Background. AIDA is a widely available downloadable educational simulator of glucose-insulin interaction in diabetes. Methods. A web-based version of AIDA was developed that utilises a server-based architecture with HTML FORM commands to submit numerical data from a web-browser client to a remote web server. AIDA online, located on a remote server, passes the received data through Perl scripts which interactively produce 24？hr insulin and glucose simulations. Results. AIDA online allows users to modify the insulin regimen and diet of 40 different prestored “virtual diabetic patients” on the internet or create new “patients” with user-generated regimens. Multiple simulations can be run, with graphical results viewed via a standard web-browser window. To date, over 637,500 diabetes simulations have been run at AIDA online, from all over the world. Conclusions. AIDA online’s functionality is similar to the downloadable AIDA program, but the mode of implementation and usage is different. An advantage to utilising a server-based application is the flexibility that can be offered. New modules can be added quickly to the online simulator. This has facilitated the development of refinements to AIDA online, which have instantaneously become available around the world, with no further local downloads or installations being required. 1. Introduction AIDA v4 (accessible freely at http://www.2aida.org) is a downloadable program that permits the interactive simulation of plasma insulin and blood glucose (BG) profiles for teaching/demonstration/self-learning/research purposes [1]. The software incorporates a compartmental/physiological model describing glucose-insulin interaction in insulin-dependent diabetic patients (lacking endogenous insulin secretion). The graphical interface of the downloadable software allows nonspecialist users to interact with the model. AIDA v4 permits the effects of insulin dosage and dietary adjustments to be simulated for a typical patient’s BG profile, with the working hypothesis being that patients, relatives, students and health-care professionals (HCPs) should be able to experience metabolic adjustments without risk of hypoglycaemia. AIDA v4 also incorporates a knowledge-based system that can suggest changes in insulin dose for users unsure about what to simulate next [2, 3]. Although a range of other interactive simulation programs of glucose-insulin interaction in diabetes have been described in the literature [4–12], to date, most of these do not seem to have been distributed so widely via the internet or been made particularly
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