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Title: Knowledge Integration to Make Decisions About Complex Systems: Sustainability of Energy Production from Agriculture

Abstract

A major bottleneck for improving the governance of complex systems, rely on our ability to integrate different forms of knowledge into a decision support system (DSS). Preliminary aspects are the classification of different types of knowledge (a priori or general, a posteriori or specific, with uncertainty, numerical, textual, algorithmic, complete/incomplete, etc.), the definition of ontologies for knowledge management and the availability of proper tools like continuous simulation models, event driven models, statistical approaches, computational methods (neural networks, evolutionary optimization, rule based systems etc.) and procedure for textual documentation. Following these views at University of Udine, a computer language (SEMoLa, Simple, Easy Modelling Language) for knowledge integration has been developed.  SEMoLa can handle models, data, metadata and textual knowledge; it implements and extends the system dynamics ontology (Forrester, 1968; Jørgensen, 1994) in which systems are modelled by the concepts of material, group, state, rate, parameter, internal and external events and driving variables. As an example, a SEMoLa model to improve management and sustainability (economical, energetic, environmental) of the agricultural farms is presented. The model (X-Farm) simulates a farm in which cereal and forage yield, oil seeds, milk, calves and wastes can be sold or reused. X-Farm is composed by integrated modulesmore » describing fields (crop and soil), feeds and materials storage, machinery management, manpower  management, animal husbandry, economic and energetic balances, seed oil extraction, manure and wastes management, biogas production from animal wastes and biomasses.« less

Authors:
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
FNAL (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States))
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
987355
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359
Resource Type:
Multimedia
Resource Relation:
Conference: Fermilab Colloquia, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batvia, Illinois (United States), presented on June 18, 2008
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
03 NATURAL GAS; 09 BIOMASS FUELS; ENERGY; AGRICULTURE; KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Citation Formats

Danuso, Francesco. Knowledge Integration to Make Decisions About Complex Systems: Sustainability of Energy Production from Agriculture. United States: N. p., 2008. Web.
Danuso, Francesco. Knowledge Integration to Make Decisions About Complex Systems: Sustainability of Energy Production from Agriculture. United States.
Danuso, Francesco. Wed . "Knowledge Integration to Make Decisions About Complex Systems: Sustainability of Energy Production from Agriculture". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/987355.
@article{osti_987355,
title = {Knowledge Integration to Make Decisions About Complex Systems: Sustainability of Energy Production from Agriculture},
author = {Danuso, Francesco},
abstractNote = {A major bottleneck for improving the governance of complex systems, rely on our ability to integrate different forms of knowledge into a decision support system (DSS). Preliminary aspects are the classification of different types of knowledge (a priori or general, a posteriori or specific, with uncertainty, numerical, textual, algorithmic, complete/incomplete, etc.), the definition of ontologies for knowledge management and the availability of proper tools like continuous simulation models, event driven models, statistical approaches, computational methods (neural networks, evolutionary optimization, rule based systems etc.) and procedure for textual documentation. Following these views at University of Udine, a computer language (SEMoLa, Simple, Easy Modelling Language) for knowledge integration has been developed.  SEMoLa can handle models, data, metadata and textual knowledge; it implements and extends the system dynamics ontology (Forrester, 1968; Jørgensen, 1994) in which systems are modelled by the concepts of material, group, state, rate, parameter, internal and external events and driving variables. As an example, a SEMoLa model to improve management and sustainability (economical, energetic, environmental) of the agricultural farms is presented. The model (X-Farm) simulates a farm in which cereal and forage yield, oil seeds, milk, calves and wastes can be sold or reused. X-Farm is composed by integrated modules describing fields (crop and soil), feeds and materials storage, machinery management, manpower  management, animal husbandry, economic and energetic balances, seed oil extraction, manure and wastes management, biogas production from animal wastes and biomasses.},
doi = {},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Jun 18 00:00:00 EDT 2008},
month = {Wed Jun 18 00:00:00 EDT 2008}
}

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