Research and development

This section briefly reviews recent and ongoing research projects in Dina. The review is organized according to the five Dina priority research areas, supplemented by a special section for projects which do not fit into this scheme. In the next chapter we also give some indications of the number and character of publications produced within the projects, or in relation to Dina in general. For details the reader is referred to the web (www.dina.dk) and to the yearly reports from Dina's various member institutions, since all Dina activities are carried out at one of these institutions or in collaboration between them. For projects from the starting phase, 1991-94, we further refer to the list of projects in Table 6 and to a number of Dina status reports mentioned in the following chapter.
A number of the most successful and interesting Dina projects are presented in separate 'case boxes', written with the purpose to tell the non-specialist what must be considered essential results. A more professional presentation can be found in the relevant publications.

Projects related to Spatial Statistics in Agriculture

There has been, and still are, several projects related to image processing and statistical methods, cf. the description of the priority research area and the 'case box' on Spatial tree pattern analysis from aerial photographs.
Other current projects concern geostatistical methods and their applications in agricultural field experiments. Researchers involved are O.F. Christensen, J. Møller, F.Aa. Tøgersen and R. Waagepetersen. For example, one ongoing project concerns "Analysis of spatial data using linear mixed models and Langevin-type Markov chain Monte Carlo", where various methods for Bayesian, likelihood and non-parametric inference procedures for spatial generalized linear mixed models are developed and computational aspects are studied in detail. The methods are applied to a data set of counts of weed plants in a field.

Projects related to Information Technology and Agricultural Engineering

Work under this heading should involve not only IT but also engineering research in a true sense. Only some few such projects have been established in Dina. Two large project proposals, CompuWeed 2 (mentioned earlier) and The Farm Animal Information Society have not yet been realised, but it is hoped they will be so in the future, and that Dina may in general contribute to the further development of the area. - Partly in relation with Dina, funding was obtained from the Danish Research Councils for the projects IMCIA - Intelligent Motion Control and Intelligent Actuators (1992-1997; collaboration with AAU and three companies) and DIMEC - Danish InfoMechatronic Centre (1997). Four PhD students participated in the projects and obtained the PhD degree. - Also partly in relation with Dina, the Research Frame Programme OPTIMAL in agricultural engineering obtained funding from the Danish Research Councils 1996-1999, in collaboration between KVL, DTU, DJF and AAU and with Bent S. Bennedsen, KVL as programme coordinator.

Projects related to Internet-based Advisory Systems in Agriculture

Pl@nteInfo is an information system for crop production where the Internet is used to supply farmers and agricultural advisers with just-in-time information about risks of diseases, pests, drought, etc. The information can be selected on a national or a regional level, and in some cases it can be tailored to fit the particular situation of the farm by allowing the user to submit farm-specific data. Pl@nteInfo is constantly developing, with new features added every year.
SortInfo, a new feature of Pl@nteInfo developed in cooperation with Danish Plant Breeders, offers the possibility to query a centrally located database about results from field trials for crop varieties. As results are collected from several different sources, they are processed and instantly made available to the public on the web.
The concept as well as the technology underlying Pl@nteInfo are planned to be exported to countries in the Baltic Sea area. The goal is that researchers will be able to share decision models, technology and know-how across borders.
L@ndbrugsInfo is the name of a centralized, web-based information system run by the Danish Agricultural Advisory Centre. The system contains papers, reports and handbooks published by the Centre and targets farmers, advisers, researchers and teachers in the agricultural sector. In addition to the large number of publications, L@ndbrugsInfo also serves as a platform for various on-line services, subscriptions etc. Future plans involve the preparation and the distribution of information to regional advisory centers, in order to be integrated in their web-based offers. Other plans focus on improved visualization and presentation of information.

Projects related to Model-Based Decision Support Systems in Agriculture

NIPPP aims at achieving added value of Internet-based information services for plant protection from cooperative efforts in the Nordic countries. An application for funding of these activities has been submitted to EU's Fifth Framework Programme.
Development of Decision Support Systems for Integrated Pest Management in the Baltic Countries ( www.ipm-baltic.dk ) is a project about transfer of knowledge and technology for decision support. An infrastructure for capture and dissemination of weather data is being developed, and existing Danish DSSs (PC-Plant Protection, NegFry and Pl@nteInfo) are modified, exported and validated for the Baltic countries, and to some extent also for Poland. Basic principles for the development of future DSSs are established to ensure far more flexible, maintainable and exportable applications.
Probabilistic models in Pl@nteInfo. Pl@nteInfo has reached the level of development where a framework for management of Internet applications exists, and where most existing models of relevance to internet-based decision support within crop production have been implemented. The models are usually quite simple, for example based on accumulated daily temperatures. This project investigates how more advanced modelling techniques can be applied to handle uncertainty in predictions, reasoning, decision optimisation etc. The project has focused on a specific disease: potato late blight. This fungal disease is the target of the largest consumption of fungicide in Danish agriculture. As its first objective, the project aims at having daily probabilistic forecasts of sporulation level and weather conditions for spraying implemented in Pl@nteInfo for the growing season of 2000.
Model based decision support in animal production ( www.dina.dk/phd/bes99.html ). This project title covers a range of research initiatives, with IHH-KVL and the DJF biometry research group as the main partners. A detailed overview (in Danish) can be found on the home page. A key activity is optimisation methods, where methods for simultaneous optimisation of decisions with varying time horizon have been developed. The concept behind Hierarchic Markov Processes for decision support has thus been enhanced to include multiple levels. A PhD student is currently studying further aspects of the techniques, such as the similarities with robot navigation. The combination with Influence Diagrams is an important topic; and research at Dina Aalborg concerning the so-called Limited Memory Influence Diagram is a promising part of the process. Using these techniques approximate solutions may be found for complex decision problems that are currently unsolvable. - This research area is a very active partner in international collaboration.
Another key activity concerns methods for monitoring in pig production. A PhD project is in progress in collaboration with IHH-KVL and the National Committee for Pig Breeding and Production (NC), with implementations concerning water and feed consumption in piggeries. In addition, a current prototype developed at DJF for monitoring pregnancy rate using Bayesian networks will be implemented in selected sow units, in collaboration with NC.
An object oriented simulation model of a pig herd has been developed. This model includes aspects concerning the information processing i.e. registration, data processing (Belief Management) and decision support, and are used in various contexts, such as project collaboration, undergraduate and graduate studies etc.
The group participates in several projects financed by the Danish Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, such as Respiratory Diseases in Pigs, Animal Health Economy (CEPROS) and Objective Health in Pig Production (CEPROS).
Recently, the research group has formulated a research project The Farm Animal Information Society. The aim is to implement at farm level, the various elements of information processing in a coordinated framework. - Funding for this project has not yet been obtained.

Projects related to Bioinformatics and Quantitative Genetics

Being a new priority research area no research project have been defined in Dina, except for an application to the research councils: Statistical bioinformatics (mini-centre) in collaboration between KVL-IMF, DJF-Foulum and Risø. The centre may not receive funding, but there may be other ways to start smaller project activities in this direction, which is important for agricultural applications of modern DNA-technology.

Other projects

Several projects related to the general objectives of Dina, but which do not fit into the present priority research areas, could be mentioned. From the 'cases' we have: Daisy, Biomodels and the SFD project as well as the EU-project EUNITA. Other EU projects have existed which had some relation to Dina: ADDA, HARMA and CAMASE.
The senior scientists in Dina have in many cases also participated in research with no immediate relation to the interest sphere of Dina. These projects are not mentioned here unless Dina in one way or the other has contributed with means or resources. But such activity is important, in order to keep up good contact with the respective research disciplines.