ODINA: Probability at work - How scientists created a new company

Figure 1: HUGIN/BOBLO: Genealogical trees are used in combination with probabilistic calculations in animal breeding.

When Dina started in 1991, a marriage took place between the AAU based ODIN project and Dina. The result was the ODINA cooperation. ODIN was about Bayesian networks, a formalism for the construction of decision systems to treat problems characterised by reasoning under uncertainty. The uncertainty expresses itself clearly in agricultural connections where results of actions and decisions are frequently of a stochastic nature.
The ODIN group's work was, and still is, focusing on methodology, and the cooperation in Dina offered an evident opportunity to try out the methods that had been developed in new areas of application. The cooperation proved most fertile and resulted among other in a system for determining the blood type of Jersey cows, BOBLO; a system for supporting mildew control in winter wheat, MIDAS; and a system to assist pig production planning (See From Artificial Intelligence to Decision Support Systems). These prototypes have given a considerable insight into the problems connected with the construction of applicable systems, and they have also contributed to understanding better the problem areas in question. The resultant experiences form the basis for the project proposal "The Farm Animal Information Society" which could result in an integrated practical system for support in the different phases of pig production.
A common trait in these various applications is that they are based on HUGIN - an environment for developing and executing Bayesian networks. HUGIN was created by the ODIN group, and the continuing development of HUGIN benefits from the inspiration that came from the cooperation in ODINA. It has led to several publications written in cooperation, among these a popular account of Bayesian networks in the Danish magazine Naturens Verden (vol. 7, 1998).