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];
}

Comments

[brkvw.livejournal.com]

LOL

So, aside from your use of this graph, which is damn funny, there is a Wiki out there that lets you create graphcs and hands you back a GIF?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

PNG, not GIF.

I've posted about WikiTeX and Wikisophia before. Did you miss it? I think it's a totally awesome idea.

[brkvw.livejournal.com]

Miss it? Prob just was not clear on what it was. But, I will assimilate...
I would like to improve the rendering of the lines and boxes (circles).

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I just hacked this thing up. This particular WikiTeX extension uses something called Graphviz, and one can probably do tons of stuff with it. It shouldn't be too hard to find online documentation.

[combinator.livejournal.com]

It doesn't look like your dashed attribute is being properly depicted.

[combinator.livejournal.com]

OK, wait, I see, the background of the empty parts of the dash is done as transparent, which seems like a bug, but not something you could easily fix. My friends page has a dark background.