Intelligent analysis of clinical time series: an application in the diabetes mellitus domain

This paper describes the application of a method for the intelligent analys is of clinical time series in the diabetes mellitus domain. Such a method i s based on temporal abstractions and relies on the following steps: (i) 'pr e-processing' of raw data through the application of suitable filtering tec hniques; (ii) 'extraction' from the pre-processed data of a set of abstract episodes (temporal abstractions); and (iii) 'post-processing' of temporal abstractions; the post-processing phase results in a new set of features th at embeds high level information on the patient dynamics. The derived featu res set is used to obtain new knowledge through the application of machine learning algorithms. The paper describes in detail the application of this methodology and presents some results obtained on simulated data and on a d ata-set of four diabetic patients monitored for > 1 year. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.