An Open Multiagent Architecture to Improve Reliability and Adaptability of Systems

The paper outlines the employment of fuzzy relational computations and fuzzy BK-products of relations in building architectures of intelligent geographic information systems (GIS) and decision support. The purpose of such systems is to analyse and interpret data to be used in geographic research. Our emphasis is on digital satellite imagery, a data stream that is commonly used to generate land use and land cover maps with which other GIS data are integrated. In order to efficiently apply methods of computational intelligence and soft computing to the project, a new conceptual framework is needed, in which the data, knowledge and activities of computing systems and human participants are jointly considered. Our framework distinguishes objects, properties, attributes, observers, contexts and perspectives and relations between these. The formal specification methods employ semiotic descriptors combined with fuzzy relational systems, algebraically defined by means of nonassociative BK-products of relation. BK-products are used not only for specifications but also in parallel computations in evaluation of data.

BackgroundNotifiable disease surveillance in the United States is predominantly a passive process that is often limited by poor timeliness and low sensitivity. Interoperable tools are needed that interact more seamlessly with existing clinical and laboratory data to improve notifiable disease surveillance.DescriptionThe Public Health Surveillance Knowledgebase (PHSkb™) is a computer database designed to provide quick, easy access to domain knowledge regarding notifiable diseases and conditions in the United States. The database was developed using Protégé ontology and knowledgebase editing software. Data regarding the notifiable disease domain were collected via a comprehensive review of state health department websites and integrated with other information used to support the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS). Domain concepts were harmonized, wherever possible, to existing vocabulary standards. The knowledgebase can be used: 1) as the basis for a controlled vocabulary of reportable conditions needed for data aggregation in public health surveillance systems; 2) to provide queriable domain knowledge for public health surveillance partners; 3) to facilitate more automated case detection and surveillance decision support as a reusable component in an architecture for intelligent clinical, laboratory, and public health surveillance information systems.ConclusionsThe PHSkb provides an extensible, interoperable system architecture component to support notifiable disease surveillance. Further development and testing of this resource is needed.

The number of women in the military has more than tripled over the past 50 years, increasing from 5% in the 1970s to 17% in 2023, making them essential for global health engagement and military operations. Provider competence and confidence are barriers to the consistent availability of preventive, gynecologic, and reproductive services for women across service locations and duty platforms. The Defense Health Board recommends standardizing services and improving the availability and scope of services for women at every point of care. In direct conflict with these recommendations, however, is a congressional call for a drawdown of medical forces, which creates a need for operationally trained clinicians with a broad skill set including comprehensive care for women. Advanced practice registered nurses, such as family and women's health nurse practitioners, are key assets to fill this gap on military medical health-care teams. At the request of the U.S. Air Force, the Graduate School of Nursing at the Uniformed Services University began offering a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (WHNP) program in 2014. The WHNP curriculum was layered onto the existing Family Nurse Practitioner program so that Family Nurse Practitioner students receive enhanced education in women's health and WHNP students are prepared to meet the holistic, primary care needs of patients across the lifespan in addition to caring for women with obstetric and urogenital health concerns. This article highlights the value of dual-certified Family Nurse Practitioners and WHNPs in the military health-care system. These Uniformed Services University alumni are uniquely prepared to provide comprehensive primary and specialty care for female warfighters across the lifecycle from stable, well-resourced duty stations to austere, operational settings or deployment platforms.

This chapter proposes an architecture for the development of intelligent virtual environments for training (IVETs) which is based on a collection of cooperative software agents. The first level of the architecture is defined as an extension of the classical intelligent tutoring system architecture that adds a new world module. Several software agents are then identified within each module. They communicate among them directly via messages and indirectly via a common data structure that is used for the collaborative development of plans. Some details are provided about the most remarkable interactions that will be established among agents during the system’s execution. The proposed architecture, and its realization in a platform of generic and configurable agents, will facilitate the design and implementation of new IVETs, maximizing the reuse of existing components and the extensibility of the system to add new functionalities.

This chapter is principally concerned with user agents as they might appear to users of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems: that is, with interface agents rather than software agents. I gives examples to show the difficulty of establishing a clear perspective on interface agents from the user-centred point of view. This difficulty is related to the differing conceptions of agents held within computer sciences and social sciences, and it is argued that this makes user agents a poor starting point for the design of CSCW systems. As an alternative, I suggest that CSCW design should start from the task domains, stages and functions of group work, and that the role of agents should then be situated within this framework. I sketch some initial steps towards developing this approach.

Introduction Family focused practice is thought to lead to positive outcomes for all family members. However, there are multiple barriers and enablers in adult mental health services to practitioners undertaking these actions. Aim The aim of this study was to examine the relative importance of worker, workforce and family factors to predict family focused practices (FFPs) in adult mental health services. Method Three hundred and seven adult mental health workers completed a 45 items family focused practice measure of 16 family focused practices. Thesis It was found that worker skill and knowledge about family work and an ability to assess the degree of parental insight into the child's connections to other family members and the community were important predictors of FFP, along with the closely related-worker confidence. While aspects of the worker, workplace and family each contribute to FFPs, this study highlighted the importance of worker skill, knowledge and confidence as central issues for adult mental health workers. Implications for practice Study implications include the need for training in specific FFPs, the provision of time to engage with clients on parenting issues and the need 5 to ensure that there are adequate services for workers to refer family members to.

