CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The technology and concept of data processing and management is totally changing. Generally, there is serious progress in technological advancement worldwide. Technology has allowed and helped humans to have better live right from early civilization when wheel was invented in ancient Egypt. In our present dispensation, the technology we are most familiar with is the computer technology. The computer after its development, has brought a drastic change in the data processing ability of man in the society, in which man is said to be in the formation age, which data are processed with human accuracy, reduction in time, increase in the volume of information processed and produced to mention but a few.
As computers are applied in increasing number of fields, the generality of the society is brought closer and closer to this all-purpose machine “The computer”. The integration of human and computer based processes provides all the needed information to support a specific activity management and decision making in all fields of human endeavor.
In medicine, before a final diagnosis is made, doctors usually query a disease condition based on clinical and sub-clinical features available to them. A query in medicine is nothing but a guess (provisional diagnosis) which is further verified by the result of a medical laboratory test before an actual diagnosis is made. In recent times, most doctors do not wait for results of medical test before they go ahead to prescribe treatment. This calls for good use of experience acquired through years of practice on the part of the doctors.
Over the years, the medical field has been the exclusively reserved for the medical doctors (Human Experts) who virtually does everything from analysis to diagnosis. The steady expansion of medical knowledge has made it more difficult for the physicians to remain abreast of medicine outside narrow field. Consultation with a specialist is a solution when a clinical problem lies beyond the physicians’ competence, but frequently expert opinion is either unavailable or not available in timely fashion. Attempts have been made to develop computer programs that can serve as consultants.
By early 1970s’, it became clear that conventional tools such as flow chart, pattern matching and Bayes’ theorem were unable to deal with most complex clinical problems. Investigator then began to study the expert physician to obtain detailed insights into the basic nature of clinical problem solving. The result derived from such studies have subsequently formed the bases for computational models of the cognitive phenomena and these models have further been converted into the so-called artificial intelligence. Many of the early efforts to apply artificial intelligence methods to real problems including medical reasoning, have primarily used rule-based system. (Miller, 2016). Given the above therefore, this research work focuses on design and implementation of software for diagnosis of hepatitis B using data-mining techniques.
Statement of the Problems
There are some problems associated with meeting a doctor for face to face diagnosing of hepatitis B, most time the patient do not always keep record of what the doctor says, resulting to loss of information. The loss of this information is as a result of the following
- Poor information storage method: Because of the wide use of medical terms by the doctor, the patients most time could not keep track of information being passed from the doctor to them.
- Time wasted due to the queue system in hospital and clinic.
- Work load on doctors during diagnosing process in the hospital.
- Illegal removal of files by fraudulent staff leading to insecurity.
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The objective of this study is to design computer-based software for diagnosing hepatitis B using data mining techniques.
Some of the objectives include the following:
- To work towards the elimination of waste of time in queue to see a doctor for diagnose.
- To ease the work load on doctors during diagnosing process in the hospital.
- To enable patient easily get their health status, and also know the actual drug prescription to be taking.
- To provide a unified database to store patient records and lab test results.
- To keep proper records of all patient diagnosis record.
- To ensure data security by restricting access to the program and to the database.
- To ensure easy access and retrieval of data in the program.
1.4 Significance of the Study
The project work will help in a good number of ways to cease the outdated form of patient meeting with doctors at any little symptom they notice, it will also advance the knowledge of the public for accessing medical knowledge about their health. It will also help the management to ease the workload of diagnosing practitioners like the doctors.
There are many other advantages and some of them are listed below.
- It saves a lot of time
- It is very convenient to use
- Information processing is very fast and delays can be avoided
- It is inexpensive to use.
- It helps the clinic in reducing costs such as labor and stationary.
1.5 Scope of the Study
This project is restricted to the diagnosis and prescription of treatment for hepatitis B diseases. The research work is limited to hepatitis B Patients. The software developed will be carried out using (Visual basic 2010) and will be also used to manage both the database and at the same time make the software very effective for use.
1.6 Limitations of Study
Some of the constraints that may have in one-way or another affected the outcome of this work include:
- Lack of adequate fund to finance the project: this was one of the limitation to this work because much money is needed to carry out a detailed research work which is not easily borne by every student.
- The limited knowledge of ASP.net and Visual Basic programming was great challenge to this project. However, more research was made to complete this project successfully.
1.7 Definition of Terms
Analyst: This is a person or professional who studies the problem encountered by a system and creates means of solving them by introducing a better system.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): This is simply the science of automating intelligent behavior currently achievable by human. It is a field that focuses on developing techniques that enables the computer system to perform activities like human. A study of how to make computer do things at which precisely people are better.
Combating: To take action to reduce or prevent (something bad or undesirable).
Computer Program: This is a set or sequence of instruction written for a computer to perform a specific task. A computer requires program to function, typically executing the program’s instructions in a central processor.
Computer: Computer is an electronic device operating the control of instructions stored in its memory that can accept data (input) manipulate the data according to a specified rules (processing) produces result output and stores the result for future use.
Consultation: A meeting with an expert or a professional in a particular area or field in order to seek advice. A meeting to discuss about a sick person.
Data Mining: It is a process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems.
Data processing: is defined as the entire process of converting or manipulating data into definite meaningful information (Okoye, & Adigwe, 2015).
Data: It is the facts collected for decision making they are facts that are kept to be processed to get more information.
Database Management System (DBMS): it is software which controls the flow of data and checks and checks on how data are stored.
Database: is an organized /unique collection of related files. It is a collection of schemas, tables, queries, reports, views and other object.
Diagnosis: This is the identification of the nature of an illness or other problem by thorough examination of the symptoms. Diagnosis can as well be a distinctive characterization in precise terms of a genus, species or phenomenon.
Documentation: material that provides official information or evidence that serves as record; written specifications and information that describes the product.
Expert System: Expert System is software which can replicate the thinking process of a human and make logical decisions accordingly.
Fever (Also known as Hyperthermia, Pyrexia, or elevated temperature): It’s a temporary increase in human body temperature, often due to an illness.
Hepatitis B: It is a potential life threatening liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). It’s an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV) that affects the liver and can cause both acute and chronic disease.
Information: is a processed data that can be read and understand.
Security: This helps to prevent unauthorized users from illegally accessing certain data within the database, it protects your data/ files.
Software: These are set of logically related instructions given to the computer to perform some specific task.
System: Is the collection of hardware and software, data information procedure and people.
Technique: It’s a particular method of doing an activity, usually a method that involves practical skills.
Vaccine: It is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease.
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