1st International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software - Lugano, Switzerland - June 2002
Keywords
agent oriented software engineering, integrated pest management
Start Date
1-7-2002 12:00 AM
Abstract
Integrated Protection (IP) in agriculture consists of a set of practices aimed at favoring the set upof a development model characterized by a reduced environmental impact. The application of IP practicesin plant disease management by growers and agronomists requires both specialistic skills, historical data andinformation on chemicals and on low impact techniques for pest management. These sources of informationand knowledge are distributed among different actors in the agriculture production system.Recent approaches in developing decision support systems for agriculture, and more generally for environmentalproblems management, tend to adopt a “systemic” approach. That is to say a problem is considered for itsdependencies to different skills and responsibilities, and the proposed applications aim to be integrated in largerinformation systems. So basically, two main dimensions of complexity have to be considered while analyzingthe problem: the organizational dimension dealing with all the dependencies between the domain stakeholders,and the technical dimension concerning the study of natural plant protection techniques.These considerations motivates our choice of using an agent-oriented methodology for software developmentin designing a multi-agent system at support of apple growers and technicians of the advisory service. Themethodology, called Tropos, gives a central role to early requirements analysis and allows to derive systemfunctional and non-functional requirements from a deep understanding of the domain stakeholders goals andof their dependencies.
Designing a Multi-Agent System for Integrated Protection in Agriculture
Integrated Protection (IP) in agriculture consists of a set of practices aimed at favoring the set upof a development model characterized by a reduced environmental impact. The application of IP practicesin plant disease management by growers and agronomists requires both specialistic skills, historical data andinformation on chemicals and on low impact techniques for pest management. These sources of informationand knowledge are distributed among different actors in the agriculture production system.Recent approaches in developing decision support systems for agriculture, and more generally for environmentalproblems management, tend to adopt a “systemic” approach. That is to say a problem is considered for itsdependencies to different skills and responsibilities, and the proposed applications aim to be integrated in largerinformation systems. So basically, two main dimensions of complexity have to be considered while analyzingthe problem: the organizational dimension dealing with all the dependencies between the domain stakeholders,and the technical dimension concerning the study of natural plant protection techniques.These considerations motivates our choice of using an agent-oriented methodology for software developmentin designing a multi-agent system at support of apple growers and technicians of the advisory service. Themethodology, called Tropos, gives a central role to early requirements analysis and allows to derive systemfunctional and non-functional requirements from a deep understanding of the domain stakeholders goals andof their dependencies.
