Automated expert multiexponential biomodeling interactively over the Internet

DIMSUM, an acronym for DIMension of a SUM of exponentials, is a highly automated expert system for fitting multiexponential models of increasing dimension to time series data. Up to now, a researcher has needed an individual copy of DIMSUM on his or her own computer as well as support to learn how to use it. W3DIMSUM, a new implementation of DIMSUM, is web-based, new territory for interactive biomodeling, allowing interactive multiexponential model building and model discrimination over the Internet. The algorithms used are numerically intensive, so we have implemented a distributed system, with numerical processing done on our server. Only the user interface is run on the client machine, but users can load and save data and results on their machines, facilitated by our use of Java WebStart.