causal diagram: chronic rhinitis

[gusl]

See http://www.optimizelife.com/wiki/index.php/My_Breathing#Causal_Processes

All the pieces finally fall into place:

Causal diagram of Chronic Rhinitis

Solid lines mean positive influence (+), i.e. more of the source tends to cause more of the target.
Dashed lines mean negative influence (-), i.e. more of the source tends to cause less of the target.


N.B.: I don't suffer from all causes or all symptoms above.

I could add a node for "vasoconstrictor" (e.g. Afrin) right next to "fluticasone", having a negative (e.g. health-positive) effect on "amount of blood in mucosa", but the problem is that vasoconstrictors have a short-term effect that rebound, becoming a positive (e.g. health-negative) effect.

Thanks WikiTex/Wikisophia, for providing me with a sandbox! Wiki code is behind the cut.

Fluticasone appears to be effective in the long run. But if I end up needing to use it for the rest of my life, then I'll go for a ~50% partial turbinectomy (under the knife, since laser seems to damage mucociliary function).

I am interested in the semantics of these diagrams, and how they relate to argument maps and formal proofs.

semantics of diagrams

* Say we want to instantiate a particular allergen and a particular individual: what kind of graph rewriting will we need to do?

* What about expressing the distinction between independent and dependent influences (e.g. conjunction, synergy)?

* What about tagging nodes with information about which leaves are controllable?

* Some effects have preconditions: snoring requires sleeping. Sleeping requires lying down. So we have an implicit relationship in the graph: the consequence is that turbinate enlargement will be worse during sleep. Could conclusions of the kind be drawn automatically, by simply adding to the implicit information to the current representation?



== Graph: Chronic Rhinitis ==

digraph chronic_rhinitis
{
/* graph [fontsize=8];
edge [fontsize=8]; */
node [fontsize=10];

"genes for \n hyperreactive \n mucosa" -> "hyperreactive \n mucosa";

"hyperreactive \n mucosa" -> "irritated mucosa";
"viral infection" -> "irritated mucosa";
"pollution" -> "irritated mucosa";

"irritated mucosa" -> "amount of blood in mucosa";
"lying position" -> "amount of blood in mucosa";
"fluticasone" -> "amount of blood in mucosa" [style=dashed];

"turbinectomy" -> "amount of mucosal tissue" [style=dashed];
"amount of mucosal tissue" -> "size of turbinates";
"amount of blood in mucosa" -> "size of turbinates";
"size of turbinates" -> "airway blocked";

"airway blocked" -> "breathing through mouth";
"airway blocked" -> "poor sleep / sleep apnea";
"airway blocked" -> "snoring";
"airway blocked" -> "discomfort";
"airway blocked" -> "ability to do \n physical exercise" [style=dashed];
}