QUALITATIVE SIMULATION OF A CONTINUOUS BIOLOGICAL PROCESS WITH REFERENCE TO APPLE FRUIT ABSCISSION

This paper presents an application of qualitative simulation to the representation of continuous biological processes, using apple fruit abscission (drop) as an example.
The adaptation of this qualitative simulation is based on integration and modification of concepts and techniques presented by Williams regarding temporal qualitative analysis and by Forbus on qualitative process theory.
This approach provides a deeper insight into system behavior than is possible with conventional rule-based systems.

Both historical and calculated system behavior are utilized to qualitatively determine onset and duration of each phase of fruit abscission and the magnitude of its rate.
The calculation of the system behavior is based on the derivative of the rate of change of the drop, its duration, and the use of specified constraint values.
The system output is in the form of a graph of fruit drop versus time, comparing historical and calculated system behaviors.

II International Symposium on Computer Modelling in Fruit Research and Orchard Management

M.K. Rogoyski, T.L. Mourey, A.R. Renquist

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1990.276.33