GeNIe: A Development Environment for Graphical Decision-Analytic Models

Decision-analytic modeling tools, such as Bayesian networks and influence diagrams, are increasingly finding successful applications in medical informatics. Their major strengths are sound theoretical foundations, ability to combine existing data with expert knowledge, and the intuitive framework of directed graphs. is a general-purpose development environment for graphical decision-analytic models. Its reasoning engine, ( tructural odeling, nference, and earning ngine) is a fully portable library of C++ classes implementing graphical decision-analytic methods and directly amenable to inclusion in intelligent information systems. , an Active-X Windows version of , allows the library to be accessed from any Windows programming environment, including direct access from WWW pages. We have made all three modules available free of charge for non-commercial research, teaching, and personal use at the following address: http://www2.sis.pitt.edu/~genie since July 1998. As of March 1999, there are over 1,300 users from over 50 countries. While current applications of and cover a range of fields, a growing number of users apply and in medical informatics training and in building medical informatics systems, for example in medical diagnosis and therapy planning.