Auscultation is the science of listening to the sounds of internal body organs, in this case the heart. Skilled experts can make diagnoses using this technique. It is a noninvasive screening method of providing valuable information about the conditions of the heart and its valves, but it is highly subjective and depends on the skills and experience of the listener. Researchers from the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Universiti Teknologi Petronas have developed an Exsys Corvid expert system, SIPMES (Signal Processing Module Integrated Expert System) to analyze digitally processed heart sound. The system utilizes digitized heart sound algorithms to diagnose various conditions of the heart. Heart sounds are effectively acquired using a digital electronic stethoscope. The heart sounds were collected from the Institut Jantung Negara (National Heart Institute) in Kuala Lumpur and the Fatimah Ipoh Hospital in Malaysia. A total of 40 patients age 16 to 79 years old with various pathologies were used as the control group, and to test the validity of the system using their abnormal heart sound samples and other patient medical data.

Questions for Discussion
1. List the major components involved in building SIPMES and briefly comment on them.
2. Do expert systems like SIPMES eliminate the need for human decision making?
3. How often do you think that the existing expert systems, once built, should be changed?