Wilbur D. Hagamen

Behavioral and EEG asymmetry following unilateral lesions of the forebrain and midbrain in cats.

Abstract Destruction of the caudate and ventro-medial internal capsule (10 cats) and midbrain reticular formation, sparing the direct sensory pathways (11 cats), caused contralateral sensory neglect and ipsilateral over-reactivity. The cortical EEG ipsilateral to the lesions when the cats were alert consistently had a pattern usually associated with sleep in normal animals, whereas the contralateral EEG showed an alert pattern. The asymmetry was enduring when the cats were awake but tended to decrease when they were asleep.

Encoding verbal information as unique numbers

The representation of verbal information as single numbers using APL functions can optimize main storage, peripheral storage, and data transmission. Presented in tutorial form are the concepts of the encoding and decoding process. Applications including text processing and instructional systems are also discussed.

The numeric representation of knowledge and logic: two artificial intelligence applications in medical education

MEDCAT (medical diagnosis, consultation, and teaching) is a program that makes diagnoses from empiric data stored in patient records, explains its reasoning in response to questions (consultant mode), and uses its logical and communicative skills to instruct medical students in the proper approach to medical diagnosis (student mode). MEDCATs reasoning can be modified by free-format discussion with physicians. CATS (computerized anatomical teaching system) is an entirely separate program designed to teach gross anatomy. Like MEDCAT, it has a consultant mode that the student may use to explore the programs reasoning, and a student mode in which the program takes the initiative. A prominent feature of CATS is its ability to discover meaningful general principles that reduce the need for memorization. Despite important differences in the subject matter, the data structure and code are very similar in the two programs. Both use a powerful natural-language interface that parses the input and generates the output.

A program generator

We believe that the data processing needs of a major medical center do not differ fundamentally from those of government or industry. Experience in our environment is that data processing is playing an increasingly prominent role in the full spectrum of services. Not only is the number of applications increasing, but they are also becoming more diverse and imaginative as users become more directly involved in the process.

ATS in exposition

Abstract ATS (A Tutorial System) is written in APL 360 . It contains an author interrogation program that interviews the author in English and formats his tutorial for him, and a tutorial supervisor program that interfaces with the students. The supervisor program contains many features of machine intelligence (a knowledge of the rules of human discourse) which operate in every tutorial without intervention by the author, and provide the discourse with an aura of intelligent behavior. Certain aspects of both programs are illustrated by terminal examples.

A re-usable nylon socket holder for use with chronically embedded electrodes in the cat.

Abstract A nylon sleeve for use in housing a multiple lead socket to be attached to permanently embedded electrodes in animals is described. Low cost, durability and simplicity of construction, assembly and installation are among the advantages of the apparatus.

A Tutorial System

A Tutorial System (ATS) was developed by members of the Anatomy Department of Cornell University Medical College (CUMC). The system was designed to enable teachers to converse with students through a natural language computer-mediated dialogue (tutorial). ATS consists of two major parts, an author-interrogation program (used in preparing tutorials) and a tutorial supervisory program (used during the student—teacher dialogue). ATS, in turn, is based on the computer language APL.

MEDCAT: an APL program for medical diagnosis, consultation, and teaching

This is a description of MEDCAT, a computer program which makes diagnoses, explains each step in its reasoning in response to questions, increases its knowledge and reasoning ability by conversing with expert physicians, and uses its logical and communicative skills to help and evaluate medical students in the proper approach to medical diagnosis. The mechanism for each of these features is discussed. MEDCAT is coded in APL and implemented on a 68000 based microcomputer.

Processing natural language syntactic and semantic mechanisms

This paper describes a simple approach to language processing. Knowledge of the domain is stored in a three row numeric matrix or semantic net. The meaning of individual words is contained in pointers from each word to the objects in the environment and the relations between these objects. The intersections of these pointers resolves the ambiguity inherent in the multiple meanings of words. The input string is treated as a series of triads, where the result of processing one triad is passed as an argument for the next triad. Parsing into the required noun phrases and verb phrases is done by semantic means (intersection); when words have no semantic pointers, a syntactic parser is utilized.

An Interactive Patient Record System and Its Transfer from a Mainframe to Microcomputers

This paper discusses the interactive medical record system which was developed at CUMC and which has been in use at both the New York Hospital and the Eurke Rehabilitation Center for more than five years. The first section of the paper describes its original implementation in APL on an IBM 370/145. This section focuses on those features which are essential to an understanding of the system and which must be retained in any new implementation. These features are described at three levels -- the end-user level, the programmer level, and system level. The final section of paper then discusses the advantages methods of moving this system to microcomputers.