2000.02.15 Internet Workshop (IWS) 2000
[Pre-Proceeding:Application Area :39-43]

Public Utilization on WWW of the Database
of Physiological Disorders in Vegetable Crops

Sugahara, Koji
National Agriculture Research Center
Dept. of Information Science and Technology

[Introduction]

Researchers and extension officers in many agricultural institutes have been collecting various kinds of agricultural information. However their knowledge and data have been usually provided only to the agricultural people concerned of their company or community. On the other hand, with the wide popularity of WWW (the World Wide Web), agricultural information has been gradually made available to the public on WWW. If the merit of WWW that anybody can access anywhere is applied more effectively, any more people will be able to utilize their own agricultural data with public databases on WWW.
As a part of this concept, a database of physiological disorder case-data in vegetable crops was established, and a searching and registering system for it on WWW was developed, so that it is available for anybody. Physiological disorders in crops are an important problem for farmers and researchers. In many agricultural institutes, case-data of physiological disorders recognized in crops (often with soil or plant nutrient analyses) have been collected and researched for years. If the data were open to the public on WWW, it would be very useful for determining causes and measures of physiological disorders. Besides, new knowledge regarding occurrence or prevention of physiological disorders could be discovered through research of the extensive data.

[Concept of the system]

The concept of developing a database system of physiological disorders in vegetable crops was to provide a public WWW site, where agricultural researchers and extension officers anywhere can use to exchange each other's data. The new system was based on the database and searching system of physiological disorders in vegetable crops developed by Yamasaki (1991). It was reformed as a WWW application site using Active Server Pages technology. You can use it in the following URL.

http://riss.narc.affrc.go.jp/sspd/ (all in Japanese)

In the site, you can optionally search the case-data of physiological disorders in vegetable crops using a variety of criteria. Presently there are only text and numerical data in the database, but it is scheduled that image data will be able to be displayed. You can also input new data if you become a registered user of the system.
You can freely copy or quote the data and the other descriptions in the database system. However you must quote the following in your papers, articles, WWW sites and so on.

"The Searching System for Physiological Disorders in Vegetable Crops
by the National Agriculture Research Center"

[Composition of the system]

1. Implement as a WWW application
The database system of physiological disorders in vegetable crops is implemented as a WWW site composed of some functional applications. The development and operational environment of it is as follows.
operation system: Windows NT Server 4.0
DBMS: Microsoft Access 97
WWW Server: Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0
server-side script: Active Server Pages (ASP) 2.0
client-side script: JavaScript 1.2
ASP is the server-side scripting technology by Microsoft corporation for developing WWW applications. The main feature of ASP is that it transmits the processed response to a client as HTML only. It is easy to make applications which access databases in a server using ODBC drivers and ADO components. Some ASP script files were composed to implement the database system, so that it is possible for the clients to search or input data and to be authenticated in the WWW site.

2. User authentication
The database system has a user authentication system. When you use the system, first of all, you have to login by inputting your user-ID and password on the top login page (Figure 1). If you have been registered as a user of the system, you can input, update and delete data. However it is possible to login using a "guest" ID if you want only to search. After login, you are allotted one of 3 user levels for available pages: guest user, general registered user and system administrator. To become a registered user, please see the reference in the site and contact a system manager. Figure 2 show the page to input a user's information, which is not available to "guest" users.

3. Searching data
After login the system, you can search the case-data of physiological disorder and nutrient analysis data in the database, optionally inputting a crop name, a physiological disorder name, damaged parts, symptoms, or causes.
At first, if you input items you want to search and click the button to "start a search" on the searching page (Figure 3), then a list of data matched to the inputted items is displayed on a result list page (Figure 4). Each number of data displayed there links to a case-data detail page (Figure 5). If the case-data attach numerical analysis data, links to analysis data pages (Figure 6) are displayed. The data displayed there are for the analysis of the plant, soil, or nutrient medium, and show situations where the physiological disorder have or have not occurred.

4. Inputting data
In the database system, if you are a registered user, you can input, update, or delete data after login. Figure 7 shows the first page to input case-data of physiological disorders, and Figure 8 shows the page to input nutrient analysis data. The data can be changed by only the system manager or the user that inputted them.

[Figure 1-4] [Figure 5-8] (PDF files)

[Discussion]

Now in the database system, there are about 700 case-data in only 3 species of crops: cucumber, melon, and egg plant. To expand the database, I have requested cooperation from agricultural institutes in Japan, particularly those which have similar database systems. I have obtained agreements from the prefectural agricultural institutes in Kochi, Shimane, and Ishikawa so far. After this, I will promote increase of registered users, and I plan to prepare a component that serves with a common interface for using the databases that have different data formats from each other.

[References]

Copyright (C) 2000 K.Sugahara@NARC

[Back to the Previous Page]