Expert

Expert System Applications: Agriculture
Ahmed Rafea Central Laboratory for Agricultural Expert Systems P.O.Box 100 Dokki Giza Egypt [e-mail]

Introduction
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, audio are forms of media on 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 advises 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 data base management systems, and hypertext tools. Images were very difficult to be included in an information system just few years ago till the scanners technology has been advanced together with the invention of the optical storage devises which have the capacity to store hundreds of mega bytes. This technology has enabled the developers to include images in their systems. Input peripherals to capture video and audio information have been also commercialized and are now available in the market. Storage of audio and video would be impossible unless large storage media were invented. The advances in data processing have led to generating efficiently information from data. Software tools and methodologies have been developed in the field of statistics and data analysis to process data and to let these data more informative to users who need them. Data base 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

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