Expert System for Real-Time Assessment of Environmental Toxicity

Accurate and timely measurement of the developing environment toxicity is of great importance for general pollution control and for military operations. Biosensors, which are based on a combination of biological sensing element and an electronic signaltransducer, are finding a wide spread use in the environment toxicity measurements. Standard statistical approaches used commonly in the analysis of biosensor data are often not sufficient to detect developing toxicity as the toxicity responses may beobscured by natural changes in the environment and in the biological behavior. In Phase I, IAC demonstrated novel data processing and neural network modeling approaches that produced a significant improvement in the toxicity detection using a fishbiosensor.In Phase II, IAC in collaboration with GEO-CENTERS, Inc. propose to develop a fully functional software program for real-time evaluation of water toxicity. The system will fuse biosensor and other diagnostic data to produce reliable real-time detection andclassification of the environmental toxicity. The toxicity detection methodologies will be refined with special emphasis on early detection of low toxicity levels. The software will include all necessary data and user interfaces, including datavisualization and post-analysis tools, and will be reconfigurable to accommodate different types of biosensors and monitoring scenarios.