Mobile Application Based Expert System for Cattle Disease Diagnosis and Treatment in Afan Oromo Language

Abstract

Ethiopia is best known for its cattle population in Africa. Nonetheless, cattle diseases is the major constraint to cattle production and its safe utilization. For the developing countries, cattle disease creates a considerable effect on the livelihood and lives of the farmers. In this research work we have developed a mobile application based expert system in afan oromo language for diagnosing and treating cattle diseases. Knowledge Base regarding the various diseases affecting cattle’s in the study area was acquired by using both secondary and primary sources. The primary knowledge source was collected from West Guji and Bornea zonal area domain experts and the secondary sources of knowledge was collected using document analysis. Purposive sampling technique was used for selecting domain experts for knowledge acquisition process. The proposed expert system was developed using rule based knowledge representation approach and using decision tree knowledge modeling technique. After knowledge is acquired it was represented using rule based knowledge representation method using Java Programming language and a user interface was designed and developed using XML that fits into the present day smart phones and the application will be cross platform. User acceptance testing and overall system performance testing was made after the prototype was developed. Accordingly, the mobile application demonstrated 81% of accuracy and among the users who were made a user experience evaluation, 84% of them got satisfied by the performance of the mobile application.