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Disease Information App

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🌟 Features

• User-Friendly Interface: Clean, responsive design that works across devices
• AI-Powered Responses: Leverages Perplexity’s Sonar API for accurate medical information
• Structured Knowledge Cards: Organizes information into Overview, Causes, and Treatments
• Citation Tracking: Lists sources of information with clickable links
• Client-Side Caching: Prevents duplicate API calls for previously asked questions
• Standalone Deployment: Generate a single HTML file that can be used without a server
• Comprehensive Error Handling: User-friendly error messages and robust error management

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📋 Requirements

• Python 3.6+
• Jupyter Notebook or JupyterLab (for development/generation)
• Required packages:
  • requests
  • pandas
  • python-dotenv
  • IPython

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🚀 Setup & Installation

1. Clone this repository or download the notebook
2. Install the required packages:

# Install from requirements file (recommended)
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Or install manually
pip install requests pandas python-dotenv ipython

3. Set up your Perplexity API key:
   • Create a .env file in the same directory as the notebook
   • Add your API key: PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

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🔧 Usage

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Running the Notebook

1. Open the notebook in Jupyter:

jupyter notebook Disease_Information_App.ipynb

2. Run all cells to generate and launch the browser-based application
3. The app will automatically open in your default web browser

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Using the Generated HTML

1. Open it in any modern web browser
2. Enter a question about a disease (e.g., “What is diabetes?”, “Tell me about Alzheimer’s disease”)
3. Click “Ask” to get structured information about the disease

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Deploying the App

1. Setting up a proper backend to secure your API key
2. Hosting the file on a web server
3. Adding analytics and user management as needed

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🔍 How It Works

1. Uses a carefully crafted prompt to instruct the AI to output structured JSON
2. Processes this JSON to extract Overview, Causes, Treatments, and Citations
3. Presents the information in a clean knowledge card format
4. Implements client-side API calls with proper error handling
5. Provides a responsive design suitable for both desktop and mobile

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⚙️ Technical Details

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API Structure

{
  "overview": "A brief description of the disease.",
  "causes": "The causes of the disease.",
  "treatments": "Possible treatments for the disease.",
  "citations": ["https://example.com/citation1", "https://example.com/citation2"]
}

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Files Generated

• disease_qa.html - The standalone application
• disease_app.log - Detailed application logs (when running the notebook)

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Customization Options

• The HTML/CSS styling in the create_html_ui function
• The AI model used (default is “sonar-pro”)
• The structure of the prompt for different information fields
• Output file location and naming

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🛠️ Extending the App

• Add a Flask/Django backend to secure the API key
• Implement user accounts and saved questions
• Add visualization of disease statistics
• Create a comparison view for multiple diseases
• Add natural language question reformatting
• Implement feedback mechanisms for answer quality

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⚠️ Important Notes

• API Key Security: The current implementation embeds your API key in the HTML file. This is suitable for personal use but not for public deployment.
• Not Medical Advice: This app provides general information and should not be used for medical decisions. Always consult healthcare professionals for medical advice.
• API Usage: Be aware of Perplexity API rate limits and pricing for your account.

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📜 License

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🙏 Acknowledgements

• This project uses the Perplexity AI Sonar API
• Inspired by interactive knowledge bases and medical information platforms