ABSTRACT
While physiology is a broad label, it has become highly specialized and has numerous subdivisions: electrophysiology is concerned with nerves and muscles; neurophysiology addresses the functioning of individual cells and therein the brain. (Other subdisciplines include plant physiology, ecophysiology, genetics, and others as well.) Written observations have been replaced by mechanical and electrical instrumentation methods so that the information content of contemporary records is an ever-increasing record of evolution with the potential for greater understanding of our origins and the evolutionary process as well as our biological makeup. With such data, it becomes possible to extend life and improve the delivery of health care as well as the quality of living. Modern instruments that process information aid the user in recording, classifying, and summarizing information and subsume a number of tasks: data handling, instrumental control, experimental development, operator control, documentation, and report generation, and its newest purposes include automated interpretation of data augmented through methods of artificial
21.14.3 Graphic Descriptions 567 21.14.4 Hypothesis Testing; Statistical Inference; Statistical Signicance 567 21.14.5 Statistical Inference: Validity of Assumptions and Prediction 570 21.14.6 Bayesian Analysis: Statistical Inference: Looking Backward 570 21.14.7 BBN Considerations 573 21.14.8 Markov Chains and Analysis: Looking Forward 574 21.14.9 Computerized Markov Analysis Tools 577
21.15 Emerging Developments in Physiological Instrumentation 577 21.15.1 Knowledge-Based Techniques in Instrumentation 577 21.15.2 Neural Nets 578 21.15.3 Application of NN to Physiology and Medicine 581 21.15.4 Backpropagation (Training) 582 21.15.5 Summary of Knowledge-Based Technology 584 21.15.6 Medical Record Keeping and the Paperless Medical Oce 584
Bibliography 585 Recommended Reading List 587
intelligence (Silverman and Silver 1995). Figure 21.1 summarizes the physiological data processing paradigm.
