Patent ID: 7200612

Claim:
A method of processing data for a user, comprising: accepting input of data acquired from instrumentation as a dataset of an information domain which dataset comprises image data which comprises medical image data; and processing the data set under the control of processing software, said processing comprising the input of “user truth” based on interpretation of the dataset by the user, to provide a processed dataset to assist in further interpretation of the dataset; storing via a network said dataset and said processed dataset into a database of information relating to said domain acquired from a plurality of users; estimating automatically and quantitatively the effect of said “user truth” on the data set-in order to combine in said database such data from multiple users while minimizing the effects of user truth; and wherein said processing software comprises a software agent operative, on the basis of at least one of attributes of said dataset, attributes of the processed dataset and user-input, to access the database to retrieve data and/or software to mediate the processing and/or interpretation of said dataset by said processing software wherein the software agent is operative to transfer to the database data concerning manual adjustments made to said processed dataset by the user, and constituting said “user truth”, wherein the processing of said dataset is mediated by updating said processing software using at least one of data and software from the database.