Using Agents for Mining Maintenance Data while interacting in 3D Objectoriented Virtual Environments

This report demonstrates the development of: (a) object-oriented representation to provide 3D interactive environment using data provided by Woods Bagot; (b) establishing basis of agent technology for mining building maintenance data, and (C) 3D interaction in virtual environments using object-oriented representation. Applying data mining over industry maintenance database has been demonstrated in the previous report.

Developing Software Agents for Data Mining : [AIMM] Agents for Improving Maintenance Management

This report demonstrates the development of: • Development of software agents for data mining • Link data mining to building model in virtual environments • Link knowledge development with building model in virtual environments • Demonstration of software agents for data mining • Populate with maintenance data

Demonstration of Software Agents Prototype System : [AIMM] Agents for Improving Maintenance Management

This report presents the demonstration of software agents prototype system for improving maintenance management [AIMM] including: • Developing and implementing a user focused approach for mining the maintenance data of buildings. This report presents the demonstration of software agents prototype system for improving maintenance management [AIMM] including: • Developing and implementing a user focused approach for mining the maintenance data of buildings. • Refining the development of a multi agent system for data mining in virtual environments (Active Worlds) by developing and implementing a filtering agent on the results obtained from applying data mining techniques on the maintenance data. • Integrating the filtering agent within the multi agents system in an interactive networked multi-user 3D virtual environment. • Populating maintenance data and discovering new rules of knowledge.

Effects of inoculating dose on the kinetics of Chlamydia muridarum genital infection in female mice

Chlamydia trachomatis infections have been implicated in problems such as pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility in females. Although there are some studies examining the kinetics of ascending infection, there is limited information on the kinetics of pathology development and cellular infiltrate into the reproductive tissues in relation to the effects of inoculating dose, and a better understanding of these is needed. The murine model of female genital tract Chlamydia muridarum infection is frequently used as a model of human C. trachomatis reproductive tract infection. To investigate the kinetics of ascending genital infection and associated pathology development, female BALB/c mice were intravaginally infected with C. muridarum at doses ranging from 5102 to 2.6106 inclusion forming units. We found that the inoculating dose affects the course of infection and the ascension of bacteria, with the highest dose ascending rapidly to the oviducts. By comparison, the lowest dose resulted in the greatest bacterial load in the lower reproductive tract. Interestingly, we found that the dose did not significantly affect inflammatory cell infiltrate in the various regions. Overall, this data show the effects of infectious dose on the kinetics of ascending chlamydial infection and associated inflammatory infiltration in BALB/c mice.

Knowledge discovery for adaptive negotiation agents in e-marketplaces

Intelligent software agents are promising in improving the effectiveness of e-marketplaces for e-commerce. Although a large amount of research has been conducted to develop negotiation protocols and mechanisms for e-marketplaces, existing negotiation mechanisms are weak in dealing with complex and dynamic negotiation spaces often found in e-commerce. This paper illustrates a novel knowledge discovery method and a probabilistic negotiation decision making mechanism to improve the performance of negotiation agents. Our preliminary experiments show that the probabilistic negotiation agents empowered by knowledge discovery mechanisms are more effective and efficient than the Pareto optimal negotiation agents in simulated e-marketplaces.

Cost effectiveness of antimicrobial catheters in the intensive care unit : Addressing uncertainty in the decision

