PESTMAN - A DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR PEST-MANAGEMENT IN THE AUSTRALIAN CENTRAL GRAIN-HANDLING SYSTEM

A decision support system for the management of insect pests of grains in the central storage systems in Australia has been developed. The d evelopment strategy required the construction of an initial proof-of-c oncept prototype, followed by a pilot system, based upon the managemen t practices and infrastructure of the bulk handling authority (BHA) of one state and, finally, the production of customized versions for the BHAs in each state. The design methodology for the pilot system, know n as PestMan 2.0, was based upon a RETE network pattern-matching forwa rd-chaining algorithm. The system was implemented using the ART-IM Win dows(R) software package, and the graphical user interface was develop ed using Visual Basic and the Windows Help System. A separate program, PestMan Link, was developed for accessing mainframe databases. The us e of Windows as the development environment offers the potential for a pplication of the technology to non-English-speaking countries.