPOAD have been put forward, which constructs the theory foundation ofsyndrome type generation.Secondly, based on the in-depth study of the complex relation among disease, syndrome and symptom in TCM, a quantitative syndrome differentiation diagnosis systemmodel has been constructed, according to which the design of corresponding diagnosissystem prototype based on inquiry has been finished afterward. This system tries to collectpatients’ status data with inquiry questionnaire as diagnosis input, which can get the bodyinformation beyond the reach of medical instrument. The content of questionnaire camefrom the common inquiry song of TCM while the expression is quantitative, which meansthat a mapping database has been constructed to express the relation between syndromeelements and symptom quantitatively. The answer of each question will be classified intodifferent level according to its degree before the diagnosis process; and then thequantitative status of each syndrome elements will be generated and shown as visiblefigures based on the answers and the quantitative weight stored in the mapping database.Next, based on the quantitative set of syndrome element, a syndrome type generationmethod has been put forward in the theory framework of partial order. In this method, aformal context of syndrome type and syndrome element has been constructed and thecorresponding SPOAD has been generated afterward; and then syndrome elements indifferent layer of the SPOAD have been granted with different weight. The matcheddegree of generated syndrome type has been assessed by the method of calculating thesimilarity between the syndrome element set and the branch of the SPOAD.At last, based on the quantitative inquiry syndrome differentiation diagnosis system,a double-blind comparative experiment between the system and clinical TCM expert hasbeen carried out. The result of clinical experiment shows that, the quantitative inquirysyndrome differentiation diagnosis system for TCM can be used for clinical practice. Inaddition, the frequency distribution and composite pattern of the syndrome elementscontaining either nature or location of disease have been found from the clinical data,which constructed the foundation of the research relative with syndrome element patternamong different disease.