Benefits of embedding structural constraints in coherent diagnostic processes
This paper reviews recent results applicable to medical diagnosis, obtained by adding structural constraints to a coherent inference process. Such further considerations turn out to be useful whenever a basic lower-upper conditional probability assessment induces extension bounds too vague to motivate an informed decision. Three general types of qualitative judgements are proposed and fully described. They do not constitute a "panacea" to solve every problematic situation, but their application can considerably improve inferences results in specific cases, as two practical applications show. (c) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
coherent inference conditional exchangeability qualitative constraints diagnosis procedures