An approach to plan and evaluate the location of radiotherapy services and its application in the New South Wales, Australia

Cloud computing is evolving technology because of its reduced expenditure, maintenance and dynamic resource pooling provision, on demand service, virtualization & high availability. Security & privacy are the major issues in the cloud environment because of its distributed and open architecture. As Data is stored and delivered across the Internet. The owner has no knowledge of where this data exist geographically. Cloud storage mainly helps small and medium scale industries to minimize their investments on storage server's as well as their maintenance. Cloud storage is efficient for data storage. User's data is sent to the cloud for storage. Data stored on cloud might mingle with data of other users'. This will lead to the data protection issues in cloud storage. The rising issue of information abuse emphasizes the need to protect the data. This paper provides an approach for securing data before storing it on the cloud as well as reducing the amount of space required for storage.

RICHE — Reseau d’Information et de Comunication Hopitalier Europeen. In this paper we present the main characteristics of RICHE, the European project carried out by a Consortium of hospitals, specialised IT companies and manufacturers, for the design and development of a standard, open architecture for hospital information systems.

This study investigates the bank selection criteria of undergraduate students who are future potential customers of banks from different regions of the world in a small island economy by comparing the selection factors of international students for the first time. Survey results of 258 respondents show that there are not huge differences in the bank selection factors between Turkish and non-Turkish international students in the case of a state university in North Cyprus. “Availability and convenient location of ATM services” and “speed and quality of service” are the most important factors for considering banks and their services for both Turkish and non-Turkish undergraduate students.

In today's fast-paced world, the need for trustworthy home maintenance services in plumbing, electrical work, and carpentry is growing at an incredible rate. But when people have to coordinate between customers and service people, it usually leads to schedule conflicts, delays in services, or changes in quality. This project suggests an AI-powered digital platform that intelligently matches user requests with real service professionals based on their availability, location, and type of service. This will help solve these problems. In a full-stack framework approach, the system has customized dashboards for customers and service providers, enabling time management, smooth booking, and tracking of tasks and communications. Other features it offers with AI incorporation include secure user authentication, notifications about real-time status, and an admin control panel to monitor all activities. All of which combines AI with automation, enhancing efficiency, transparency, and reliability- ultimately yielding a more rewarding and reliable experience for all stakeholders in the home services ecosystem.

HIV-infected patients frequently experience depression, drug use, and unstable housing but are often unable to access supportive services to manage these challenges. Data on barriers to needed supportive services are critical to improving patient access. Data from the Medical Monitoring Project (MMP), a national supplemental surveillance system for HIV-infected persons in care, was used to examine barriers to support service use and factors associated with need and unmet need for services. Interview data for 333 patients in care in 2007 and 2008 in Los Angeles County (LAC) showed that 71% (n=236) reported needing at least one supportive service and of these, 35% (n=83) reported at least one unmet need for services (46% Latino; 25% white; 83% male; 92% 30+; 77% gay/bisexual; 40% response rate). The main reasons that supportive services were not accessed included lack of information (47%; do not know where to go or who to call); an agency barrier (33%; system too confusing, wait list too long); or a financial/practical barrier (18%; too expensive, transportation problems). In a logistic regression that included all participants (n=333), African Americans (OR=3.1, 95% CI: 1.1-8.7) and those with incomes less than $10,000 were more likely to have service needs (odds ratio [OR]=3.5; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.3-9.3). Among those with at least one service need (n=236), those who were gay or bisexual were more likely to report at least one unmet service need (OR=2.8; 95% CI: 1.3-6.1). Disparities were found for need and unmet need for supportive services by race/ethnicity; income and sexual orientation. The reported reasons that services were not obtained suggest needed improvements in information dissemination on availability and location of HIV support services and more streamlined delivery of services.

Each year, migrant workers from south Texas and Mexico travel north more than 2,000 miles for seasonal work in agriculture. They carry with them knowledge of both basic folk medicine and clinical medicine. This paper investigates migrants' utilization of folk healing and clinical medicine in both the sending and receiving states. Two methods of collecting data were employed: (a) a structured interview with a 10% stratified random sample of the workers when in Wisconsin and (b) an intensive ethnographic study of health behavior of 12 families when residing both in Wisconsin and Texas. Findings suggest that specific patterns of utilization depend mainly on structural conditions such as geographic location and availability of folk or clinical medical services and on the nature of the illness to be cured, and depend secondarily on sex, age, income, and educational level. For the migrants, there is little incompatibility between medical systems; people move easily between one and the other, often supplementing one with the other.

The CEN healthcare information systems architecture standard and the DHE middleware.: A practical support to the integration and evolution of healthcare systems

The paper discusses the open multi-agent architecture of a system comprising a large multitouch multi-user graphics table, a large interactive board, and a number of peripheral devices including tablets, smartphones, or earphones, used for supporting collocated collaborative work. The system comprises several computers connected in a network, or through WiFi or Bluetooth interfaces. The system software is organized around two multi-agent platforms. The first one, JADE, written in Java is used to integrate agents directly into the toolkits which use Java. The second one, OMAS, written in Lisp is used to implement conversational intelligent agents. The paper discusses the role and the use of both platforms and how they are connected to work together. Although developed in a project addressing collaborative Preliminary Design, the system and its architecture can be used in any application composed of sequences of phases.