Hybrid systems: a promising solution for better decision support tools

This paper describes HYCONES II, a tool to enable construction of tightly coupled Hybrid Connectionist Expert Systems to solve classification problems. HYCONES II integrates frames with neural networks in its hybrid knowledge base. Three neural network models (CNM, the Fuzzy ARTMAP, and the Semantic ART - SMART) are available to the knowledge engineer. SMART is a new model, introduced by this research group and based on a combination of two previous models. The validation section compares the performance of these three neural models to solve diagnostic problems in two medical domains. Finally, the present status of this project and its future developments are presented.