Introduction: Some types of antimicrobial-coated central venous catheters (A-CVC) have been shown to be cost-effective in preventing catheter-related bloodstream infection (CR-BSI). However, not all types have been evaluated, and there are concerns over the quality and usefulness of these earlier studies. There is uncertainty amongst clinicians over which, if any, antimicrobial-coated central venous catheters to use. We re-evaluated the cost-effectiveness of all commercially available antimicrobialcoated central venous catheters for prevention of catheter-related bloodstream infection in adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Methods: We used a Markov decision model to compare the cost-effectiveness of antimicrobial-coated central venous catheters relative to uncoated catheters. Four catheter types were evaluated; minocycline and rifampicin (MR)-coated catheters; silver, platinum and carbon (SPC)-impregnated catheters; and two chlorhexidine and silver sulfadiazine-coated catheters, one coated on the external surface (CH/SSD (ext)) and the other coated on both surfaces (CH/SSD (int/ext)). The incremental cost per qualityadjusted life-year gained and the expected net monetary benefits were estimated for each. Uncertainty arising from data estimates, data quality and heterogeneity was explored in sensitivity analyses. Results: The baseline analysis, with no consideration of uncertainty, indicated all four types of antimicrobial-coated central venous catheters were cost-saving relative to uncoated catheters. Minocycline and rifampicin-coated catheters prevented 15 infections per 1,000 catheters and generated the greatest health benefits, 1.6 quality-adjusted life-years, and cost-savings, AUD $130,289. After considering uncertainty in the current evidence, the minocycline and rifampicin-coated catheters returned the highest incremental monetary net benefits of $948 per catheter; but there was a 62% probability of error in this conclusion. Although the minocycline and rifampicin-coated catheters had the highest monetary net benefits across multiple scenarios, the decision was always associated with high uncertainty. Conclusions: Current evidence suggests that the cost-effectiveness of using antimicrobial-coated central venous catheters within the ICU is highly uncertain. Policies to prevent catheter-related bloodstream infection amongst ICU patients should consider the cost-effectiveness of competing interventions in the light of this uncertainty. Decision makers would do well to consider the current gaps in knowledge and the complexity of producing good quality evidence in this area.

Continuous infusion of ticarcillin-clavulanate for home treatment of serious infections : clinical efficacy, safety, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics

Continuous infusion (CI) ticarcillin–clavulanate is a potential therapeutic improvement over conventional intermittent dosing because the major pharmacodynamic (PD) predictor of efficacy of β-lactams is the time that free drug levels exceed the MIC. This study incorporated a 6-year retrospective arm evaluating efficacy and safety of CI ticarcillin–clavulanate in the home treatment of serious infections and a prospective arm additionally evaluating pharmacokinetics (PK) and PD. In the prospective arm, steady-state serum ticarcillin and clavulanate levels and MIC testing of significant pathogens were performed. One hundred and twelve patients (median age, 56 years) were treated with a CI dose of 9.3–12.4 g/day and mean CI duration of 18.0 days. Infections treated included osteomyelitis (50 patients), septic arthritis (6), cellulitis (17), pulmonary infections (12), febrile neutropenia (7), vascular infections (7), intra-abdominal infections (2), and Gram-negative endocarditis (2); 91/112 (81%) of patients were cured, 14 (13%) had partial response and 7 (6%) failed therapy. Nine patients had PICC line complications and five patients had drug adverse events. Eighteen patients had prospective PK/PD assessment although only four patients had sufficient data for a full PK/PD evaluation (both serum steady-state drug levels and ticarcillin and clavulanate MICs from a bacteriological isolate), as this was difficult to obtain in home-based patients, particularly as serum clavulanate levels were found to deteriorate rapidly on storage. Three of four patients with matched PK/PD assessment had free drug levels exceeding the MIC of the pathogen. Home CI of ticarcillin–clavulanate is a safe, effective, convenient and practical therapy and is a therapeutic advance over traditional intermittent dosing when used in the home setting.

Detection and prevention of distributed denial of services attacks by collaborative effort of software agents, first prototype implementation

Distributed Denial of Services DDoS, attacks has become one of the biggest threats for resources over Internet. Purpose of these attacks is to make servers deny from providing services to legitimate users. These attacks are also used for occupying media bandwidth. Currently intrusion detection systems can just detect the attacks but cannot prevent / track the location of intruders. Some schemes also prevent the attacks by simply discarding attack packets, which saves victim from attack, but still network bandwidth is wasted. In our opinion, DDoS requires a distributed solution to save wastage of resources. The paper, presents a system that helps us not only in detecting such attacks but also helps in tracing and blocking (to save the bandwidth as well) the multiple intruders using Intelligent Software Agents. The system gives dynamic response and can be integrated with the existing network defense systems without disturbing existing Internet model. We have implemented an agent based networking monitoring system in this regard.