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Chapter 35
Agriculture

Ahmed Rafea


CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Need for Expert Systems in Agriculture
2.1. Information Transfer Problems
2.2. Suitability and Feasibility of Expert Systems
3. Historical Account
4. Methodologies and Applications
4.1. Methodological Aspects
4.2. Domain Application Aspects
4.3. A Proposed Domain-Specific Methodology
5. Research Issues
5.1. Integration of Software Components with Agricultural Expert Systems
5.1.1. Crop Simulation Models and Expert Systems
    5.1.2. GIS and Expert Systems
    5.1.3. Multimedia and Expert Systems
5.2. Knowledge Sharing and Reuse
5.3. Intelligent Retrieval of Agricultural Data
5.4. Automatic Knowledge Acquisition
6. Future Trends
Summary
References

1. INTRODUCTION

An expert system can be defined as a tool for information generation from knowledge. Information is either found in various forms or generated from data and/or knowledge. Text, images, video, and audio are forms of media from which information can be found, and the role of information technology is to invent and devise tools to store and retrieve this information. Statistical information is a good example of information generated from data while advice generated by an expert system is a good example of information generated from knowledge.

At the beginning, the concentration was mainly on textual information. Information technology used for textual information ranged from paper archiving tool to the sophisticated electronic computer software tools such as database management systems and hypertext tools. Images were very difficult to be included in an information system just few years ago until scanner technology was advanced, as well as the invention of the optical storage devices that have the capacity to store hundreds of megabytes. This technology has enabled the developers to include images in their systems. Input peripherals to capture video and audio information have been commercialized also and are now available on the market. Storage of audio and video would be impossible had large storage media not been invented.

The advances in data processing have led to generating information efficiently from data. Software tools and methodologies have been developed in the field of statistics and data analysis to process data and to allow these data more to be informative to users who need them. Database management systems have also contributed to efficient data storage, processing, and retrieval.

The information is sometimes generated from knowledge and experience. When an expert in a specific area gives advice to a less experienced person, he/she actually uses his/her knowledge and experience to generate this piece of information. This is a very precious piece of information because it is generated after many hours of work and experience, and interaction with other experts and practitioners. Sometimes, this piece of information is not included in any form: text, audio, video, etc. Even if it is included, it is not linked with its scientific origin, especially if it is a combination of different domains and methods. This piece of information gets more precious if it is the result of solving a problem that different specialists have participated in deriving its solution. In this case, it is rare to find this piece of information in any text. Expert systems technology can play a very important role in generating information from knowledge.

This chapter is written to present different aspects related to agricultural expert systems, namely: why expert systems in agriculture, what applications have been developed, how these application have been developed, and what research issues should be addressed.


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