Lower limb amputation in Northern Netherlands: Unchanged incidence from 1991-1992 to 2003-2004

Background Investigating population changes gives insight into effectiveness and need for prevention and rehabilitation services. Incidence rates of amputation are highly varied, making it difficult to meaningfully compare rates between studies and regions or to compare changes over time. Study Design Historical cohort study of transtibial amputation, knee disarticulation, and transfemoral amputations resulting from vascular disease or infection, with/without diabetes, in 2003-2004, in the three Northern provinces of the Netherlands. Objectives To report the incidence of first transtibial amputation, knee disarticulation, or transfemoral amputation in 2003-2004 and the characteristics of this population, and to compare these outcomes to an earlier reported cohort from 1991 to 1992. Methods Population-based incidence rates were calculated per 100,000 person-years and compared across the two cohorts. Results Incidence of amputation was 8.8 (all age groups) and 23.6 (≥45 years) per 100,000 person-years. This was unchanged from the earlier study of 1991-1992. The relative risk of amputation was 12 times greater for people with diabetes than for people without diabetes. Conclusions Investigation is needed into reasons for the unchanged incidence with respect to the provision of services from a range of disciplines, including vascular surgery, diabetes care, and multidisciplinary foot clinics. Clinical relevance This study shows an unchanged incidence of amputation over time and a high risk of amputation related to diabetes. Given the increased prevalence of diabetes and population aging, both of which present an increase in the population at risk of amputation, finding methods for reducing the rate of amputation is of importance.

A distributed services based conference planner application using software agents, grid services and web services

This demonstration highlights the applications of our research work i.e. second generation (Scalable Fault Tolerant Agent Grooming Environment - SAGE) Multi Agent System, Integration of Software Agents and Grid Computing and Autonomous Agent Architecture in the Agent Platform. It is a conference planner application that uses collaborative effort of services deployed geographically wide in different technologies i.e. Software Agents, Grid computing and Web services to perform useful tasks as required. Copyright 2005 ACM.

Scalable fault tolerant agent grooming environment-SAGE

Multi-agent systems (MAS) advocate an agent-based approach to software engineering based on decomposing problems in terms of decentralized, autonomous agents that can engage in flexible, high-level interactions. This chapter introduces scalable fault tolerant agent grooming environment (SAGE), a second-generation Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA)-compliant multi-agent system developed at NIIT-Comtec, which provides an environment for creating distributed, intelligent, and autonomous entities that are encapsulated as agents. The chapter focuses on the highlight of SAGE, which is its decentralized fault-tolerant architecture that can be used to develop applications in a number of areas such as e-health, e-government, and e-science. In addition, SAGE architecture provides tools for runtime agent management, directory facilitation, monitoring, and editing messages exchange between agents. SAGE also provides a built-in mechanism to program agent behavior and their capabilities with the help of its autonomous agent architecture, which is the other major highlight of this chapter. The authors believe that the market for agent-based applications is growing rapidly, and SAGE can play a crucial role for future intelligent applications development. © 2007, IGI Global.