The Application of Distributed Artificial Intelligence to Medical Diagnosis

There are many different reasons for adopting a distributed approach to problem solving activities such as medical diagnosis. This paper discusses the various rationales for Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) and gives a brief overview of the MELANIE project. MELANIE is a project which is concerned with the production of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (protein maps), the interpretation and analysis of these protein maps and subsequent computer assisted medical diagnosis. Having introduced the MELANIE project we then go on to highlight various aspects of the task which may benefit from a DAI approach. We conclude by summarising what has been achieved so far and make a statement of both the short term and long term goals of the project from a DAI perspective.